lived it
“When I see a Negro kicking off radicals, I know he is either dumb or crooked. Conservatism is the Negro’s worst enemy. The South is the most conservative part of the country, and therefore it is the graveyard of Negro rights . . . Conservatism breeds every kind of prejudice.”
-Melvin B. Tolson (“Caviar and Cabbage: Selected Columns by Melvin B. Tolson from the Washington Tribune, 1937-1944)
“Imagine there’s no dissent.
No way to speak your mind.
No Confidential consultation.
All constitutional rights declined.”
-Dick Hebdige
on a black and white tv
i watched brains
blown out of JFK
and the new fascist rulers of law
can never tell me what i saw –
still wounded
by the sight
it only prepared me
for a darker night
MLK
and Malcolm X
hatred, murder, war, and death
within a never-nation
tormented and vexed
how does one begin to process
an era of such accelerated oppression
and technological progress
a quantum bleed
affecting the entire human mass
from Vietnam
to Afghanistan
Bosnia
to Rwanda
oh,
what Earth Mother trauma
what saved me
was seeing Miles and Marley
what saved me
was seeing Oscar Brown Jr. and
Harry Belafonte
what saved me
was seeing Sun Ra, Dizzy, and Art Blakey
with the Baltimore Left Bank Jazz Society
what saved me
was seeing Sidney Poitier and Spike Lee
what saved me
was seeing Flip Wilson and Bill Cosby,
Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy,
Whoopi Goldberg and Moms Mabley
what saved me
was seeing John and Yoko together with Chuck Berry
on national tv
what saved me
was seeing Sly Stone and Muhammad Ali
together on national tv
what saved me
was seeing the Smothers Brothers hour of comedy –
Pat Paulson, Professor Irwin Corey
on national tv
what saved me
was seeing Jimi Hendrix and Fela Anikulapo Kuti
what saved me
was seeing James Baldwin and Walter Mosley
what saved me
was forging a Sol-Ark memory –
these are some
of the energies
that have saved me
more than the Black President
i have lived to see
Earth Mother
has such
a wounded heart
because of us
we of this time
have been given
this moment, this movement
for greater reasons we may not imagine
all of this madness –
convert it to healing power
make fertile new gardens
bring forth stronger blossoming flowers
we who have lived it
remain, to give this
to reveal and heal sickness
to be an example, a living gift