My Blackness

My Blackness isn’t about
Yams n’ okras, coo-coo an’ callaloo.
It isn’t about
Cotton fields or cane fields
Or corn-rows or cane-rows
My Blackness isn’t!

My Blackness isn’t about
Repatriation or Redemption Songs,
Black Power or a Black Nation.
It isn’t about
Calling a child Kunta or Shaka
Or wearing mud-cloth or kinte colors.
My Blackness isn’t!

My Blackness isn’t about
Being separate, apart and distinct.
It isn’t about
Pigmentation, hair texture or body structure.
My Blackness isn’t!

My Blackness isn’t about
A dialect or slang.
It isn’t about rap, reggae or R&B.
My Blackness isn’t!

Cuz’ if I were dumb deaf and blind,
I’d still be Black.
N’ if I spoke no language known to men, sang like no music ever heard
I’d still be Black.
If I looked like no one you ever saw, wore clothes like no other man’s clothes, had no name and claimed no country as Mother,
I’d still be Black.
N’ if I never heard about corn, cane, yams or coo-coo
I know, you too would say I’d still be Black because



My Blackness IS about a legacy that lives IN me
It’d more than a way of life – It IS my life!
It IS about
Memory sooo long you never forget but a heart so big it chooses to forgive
It IS about
Backs bent but never broken, bowed by burdens but by nature so regally straight you’re bound to recognize the pride
It IS about
Eyes that see family in each and every human and arms that are never to weary to show love and give support

My Blackness IS about
Faith and hope for tomorrow thought you couldn’t even see your way yesterday
It IS about
Recognizing the pain in shame but realizing – No shame in enduring through the pain!

My Blackness IS about
Knowing how to have nothing but still giving from the nothing you have to those with even less
It IS about
Being first but being humble and honest enough to see good in many times being placed last

My Blackness IS about
That indelible, unmistakable imprint
It IS about
That indivisible, in exchangeable, indomitable connection to a mankind that realizes what
My Blackness IS!