My People
Posted: November 12, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 4 Comments »
My mother always said that the type of labor you have
shapes the personality of the child you birth.
Mine was long, loud and painful
my brothers was easy, short and quiet.
Im intense and loud and my brother sometimes fades into the background
but we are all complicated
and I often want to tear down the walls he builds with his soft voice and nervous laughter
intense eyes forever marked by things he was never suppose to see
Things neither one of us were suppose to see.
We don’t talk about it
like most people who turn their backs away from things they know aren’t right.
Easier that way I suppose
‘mind ya business’ is what is often said.
I found that to be immoral as a child, but who can blame them
We all live in this world where violence and oppression is naturalized
We are taught to turn our backs against each other
not knowing that our love and compassion is the solution
or at least should be the inspiration for revolution
if we can get there.
So I made art
because sometimes you have to create something to keep yourself from dying.
That is what my mother did
Worked till she could no longer stand
but it was the back breaking labor and the four children she brought into this world
that made her life matter
her life imparted into other life
A purpose.
Her life in me
her mothers life in me
her grandmothers life in me.
Labor shapes the child but so do the conditions that brought her into this world.
I am kept up late at night with visions of stolen lands, slave ships, whips and mothers tears.
I carry the pain and trauma of my ancestors
and also the wisdom it brings to free ourselves from the chains
that slice through our wrists on plantation fields
in backseats of police cars
the chains that come in the form of the paycheck
that is never quite enough.
I carry visions for my people
walking in the footsteps of Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Frida Kahlo, Zora Neal Hurston
and countless others
who are kept up late with thoughts from the past
thoughts for the future
thoughts for liberation
The people must be free.
this is so beautiful…the way you write is always extremly powerful and inpirational. <3 you and this!
Thank you so much for your words! I am so grateful for the love, strength and inspiration you provide. Womyn are powerful! <3
“Who’re the criminals, the gangs or the government?
Did the Capital just happen to have the power to punish men?
MonoPolice manipulate majorities to run with them
So what’s the police force but a resource to reinforce the plans of the dominant?
I’m haunted by questions, spending time behind bars
Statistics on TV, that concede we’re sadistic, deceive me
‘Cause murder and thievery thrives on all sides of the lines that divide class.
I take pepper-spray with a pinch a’ssault and battery and I’m charged to step ‘n say:
‘Yo Honor, go bother the office of your bosses where the crime starts.’
And I ask, while cleaning dirty white collars for a living,
why law suits the raw brutes in board rooms that horde loot?
They set the precedent then send the president to assure you,
his lady, Justice, is blind. But she’s got contacts that say too!
The colonists, the capitalists and wordy bright scholars make a killing.”
-Marlon Burgess, Cape Town 2004
Some poetry for the poet.
“So what’s the police force but a resource to reinforce the plans of the dominant?”
Powerful piece! Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate the revolutionary content of the piece, as well as the lyrical form and rhythm of the words. Poetry is powerful <3