Black Poetry : "Self Worth"

dadachango69

Well-Known Member
REGISTERED MEMBER
Aug 16, 2003
157
2
Brooklyn NYC (NuYoRico)
Occupation
Film Screenwriter


I was taught to hate myself
for the multiplicity that is “ee-AH-Lee”
there was something simply wrong
my mother's nose was not racially right for me

like a Puerto Rican version
of "Imitation of Life"
I’m white.
White !
WHITE !!
I just couldn't understa-aaand the many different races
that lay claim to my society-inflicted strife

not quite the whiteboy
not quite the blackman
not quite the native son
just a no-frills "Ame-Ri-Kan"

caught among 3 identities
I am referred to by obscenities
drawing out all kinds of insecurities
"Manteca, ple-eeease…
save me from all these miseries!!"


coconut gangstah…
my bleedin heart's angah…

"¡mira! mira!"
you think I'm a cheata?!
always high off some cheeba?!
forever in needa…
…some welfare check?
…some food stamps?
what… I can't be a leada?!

enigma of my newly-adopted country
confusing to the American eye
time to use some chameleon-ness
it’s the only way I thought I could survive

in a world of people who cannot love beyond skin
mámi was incorrect
not exactly what I've been told
her blackness made me put her in the closet
along with abuela
I moved HER in there in a choke hold

“I cannot understand dees amér-ee-kan world”, she thought
as the pullchain of the closet light graced her face
her god-given Ameri-skin
was still considered capital sin
and just cause of THAT
she could nevah really win

now you have passed this energy into my being
resonating at anotha octave an' skin tone
seed of your continuing future
misfit misfire of a Y chromosome

I learned now that it is
important to love where you came from
important to love WHO you are
while life is crazy with its twists & turns
you still keep on keeping on

embracing it like a slot car
right before it crashes
shattering ideas of self
a stereotype now walks amidst the masses

opposing parts of a spic
all tied to the red white an' blue
but in a larger arrangement
"I haven't done anything officer
so why is it 30 days to my arraignment??"


I am a spic
that spik good English
and got a degree in co-ooolness
from living ghetto realities
FAR from my last home
a place quite unlike this one
where the muthaf******' buffalo roam

I am many lives in one
I can do almost anything
my mind is strong!!

courtesy of hybrid vigor
a mongrel little spic
your country calls a n*****

copyright 2002 Hiali Quiñonez & SoulChango Productions


 

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