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WHAT DO WE TELL OUR CHILDREN TODAY?
(APROPOS DR. MARGRET BURROUGHS)
Today what do we tell our grandchildren
who are black and live in the promise land
where blacks are being murdered daily
because of the skin they were born in?
How do we explain such disdain
when for them, the color black expresses
the beauty of night and Jim Crow
is a beautiful bird poised atop a green tree;
and discrimination is identifying
one colored building block from another
and race is an Olympic running event?
Today what do we tell our ebony hued grandchildren
when eagerly running to the back of the bus is cool
because that’s where all the in kids are? How do we get them to see
that in a so called colorless society it alright as long as you’re white—
because any other life color does not matter? That their school mates
may grow up and one day put on a badge licensed to shoot them down
in the very same streets where they once played as colorless friends?
We must tell them—with confident assurance—
that the truth will surly set them free.
We must simple tell the truth—tell them like it is;
that little has changed. That the outhouse may have changed
but the same fecal mentality remains—Politically scented
with a new odor of masking the same old fecal exploitation.
We must tell them never forget who and whose they are—that each time
they look into the mirror they see reflections of the beauty and genius
of the Most High Creator looking back at them—smiling and satisfied.
Indeed we must tell them that the murderous acts against blacks today
merely mirrors the reflective mind set of days of old when strange fruits
hanging from the limbs of trees were not licorice but burned black bodies
of men who refused to be less than the created beings they were.
We must tell them that there remain veiled oppressors
who will pat them on the back with one hand; and
shoot them in the back with the other—screaming gun!
With the sagaciousness of our ancestors,
we must explain to our precious ones
that while the dream has gone to vision,
the reality is yet to be achieved—that theirs is the responsibility—
taking the baton and racing to the finish line. We must tell—Show
them that the struggling arch is waiting their bending weight!
