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(Negro History Week, Black History Month)
(And Year Round Awareness)
Another Black History Month has come
And gone With a pseudo-focused apology
On 400 years of slavery—but gracefully
Continuing to ignore things like 700 years
Of Moorish democratic rule in Euro-Spain
And how Early African explorers had traveled
And settled in various parts of ancient Asia
Europe, and other places— Like Mexico—
Long before the coming of American slavery!
It’s ironic that as we have gone from
Celebrating Negro History Week To presently
Celebrating Black History Month with focus
On slavery, abolition, emancipation, civil rights,
Snail-paced growth in education, Voting rights,
Employment, and election to high political office,
There is yet the sneaking implication that leads us
And our children thinking that our Black lives here
Had their creative beginnings with slavery in America:-
While praises must forever be due to the tenacity
Of those here Who paved the way during slavery
And thereafter, we must make it abundantly clear
To the present and oncoming generations, that our
Beginning did not begin here in this stolen land that
God had already given to an anchored people of color.
While it is evident that the beginning of women and
Men on this planet had origins on the African continent,
The illusion is yet taught that human origin and civilization
Was probably more of a Mesopotamian-European cocooning;
But let us not despair; the crushed and buried
Truth in this dirt of his-story will not be denied
Her assured Resurrection! No, we must teach
Our children that their treasured—mattering—
Worldly origin and the growth of our great being
Did not begin with American slavery; rather, God’s
Edenic creation for all humanity was and remains
The blessed gardening of the womb of Africa!
Indeed, there is much throughout the year that
We must tell our children of our glorious origin
And the conquering sojourning of our evolution
On Earth—created in God’s peace and love—
Now gone astray in the Clorox-like human-hate
Phasing of a racist pigmentation ideology;
We must make our children aware of the great
Ancient African civilizations and their Kingdoms
And Empires that existed long before the blank
Caving of primitive others who stole our African
Greatness to be claimed as Greco-Roman genius;
All of which today—though still veiled—remains
That well-known crime of the white man’s burden.
We must make the children aware that it was in
The North, South, East, and West, of the African
Continent where Black Africans became the first
Of agricultural, hunter-gatherer Humans to evolve
Into settlers of extended family-like societies where
The earliest technology took root and led to African
Ancestors being the forerunners of the growth and
Development of civilization!
For our children, we must dispel the evil untruths
In his story’s racist archeologists, racist cartoonists,
Racist writers like Victor Hugo—who audaciously
Insinuated Europe as the “ultimate civilization” while
Deeming Africa, “utter barbarism”—and the racist
Poetic penning of Rudyard Kipling’s poem which was
Mendaciously titled, “The White Man’s Burden”—
Insinuating it to be the white man’s supreme moral
Duty to conquer and enslave the people of Africa!
We must make our children and their children
Aware that their treasured ancestors were not
Illiterate savages living in straw and mud huts
With only Stone Age technology; rather they
Must know that our earliest ancient ancestors
Were intelligent people of Africa who in ancient
Times developed agricultural skills, technology
To fashion iron tools and weapons, minted coins,
And built great cities and colossal monuments;
Many of which remain great wonders of the world.
Indeed, we, today’s penning griots—repositories
Of ourstory—must assure for coming generations
That the echoing sounds of Nok, Djenne, Bantu,
Aksum, Timbuktu, Kuba, Swahili, Kush, Ghana, Mali,
Songhai and Meroe become igniters of storytelling
Cherished keloid memories of Outstory’s beginnings!
Indeed, fellow griots of today, we must assure
That coming generations of Black Americans
Will always be aware that our history—ourstory—
Has its beginning with the glorious history of Africa;
Not with American slavery and that they are well
Aware that their ancestors—aborted from the womb
Of Africa—were not randomly chosen but explicitly
Chosen from African regions where Blacks had attained
Great ingenuity in agriculture, animal training, masonry,
Metallurgy, architecture, and various other technical
Skills in building civilized nations and empires!
Indeed, enslavement was a well-investigated
Thought-out plan for the white man’s burden
Of Europe and her bastard prodigal child,
America—in their not going quietly into
The night—in establishing colonialism and
The strange institution of slavery; and we’re
Well aware of the past and post neo-his/story
And the ramifications of the manifest destinies—
But the God of the oppressed has always
Reconciled the living truth! So let us in our
Own reconciliation, forever remember whose
And who we were before being aborted from
Our homeland and packed down Like sardines
In the belly bowels of Middle Passage ships;
Thus, in coming celebrations of ourstory here,
Let us begin at the beginning: (A) review Middle
Passage Slavery interruption; (B) highlight how far
We have come, and then turn our attention
Towards (C), solving our Black-on-Black crimes;
And calling the brothers and sisters together to get
Us back to being the great builders of liberated
Self-sustaining faithful Black family communities.
Let us be molders of new mattering Black lives—
Living the reality of God’s peace and love!
