March 31st, 2025

Here On Purpose (Poem and Analysis)

I can smell the change in the wind,
The spice of attitudes, sparking embers growing into sulfur smoke. 
The quiet sharpening of blades meant only to tear us down, meant only to lift themselves up.  
We are here, we always have been, exhausted from the stony road filled with "you must be be twice as good to get half as much." 
We slipped into a pace of normalcy, not realizing the terrors never stopped, that we were always in danger. 
Yet, I sit in this chair wondering why my Black bottom is so bad for it. 
They told me so many half-truths that the lies seem like law. 
As I watch those like me, and those that thought they were better, get cut down by thousands, 
Some fighting the good fight, getting into good trouble, 
I can't help but wonder about Pharoah's heart. 
What did we do, in some distant past life, to deserve such despise? 
Why does the pearl insist one being by itself or only with others like it? 
Is there no joy in the rainbow? Is there no strength among the other gemstones?
My great grandfather showed me strength. He was to be lynched. 
He found his Exodus and told his tribe to be proud, and smart, and cunning, and aware.
Here I sit.
Proud. 
Smart. 
Cunning but prudent, I call myself wise. 
So aware to the point of tears. 
They want to cut me down, when all I did was sit. 
​That was Rosa's burden, and decades later, it is mine. 

Let's call this what it is. This is not about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). This is not about CRT (Critical Race Theory). This is not about banned books. This is not about monuments, parks, and museums. This problem we face, which is showing itself more blatantly in this era, but has always been there, is about acceptability. I use the term acceptability on purpose because what is deemed acceptable, or unacceptable, requires a power structure to determine that status, a rubric of some sort to weigh with, and a general understanding or consensus among the power structure. Acceptability is also dynamic; it is very possible that what was once not acceptable can become acceptable, and back again, and the rules regarding the transition are vague at best. Acceptability is permeable so that prejudice can be refuted. We are in a game, not the fun kind of game, but whatever you take the Matrix to be. We are experiencing the warping of reality to cause existential crisis and psychological damage in the minds of the oppressed. We were never collectively unqualified. We never told lies by confronting the racism, sexism, queerphobia, xenophobia, fascism, and unethical capitalism in this nation. We were never ugly, lazy, untrustworthy, or any other negative adjective they have ascribed us. It was always about the acceptability of Blackness or other demographics of oppressed people.  Obama and Oprah served as exemplars for us to think that equality was on the horizon but they were only exceptional mirages, accepted for the sake of rebuttal. My love letter to all of those second-guessing themselves in a world eliminating jobs and diversity measures, remaking monuments and museums, killing the middle class, and aggravating foreign powers is this: you are in the Matrix. Your reality is valid and sound. You see what you think you see. You are who you think you are. Do not buy the advertisement that you are not who you are. This is all smoke and mirrors to keep you from the truth: that the lie is theirs. The ontological crisis is theirs. That you are not the problem of the color line. Though we all sit here a little less at ease than before, we must remember that we come from good stock, and in the trans-temporal lineage of Black being, we have been here before and we will be here again. We, the spirit holders of ubuntu, the descendants of Abraham, the legacy of those that chose to give birth to love, even in chains, we are not the problem, we are merely sitting at the table our ancestors built. Whether we decide to let them have it for our own well-being or we choose to fight for it until our last breath, we are not the problem. We may have to become the answer, and that, too, is a burden we did not ask for, yet rests on our shoulders every day. To be Black is to be beautiful, and powerful, and burdened, and asked to do too much. As we sit in these positions, reminding ourselves that we deserve to be here, remember: the problem is not us. They must confront an unkind mirror and embrace who they are. Until they do it, and really reckon with it, our job is to be like a tree planted near the water, and not move.