I wrote this um poem because
A couple weeks ago I went um down to Watts with my homeboy
And uh he had some of his friends with him they was coming or whatever to take pictures or whatever
And they was looking like um
They had never seen black people
You know what I’m saying and um
I realized that uh
If you scared of your own people then you scared of yourself.– Dom Kennedy
When Ako picks me up from school he asks,
“If you had to pick between your White friends and Black friends, who would you choose?”
I tell him in a mostly White school –
Us Black kids stick together.
He scoffs and says I’m pickin the losin’ team
That Mamaiay didn’t travel all this way
For me to sprint backwards
I don’t know how “Don’t blow your opportunity”
Became code for “Don’t be too Black”
But Ako echoes bein’ around Whites
Is the first step to success
That cuz I’m light skinned
It’ll be easier for me to fit in
But, I never wanted to be somewhere
That’d make me want to rush home
Ako lives next to all them motels
With the broken-down signs
And the broken-in women
He only watches Fox News at home
But flips the channel when Black people fill the screen
Says it gets him all embarrassed
That they’re making us look bad
Well, not really us –
Because, we’re not like them
But close enough –
To be mislabeled by others
He says we’re African
Never to be confused with
Black
Says nothing good comes out of Blackness
Just like how nothing good happens
After dark
Ako’s irons his name to please the White clients
Like he creases his suit before he chauffeurs them ‘round the town
He spends all day servin them
Says ‘Yes sir’ and ‘Yes m’aam’
Inhaling the relief of Nicotine during his breaks
Ako won’t ever smoke in his car though – his car’s too nice
He drives one of them fancy limousines
When it’s not making him money, it’s lookin’ the part.
He takes it to the car wash so much
It make the night sky look ashy
Ako’s always politickin’
Mamaiay’s stays mouthin’ back
Ako’s tryna strip me of my Blackness
Mamaiay’s tryna preach fellowship
She says she don’t see color
That only love lives in her home
They tuggin’ back and forth
Thinkin they’re on opposite teams
But I’ve always felt like erasure and hatred
Are two fruit of the same tree
Ako and Mamaiay helicopter my identity
As if I was mumbling my first word – or stumbling my first steps
They think they’re doing me a favor –
By trimming my Blackness
They don’t understand
That not all that is carried
Is meant to weigh you down
They don’t understand
I’ve always been the Black sheep
That gripped tightly to her coat.
When Ako picks me up from school he asks,
“If you had to pick between your Rich friends and Poor friends, who would you choose?”
I tell him in a mostly Rich school –
Us Poor kids stick together.
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