Grandmother Poem

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/negritude: (circa: 1945-1950) The historical, cultural, and social heritage considered common to blacks collectively: An aesthetic and ideological concept affirming the independent nature, quality, and validity of Black culture. An ideological position that holds Black culture to be independent and valid on its own terms; an affirmation of the African cultural heritage… © 7 March 2008, The Griot Poet, TGP

I've seen a lot this election cycle, and experienced a lot on this blog: the comment I replied to "anonymous" is one individual that thought I was a racist and that my culture has and has never had value. That challenge I could not leave hanging.

This is a commentary I wrote in the cubicle. I hope it speaks to what Africans in America/African Americans/Blacks/Negros go through on a daily basis. Our silence is not consent: we have mortgages and college tuition's to pay. So we leave our place of employment each day, our jowls tight and our blood pressures and sugar levels elevated. If you just had to say it, and you had the gift of spoken word, I think this is how you'd spit it. TGP

* * * * *

I sit in a cubicle
Surrounded by the descendants
That owned my ancestors

During this election season
My reasons for my choices are derided
I’d invite direct challenge, though I’d be chided for breaking a company edict that they flagrantly violate daily.

So, the issues are gaily bandied about me,
Subtly, without directly calling me
Delusional,
Feeling less human and more Labrador retriever
Sleeping silently, my stomach to the floor, my tail ready to wag before
Someone whistles.

A pious air of pedigree
Is their refusal after evidence abounds contrary
To the negative pictures they mentally filter to review any news of me.

CNN did a special: “26 Hours of Terror” when a brother went crazy and shot up downtown ATL…

For the other brother who risked his life to rescue the four children of another man and his wife from a fire – he said he was a dad too, and wouldn’t want anyone to leave his children to house fires hotter than hell – he got a one-time, five-minute sound bite.

I want to hug my grandmother basking in the morning sunshine of the village of my beginnings.
I want to smell the air, taste the dew unmarred by middle passages, only the smog of so-called modernization that mars even Eden.
I want to see you dance a welcome [to me] in a pink tribal dashiki as I, the prodigal son walk, trot then run to your greeting.
I want to hug my grandmother and feel the grip of her embrace as she communicates the spirits of my ancestors in each breath sigh, each tearful cry I shed.

Shush, Hon!

I have been gone long, grandmother:
My father married and divorced my mother.
At one time I was called mulatto, now I mark “other”
As I take a census of my history
A mystery that I had to solve that eventually led me to you and this embrace.

My father voluntarily journeyed to a distant place,
And did not speak over me his blessings,
Or tell me who I was
As the quiver of his loins
He was little more than a ghost to me
Before his earthly demise
We corresponded via letters now known as snail-mail
And so, through sorcery and liquors, I tried to escape
And disguise
The responsibility of my lineage
Taking psychedelic trips did little to alleviate the derision seen when I hailed a cab, got on an elevator, furrowed my brow, combed my hair, shaved my head, inhaled – flaring my nostrils, pursed my lips, or wore a turban from my father’s tribe.

When I express my negritude, I am chided as a racist.
When my church celebrates its heritage, they are scolded as separatist.
When I express any views that are contrary to the control of the ancestors of former oppressors, I am a black nationalist (or terrorist).

Comments from anonymous in Cyberspace ridicule the age wrinkles of wisdom on your beautiful face and my own as “gorilla,” evidence that some of us have yet to evolve from Neanderthal separatists thought processes.

What began as “hope” perhaps is hopeless since the word “America” can be rearranged into three distinct that describe this country’s characteristics: “I am race.”

I want to hug you grandmother, basking in the morning sunshine of the village of my beginnings.

I want to run down streets owned by my people since time began in Eden, like the children I see, for a childhood not experienced in Indonesia or Hawaii playing soccer and hopscotch, double-dutch with lollipops as your prodigal grandson.

I need the strength of my Faith, my people and origins as I am in a contest with others like me who side against me,
Cultivating the seeds of their own destruction in the process,

As I am in a contest that most suspect rigged – for or against me anyway,
And that most after wards will not denigrate their intelligence with participation.

I want to hug you, grandmother and feel the grip of your embrace as you communicate the spirits of my ancestors

I need to hear from our village Griot their whispers from long ago and their assurance that this Goliath will also fall to the stones of my truth.

Shush, Hon! It’s going to be alright. Grandmother’s here… embracing you.