Oh, Kwanza

Back when the Bantu and Arabs had a linguistic marriage
and had a baby named Swahili
When I learned about the First Fruits and Ngozu Saba
The names were pretty familiar

We say that we were kings and queens

But somebody has to be the subject,
Somebody has the be ruled
Starved and whipped

And left behind in the hood

while we pursue being boughie living next to Chad and Karen

Somebody had to drag the blocks that built Giza and Timbuktu

Go and ask the bones...

That tell the story of Yoruba and Ashanti

Tribes we’ve reclaimed out of new Black Pride
With convenient amnesia – blotting out their Uncle Tom history:

Of selling their own kind 

To pale invaders and flesh traders

Mandinka and Masai were
Weighed down with manacles that severed our connection to Motherland

So Nat Turner died a death we never fully mourned
Or even known by the people he wanted to save

We blink more now 

Than we did back then
At black bodies swinging from trees
‘cuz back then these strung up bodies looked exactly like our newly adopted God hanging from the cross

So we quickly thought our lot in life

Was to also end up hanging in sacrifice...

In the new millennium,
We reject the whips and plantations and cotton gins
But we still hold on to chicken feet and beaks and cracklins

We finally got our holiday to celebrate a King's life
Never mind his plagiarism or the STD he brought to his wife

So now it makes sense that someone would make up a story that I have a dream speech was paid for by a rapist named Cosby

And Malcolm was also right – 

He saw the hypocrisy of his leader Elijah having babies with his teenaged secretaries

He saw hoe hating led to handshakes with neo-Nazis

And he knew he would fulfill the prophecy that Biggie said:

That The one really ever remembers you

Until somebody blows off your head

But the only thing that remains is Knowledge and God

Long after …
We blow the dust off of Public Enemy tapes

And faded Africa medallions nestled in the closet with our Kente cloth scarves

That we only take down at Kwanza

Weigght, Somebody please tell me: Just what the hell is Kwanza?
That Champion Apparel rebrand of a Black Holiday...?
Christmas in Black Face...?
Where we celebrate the corn that Actually came from Mexico
But Both the face ofJesus'  and his birthday are made up
And the real Saint Nick looked more like Firstly

Than that fat white dude at the mall
So I guess it must be okay to make up our own celebration
Like Rachel Dolezal makes up her melanation

And it must be okay that the father of Kwanzaa's tortured 2 sistas
Because "American criminal" is  sim[ply a redundant term of of 2 synonyms
But every year after The seven principles like umoja, and imani
I think of an 8th word You never ever hear about: uwaji-bikaji

Bettter known as accountability

Long after our history gets lost
And compacted into the shortest month of the year

Long after our memory of Tupac finally accepts
That that nigga is truly dead
Murdered by our unreasonable expectations
So, Brenda:
Remember to keep your head up
And we'll forget why we  STILL call you "bitch"
Long after we finally see Willie Lynch’s letter
For the insult to our intelligence that it really is:

Long after...
We  will still pour out libations to those who came before us
And when we do -

We should include the names Deborah Jones and Gail Davis
Who were whipped, water tortured and burned by soldering irons
By the founder of our holiday

As we light the candles of kinara
We should remember that the power structure of our nation Is not something worthy to imitate

And it'll be okay to hold Karenga accountable
We can root for everyone Black and sit him at the little kids table
In a seat next to Clarence, Kanye, Candace, , Stephen A, and Flava Flav

So run, Little brother and/sister listener
Run over to your kwanza tree
Pull out from under it that R Kelly CD
And your Zulu Nation sweatshirt
Dip it into gasoline
And Set it all on fire

And dance and sing and riot your way to  the freedom...

that will only be  born when contradiction dies
The death of fake pride
Etched in full in pages like Roots with its self-admitted lies

The only thing that remains is Knowledge and God

Go ask Mansa Musa…Mali king and the richest man in history

only like two things behind in his city oof Timbuktu

A mosque…
And a school…

The only thing left is knowledge and God

And the only thing greater than yourself -
Is the Truth
And we have run so far from it-
only to travelin a big ass circle, so that
Truth is now the only place we have left to run to

7/16

12/17/20