Even from the beginning
They were filling our ears with propaganda
Speaking in that guttural, painful tongue
We could barely understand—
Your suffering is Christian,
This is your place in our God’s world.
Pick this cotton and make me rich.
Let me beat you
Let me rape you
This is what God has ordained.
We could not comprehend the words
But whips and chains spoke loud and clear.
Wails in the night
Men forced to watch their women
Abused.
Sold.
Murdered.
In time we learned the language only to hear
Come now, you know you are dumb.
Incapable of achieving the intellectual.
Of base nature.
Barbaric.
Animalistic.
Uncultured.
Predatorial.
Accept this second class citizenship,
It is all that you can handle.
Have we really come much farther than this?
Sure, I sit in this gleaming ivory tower,
This fine institution of higher learning
Where rent is 23K a year,
But do you ever wonder why I can’t turn on the TV?
Why the very thought of journalism
Makes my ulcer rebel against me?
Because I am a “lucky one”
“A good fine specimen of a Negro girl.”
Fit to be seen.
Groomed.
Cultivated.
Tamed.
The television echoes,
Reinforces
What I’ve been taught—
The paradox of “believe this”
And
“We teach you to think for yourself”
As long as I think you are right.
And—
Between the sitcoms and the Late Shows
lies that wasteland of
Sex, Lies, and Editorials
Where I am exposed to the horrific reality
Of what I have escaped
(Turned my back on?)
I am patted on my head for being a good little nigger
While the rest must endure the new line of attack:
Ghettos, food stamps and WIC
That’s all you want, that all you need
To live off the toil of others
Never knowing how it feels to know something as your own.
And I, trying to hear, to answer the cries of those I left behind,
I attempt to close my ears to
To rid my brain of
Cleanse my soul of
All that white noise.

09/23/2004

Posted on 09/23/2004
Copyright © 2025 Teri T Lahmon