“What I Am”
These black letters on a white page,
don’t they… how do they feel.
How does this white page feel,
having black letters on it?
Does it cringe and shrink?
How do they feel about black print,
black ink on their white pages…. Too bad.
White sidewalls on black rubber tires,
used to be a status symbol.
Now tires are all black,
black rubber on black asphalt.
Proud black rubber tires rolling along.
To black music on the radio.
To black notes on the white score.
What would their pianos be
without the black keys.
How do they feel, putting their
white fingers on the black keys.
What about black fingers
Playing around on white keys….
Clarinets are black. How do they feel
putting their white lips on a black clarinet.
white lips and tongue on a black….
maybe the reeds are white,
how do they feel, seeing black lips
on white reeds. Clarinets or saxophones.
They put their white lips and tongues
on dark rich fudge, fudge “brownies,”
and dark rich chocolate cake, they call it
“devil’s food.” If it’s white they call it
“angel’s food” but if it’s dark they call it “devil’s food.”
Fudge ripple, there’s never enough,
when they mix it, there’s never enough
rich dark chocolate fudge in the fudge ripple.
And the name of it’s “Fudge,” not “Vanilla with.”
When you get a double dip, was it Malcolm
or Ali who said always make ’em
put the chocolate on top of the vanilla.
Don’t you know they cringe at that.
And what about a child born of one black
parent and one white parent. How do they
always classify that. They always call it black,
not white. So I guess that means
black is stronger than white,
superior to white, right? Who said that…
Oh yeah, Dick. Dick said that.
The one who said that was Dick.
Me, I’m a proud black man, proud. Proud.
Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me.
https://www.pexels. com/photo/grayscale-photo-of-man-looking-up-3031391/
Author's note: The poem attempts to reflect some of the painful psychological damage inflicted by racism. It is based on public statements and interviews made by a number of black public figures from the 1960s through the 1980s. The epigraph quotes the title of a poem by a contemporary black male poet.
