"Go back to Africa!" they've screamed as if we asked to be here in the first place. We were stolen from our country and ripped from our roots without a trace to be enslaved and martyred. They killed our ancestors so we're left without truth. Who are we? What did we like to eat? What nursery rhymes did they sing? Instead of our Ouma teaching us how to make Jollof Rice and Bobotie we were reduced to scraps and chitlins. I imagine that even Jesus once sat in His Savta's kitchen---cooking and eating Rugelach and afterwards washing the dishes while dancing and singing songs of their traditions!
YOU may have been able to grow up in lacasa or comunidad where it smells of spicy empanadas and everyone is dancing in The Cha Cha or maybe it was just moving rhythmlessly to the beat while "mother" baked a casserole. My soul---my soul burns slowly because my people didn't get to grow in our own culture. We were Americanized and our African sisters and brothers we hardly recognize. The songs of freedom and the dances of joy...placed in the land of the free unless your skin has a dark tone
The only way we're allowed to have our own community is if it's foundation is built and funded by men who hate us. It sickens me! We can't even enjoy a friendly house party without someone feeling threatened and calling the police "just to see".
I can learn as much as I want to now that I've been enlightened but it doesn't replace the innocence of life that's been stolen from me. TRICKERY! Took my culture from me and gave me one---SLAVERY. You hear them speak? She's Caucasian. She's Hispanic. She's Korean. She's African. She's Ethiopian . She's Russian. But her? She's black or African American. The only type of American that is identified by a country they've never lived in. Not by desire, not by choice but by force. Everyone else gets to be theirselves but us because being just plain African simply wasn't good enough. Do you see why we're mad? Because we were forced to be here yet you still treat us bad. You may never understand because somebody in your family who was loved and trusted with a plan CHOSE to bring their future generations here while never neglecting the culture they were birthed in. So, no. I can't just get over. I won't just forget it. Because too many mothers eyes have cried not only because of the loss but because of the injustice. I know you can't understand but I pray that you try.
