America's Mule
you are black
you have nappy hair
brown skin
fat lips
i saw your father
i saw his chocolate skin
you’re not one of us
you have curly hair
light skin
freckles on your
complexion
i saw your mother
i saw her pale skin
wait.
i retract that—
we don’t care
that you’re half pale
your exterior is
blacker than white,
you have
to identify
with that.
dismiss your sicilian
and jewish ancestors
that were once oppressed too,
we’re using that one-drop rule
you heard of that right?
the one our white supremacists
fabricated,
you are black
don’t you forget it.
am i chocolate?
am i pale?
why do you force me
to an identity
that does not identify
with how i perceive
myself
they want to get technical with that
one-drop rule
well,
here’s technical for you—
mama sicilian, jewish, german,
english too
with red sprinkled in there
we don’t know
if it’s true.
daddy creole, black,
copious amounts of red.
percentage wise,
i’m more European
than you.
percentage wise,
i’m more indigenous american
than you.
you raped
my culture
in ways i didn’t even know
were possible. upside
down, inside
out, round and
around. but i’m still
here, i’m still growing,
and i am not you
why do you care
how i look anyways?
i don’t.
i didn’t.
but you thrust me
into a racist country
that’s manipulated
the people into robots
to subject me,
my mulatto self,
to objectification.
i did not grow up
in the ghetto
i did not grow up
in the oakland hills,
dad went to law school
dad was not left for kill
he didn’t leave when i was young.
in fact,
pops never left
but mama,
she grew up poor.
i love hot sauce
fried chicken
watermelon,
don’t stereotype me!
i love gourmet cheese
sliced meats
wine and olive trees,
are you going to stereotype me now?
i’m not that superficial
valley girl from california
and i don’t speak
like a surfer bro,
i don’t even surf
bro.
i’m not a mulatto
i am not a mule
do not ride me.
i don’t have a family member
confined to your
billion-dollar slave
penitentiary system
i do not have
white privilege
but i do
have
light skin privilege
i am not white washed.
my blackness is not washed
away by the
way i speak,
i am not a representation of
your stereotypes,
i am the counteraction
contradistinction of
your oppressive labels
white america