Mr. Africa Poetry Lounge!
"Negro - the Dirty Color"
It's hard to be a pessimist in a world so bright.
Where there are so many open doors, with the sky as the limit;
You'd think it'd be easy to reach for the top.
But there's one thing you didn't take into account:
You're 'negro', the dirty color.
You were brought into the world ignorant of your place, with no way to
know where you belong.
Your history, the part unforgotten, is made of mud.
The mud not so unlike your own skin, that they think of you as the same.
You might be a person, if only you can convince them of it.
Because you're negro, the dirty color.
Your birth was not a blessing, but an unfortunate mistake.
One most assume will fix itself soon enough.
This because they won't sully themselves with your niggard name.
You, whose brethren war amongst each other because they are told they
have no future, and know nothing better.
How lucky you are, negro, the dirty color.
At the end of the day, you go home only to be told to go home.
Among the other slurs they save for the ones of 'impure' skin.
The ones who could never be like them.
They forget they've lived here only as long as you have, only because of you.
They forget they share your blood.
Guess that's just how it goes when you're negro, the dirty color.
The problem begins when you accept their lies.
That you are worth only as much as they think you are.
That you are immoral, criminal, rapist.
You needn't prove you are "one of the good ones" just to be second-rate to them.
After all they've seen of themselves, they still think of you worse.
Do not fall to denigration, negro, the dirty color.
You were the first.
You have survived everything they've put you through, yet still you stand tall.
Your spirit is your own, and no man may take what you are.
Though they taught you to be ashamed of your pride, stand up.
You are Negro,
But it is up to you if you shall remain "the dirty color."
Thank you for your time.
Written by T. Aramis Barron
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