USA Africa Dialogue Series - Endangered Species by Biodun Ogundayo

Endangered Species

for George Floyd

 

'BioDun J. Ogundayo

 

 

White knee on a

Black neck… Same old story?

The hungry gaze of a

Predator cop

The satanic look

Of the ravenous hunter

Of hate

 

White knee on a

Black neck

A harvest most obscene

Strange fruit, George Floyd.

Minneapolis.

Memorial Day 2020.

 

Another reminder of our blackness

The Black holocaust

When we were bound, lashed, and raped…

And sold for pittance

Because

We dared to be black, brown, and bronze

We dared to men

We dared to be people…

 

1920

 

Across the Middle Passage our travails

Told in tears, blood, and branding

Because

We dared to be

Black, brown, and bronze

We dared to be men

 

1820

 

White knee on a

Black neck

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

In the land of the free

That our blood and sweat

Built.

 

The foul air blows

Freely… and freer than

George Floyd

Spring mourns the ceaseless evil

Spawned

In the dark well of hate…

Because

We dare to be

Black, brown, and bronze

And men.

 

1720

 

White knee on a

Black neck

The machine of hate

Marches on

Mothers wail, across the centuries

 

Chains and manacles

Barracoons and Prisons

Tasers and guns

Soul-less rationalizations

Logic twisted as Truth

Because

 

We dare to be

Black, brown, and bronze

Because

We dare to be men like

 

George Floyd

Philando Castile

Emmet Till

Michael Brown

Trayvon Martins

 

Martin

 

Tamir Rice

Eric Garner

Ahmaud Arbery

Ahmadou Diallo

Abner Louima: sodomized with a plunger

 

And a million others…

Because we dare to be

Men

Black, brown, and bronze

People…

Swimming against the pus of hate!