Maybe Long Ago

How would you really feel if you knew the reason you are where you are today because someone else had to be dragged from their home in a dirty hot ship, made to work long hours, paid nothing, beat, disrespected, forced to sleep without their mate, their parent, their family, called names, fed the worse foods, lived in the very worse condition, trained that they were worth nothing? For well over 400 years? What we learn, its past down. Just like an inheritance. How we feel about ourselves, each other, is inherently passed down from one generation to the next. Good or bad. Do you ever wonder why you hardly ever see an African married to a black American? Because we are a damned people. We have been damaged. We have mutilated ourselves into something no other race can recognize. We straighten we color we bleach. We try so hard to be liked because we know we aren't.. We seem at times to hate what we are, the poor damaged offspring. We are still hated so much that we hurt, and some of us want to hurt ourselves even more. We have more internal killing than most wars, over colors, over drugs we didn't import with planes we don't own. We are a poor broke down people. Only a few if s who are permitted to reach levels of kept wealth are made king of the hill, but we are still disrespected. It could be subtle. Jokes that aren't funny, but some of us laugh anyway to keep the peace, to not make trouble, whatever bullshit. Everyday we are constantly being hurt. If not by others, from wince this pain comes, we are killing ourselves because of this hate we have of who we were made to be. We were made to be a broke people. We are broken. We are disrespected. We are in so much pain. So much pain. We have no home. We have no real inheritance. We have nothing, no land to pass to our children. We are at the bottom. Some of us call ourselves African Americans, but neither Africans nor Americans embrace us. It's sad because we have so much to offer, us, the black and brown, but if our men go, we are gone. If our men continue to go, to die, to turn, we will cease to exist.