Black On Black Blackness Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

As an African American,
Remembering once...
To have just been a Negro.
Living in the projects.
And made to understand,
Limitless should be my dreams.
Regardless of the color of my skin.
Or whoever should call me what,
If my wishes to want them...
Had been than others.
Feeling restricted.
With their ambitions kept,
Within invisible fences to accept.

And as I grew and taught to use my mind,
To explore and adventure...
Beyond confines with my identity well defined.
I had always been 'Black And Proud'.
Knowing 'Black Lives Matter'.
Long before being called an 'Uncle Tom'.
Or 'thinking' I was 'White',
Speaking English correctly to be understood.
And challenged by both white and blacks folks,
If I attempted to make steps to progress...
Outside of the 'hood'.

Today...
Black folks are protesting to want,
Equal 'this' and equal 'that'.
The ones with their 'Black On Black Blackness'.
As if given approval to grant them,
Permission to live their lives that way.
Like a fashionable fad.

Yet...
Being who one is,
With their heritage needing no explanation.
Or their color of skin,
Identifiable without one word to say.
Having dignity and kept respect,
For themselves to display.
Should be felt to feel and believed.
Knowing the challenges and obstacles to face,
On a daily basis.
Has not been a lesson taught to teach.
To abandon to treat each other,
No differently than the ones...
Who oppress them.
Although still sought to seek,
Is approval and acceptance.
Since many today with college degrees.
Living at addresses believing this impresses.
Looking down from upturned noses.
At others like themselves,
Still preferring to call them all 'niggers'.
Like I remember a Negro music teacher,
Had called us in Junior High School.
In front of a white social studies teacher,
To ensure him she knew how to keep us line.
Reminding us where we came from.
A place she thought her 'status' left behind!