To Be Black Is To Ask

How many more dead Black niggers do we need. Why must we be as brave as the enslaved that jumped off ship. Their blood has not been vindicated. The trail of their blood follows me every time I vote (for the next emperor), read (the erasure of our history), pray (to the Divine that has been coloured white). I fear the books will not save us. You must understand what it is like to be non-human in your bones. We were born this way. Grieving. In a state of dying. Never quite alive. Death is an old friend no one else seems to recognise.

To be Black is to be ready for death. Listen to my words carefully, there’s no talk of a physical death here. The death starts at birth, you must kill with your own hands your dream of being equal. You must murder fear and complacency. You will work hard for everything you need and you will salivate over everything you want. Why wouldn’t you believe in heaven when this earth was not made for you. Remember to forget. Forget to remember. Chase Black Excellence, perhaps then you’ll feel something.

The stench of death lives within each Black body. Learn how to die today. Freedom feels like an old dream, blood was spilled so that I could be free and yet I am not. Instead I am haunted by the trail of blood underneath my feet. I think the ancestors are mocking us when we grieve. They scream that we must renew our anger like a candle that never stops burning.

Not a single Black martyrs’ blood has been vindicated. I am still a Black body. I am still waiting to become human. I am still waiting. I wonder if they still grieve in the afterlife. Whether we have destroyed their imagination. They dreamed of fruitful lands with well fed children. Instead, we are familiar with the sound of children crying and we are no longer moved. There is no need for the emperor to kill the negro when the negro has learned how to kill himself from within. You have slain freedom with the knife of hopelessness. You are so familiar with death yet you are still afraid of it. You do not want freedom because you think you are free. You are a fool. The emperor has almost won. Thank the Divine that deep inside you is a beast waiting to fight. Waiting to be free. Begin to recite the prayers that comfort you. You’ll need them whilst you die.