Si ricomincia sempre da uno

Per combattere i pregiudizi razziali si deve ripartire sempre da uno.  Mentre uomini e donne nere vengono uccise dalla polizia e i migranti affogano in mare, gli archeologi scoprono che tutta la culla della nostra umanità proviene dall'Africa. E' l'articolo in copertina sul nuovo Internazionale. Perché non sentirsi tutti un popolo? Come fare per combattere il razzismo prima di tutto in noi? Cosa mi rende ipocrita nel dire queste parole?   Condivido con voi una poesia di Mahogany L. Browne, una bellissima poetessa di colore americana.

1. When they turn bodegas into boutique grocery stores When they bounce cops up the block Like this hipster protection program won’t turn back Lefrak into Harlem turn back Harlem into Chirac turn back BedStuy into Brownsville turn Brownsville back Into the Bronx back into Gaza back... You will taste this strange and bitter American history Where the Mom and Pop work more hours than the Governor Where the pesticides overflow our sewer systems Float our food deserts into neighborhoods One way in One way out Tell me this gentrification be for my own good Tell me this housing project keep us warfare ready Tell me Biggie died for our sins & I’ll show you a Brooklyn stoop with a babies’ name etched in chalk A hashtag ghost gone already A price tag on his sisters face She’s been missing since Sunday Where choppa lights paint concrete a trail of breadcrumbs A haunting finding its way back to our homes 1.        The Electoral College        is a lullaby designed to put us        back to sleep. 1. The ocean is weeping a righteous rage, she got questions for the living: & what about the sweetheart who would grow to love Tamir Rice? Mike Brown? Korryn Gaines? Akia Gurley? What about they mamas singing their name before each breakfast? Or the church praying for their redemption—bibles raised in the air? What about their (almost) children? How about they Daddy’s smile? What about they name make them so easy to turn to ash? How we ghosting black boys for the toys we gift them? 1. On a Monday A white body told my black body It ain’t earned no apology for the bloodshed For the nights when my skin grow so cold I know I must be inches from death For each death hand delivered to me,        this: silence                  this: certain dismissal                       this: post        racial reality show       this: confederate hug        & don’t it bloom like a mushroom sky? What about the blues? Why it cry like hail? Why it hell like America so so long 1. Yo: America Whatchu know about noose ready Whatchu know about chalk lines & double barrels Whatchu know about a murder weapon Or a loose cigarette Or a baby sleeping on a couch Whatchu you know about the flag The truck that followed me down a lonely road in Georgia The names that I rolled off my tongue in prayer? Saint Sojourner Saint Harriet Saint Rekia Saint Sandra Bring me home Or leave me steady Gun aimed and cocked ready Con artists turned 45th resident of the White House While the 44th President is lifted off the grounds        by his shadow & his Black wife She truth slayer all day She cheekbone slay Still the media aim and shot at presidential legacy Until weed smoke & a concert make us remember BLK people ain’t never been human here Ain’t we beautiful? Those that survived the purging? Those that spill, body splay beautiful from a hateful song? This swing sweet sweet low spiritual ain’t neva been inclusive Whatchu know about larynx & baton How you sing him crow in the key of Emmett Till What fever fuss you awake? Who else got cop’d anxiety? Call it what it is: post traumatic slave syndrome Call it land tax until homeless Call it abortion turned sterilization Ain’t no lie like the one against our stillborn children Ain’t no lie like the many that shaped our babies into mute cattle Prison industrial complex reverberates in the tune of elementary        4th graders are the easiest targets 1. A Math Problem: If 1 woman got 7 Mac 11’s & 2 heaters for the beemer How many Congress seats will NRA lose? How many votes will it take for a sexual predator        to lift the White House off her feet? 1. I am practicing this aim This tongue a shoestring strafe Melt the wires of Guantanamo Yasiin Bey coming home ain’t what we thought it would be Ain’t no solace in Mecca Even Spike Lee left Brooklyn Here, a slumlord will leave my front steps Full of rat piss & AirBnB my neighbors’ apartment        for half my take home pay        Unhinge the city of Rikers        Bring back the reapers        Give them the loot & the stoop Yea, they good at killin’ but so was Jefferson. I mean Washington. I mean CIA. I mean Cointelpro. I mean they mimic your Grace. I mean it’s 2017, America. A new new year & your face lift be botched.