ANCESTORS ROLL CALL! What Did They Think? (poem by Jalil Muntaqim)

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What did they think?

Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Akai
Gurley, Trayvon Martin, Michael
Brown, life precious blood spelled
in the mud FREEDOM …

When will it come?

What did they think?

Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Sean
Bell, Amadou Diallo whose life
breath echoed the dreams deferred
from Afrikan ancestors through
the middle passage, to Denmark
Vesey and Nat Turner, do you
hear it, are you listening?

Micah heard the torturous
mourning echoing over
the ages forcing us to
remember Shaka Zulu, Queen
Nzinga, the Mau Mau to Steve
Biko and Nelson Mandela.

What did they think?

Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Medgar
Evers, Huey P. Newton, Fred
Hampton, George Jackson, from
the African Blood Brotherhood,
to the Deacons for Defense,
the Black Panther Party and
the Black Liberation Army, a
history of noble resistance.

What did they think?

Mark Essex, Zayd Shakur, Frank
Fields, Twyman Meyers, Anthony
” Kimu” White did not forget
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth
or Rosa Parks, reminiscent of the
fugitive slave laws, Black Codes
and Jim Crow, while Martin L.
King, Jr., revered by all except
J. Edgar Hoover and James Earl Ray.

What did they think?

Freddy Gray, Antwon Shumpert,
Alton Sterling, Philando Castile
Let’s not forget Chicago teenager,
McDonald, 17 hot bullets spun
him like a drunken ballerina,
with Blue arrogance and hubris,
all around the world the same
song. Yet, they call the oppressed
terrorists when they fight back.

What did they think?

Yes, suffering is universal, it knows
no color, race, ethnicity, class or
status. No, they are not immune
to pain and loss, it does not
discriminate, despite their belief
in white supremacy. The racial
divide can not hide the common
blood inside us all, flowing scarlet
red life, they dismiss by the white
heat of hate.

What did they think?

After 430 years of racial strife
and mass incarceration, the 13th
Amendment a violation of international
law, in America — slavery still exists!

What did they think?

Time will absolve the evil within.
But we know time absolves nothing
without sacrifice. So, they trot
out apologetic House Negroes,
talking heads lacking historical
facts, to track the racial divide
that leads to the loss of Black
lives.

Micah destroyed the myth of Tarzan,
Captain America, and Superman.

What did he think?

That Black Lives Mattered???

They have demeaned you and call
you demented, saying you’re
delusional and insane; but, didn’t
they say the same about Nat Turner
and Nelson Mandela? Aren’t we all
a product of our environment? So,
isn’t suffering a racist environment
demented and insane? They called
the Panthers terrorists when they
fed our children with one hand
and fought Cointelpro with the
other. When Black people fight
back they automatically become
crazy; when Black people stand up,
demand justice, they are called
extremist.

What did they think?

White supremacy in all of its subtle
and overt manifestations must prevail
to dispel Black Lives Matter. They
have to blow up this idea, Micah,
like the bomb on MOVE, and the
bomb on the L.A. office of the
BPP. But Chairman Fred said, you
can kill a revolutionary, but you
can’t kill the revolution. You can
imprison a freedom fighter but you
can’t imprison freedom.

What did they think?

We do not celebrate the loss of
life, we mourn as you mourn, we
lament as you lament. We salute
and honor the brave and courageous
whose ultimate sacrifice demands
recognition. It is our collective
shame, we meet at this crossroad, on
the divide of class and race. Yet,
the slow pace for healing is revealing,
our continuing to live a lie, that
Blue blood is more precious than
Black blood.

What did they think?

I urge you to read, to understand
my sensitivity to the matters at
hand, “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”, “When
Police Die”, “A Mother’s Loss”
expressing our collective anguish
of a seemingly unrelenting war.
We need not keep score, death
is death, and we should not rest
until hate and racism are cast into
the abyss, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!

Remember; We Are Our Own Liberators!

Jalil A. Muntaqim
Apartheid Attica
July 2016

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