QUOTED from “Real People” by Common:
“Black men walking with white girls on they arms
I be mad at ‘em as if I know they moms
Told to go beyond the surface, a person’s a person
When we lessen our women our condition seem to worsen”
End Quote
“You’re pretty for a black girl”,
they say
mocking your sunshine beauty,
tell em where you got your curls -
From the beating black womb of the human world.
“You’re pretty for a dark girl”,
What a disgusting compliment,
Happy for colonial disarmament,
What an insulting little white lie -
Beauty thrives
In the duskiest eyes
Beauty can drink the sun like wine and go wild,
Weaving woolen crowns for our queens,
Tan, brown, black sunshelters for We
children of the motherland
And I’d wrap myself in every curl –
They’re home, they know my moms,
It’s an honor to share them,
They’re ours, motherland sister.
Motherland sister,
She’s of a different strand,
From another land,
After the motherland,
She’s a sister who’s more distant,
And she loves how black skin glistens,
In a starry night,
Her eyes swell like sighs breathe,
And she mourns and cries and weeps,
When told of the lynch tree,
When told of the horrors:
Cudjo Head, Margaret Garner,
Precious Emmitt Till,
We Are Treyvon!
And she loves how black skin glistens,
In a starry night.
So when I see children of the Motherland walking
with outsiders on their arm,
I think I should congratulate the effort,
such a difficult bond.
A faint Dream calls,
As her pale hand I grasp,
Everybody now, sing in unison:
“Free at last…Free at last”
Mi neva ago rejec’ mi people-dem,
Mi love we more dan eva,
Neva say mi no love black woman,
How can mi rejec’ mi mudda?
How could I reject my sister?
Could I be so cruel?
Could I deny her the same sun drunk beauty I adore,
Because the sun makes her skin sore?
how can you lessen such a blessing,
as our common sisters,
and daughters and mothers,
kissed or not by the sun,
by kissing the wrong one?
