Change is Cerebral First

This weekend, Jenn and I ventured to Ohio to visit our good friend Aaron, who has set up shop in the Obama headquarters for the last two months and will be there through the election. It was a great experience to canvass with Toledo folks, meet all the transplants who have literally put their lives on hold to work for this campaign and just to feel the energy that so many have about putting Obama in the White House.

One thing that continues to amaze, appall, befuddle me is how much of a role race is playing in this election. While there are a number of people whose opinions are clear on electing a black man as president, I fear that there are possibly even more individuals who, behind the closed curtains of their voting precincts, will choose Candidate White over Candidate Black. Some version of the last line of this poem has been in my head for weeks, but the rest of it finally came together over the weekend (no fault of the good people of Ohio, just finally had time to put in perspective). It also truly is a yell-and-scream-I-got-some-sh*t-to-say slam poem, so it may not translate as well on paper but I’ll try…

We touch pavement

Rock signs for change

Grip to the inevitable hope that we have come to put our faith in

As my neighbors draw the shades

Draw back themselves into a world of 50 years ago

Unable to admit why Hope is not enough for them.

Fists knock doors

Knock air

Knock the wind out of me as the monsters under my bed come to life

This Struggle often reserved for my eyes unseen streets

Is in dress rehearsal on our global stage

And I’m wondering what section of the bus is reserved for me.

Reserved for this girl whose feet are touching down on the streets of Toledo

Like they were Montgomery’s 1950’s concrete.

Words of another dreamers tongue ringing in my ear

Now perched on the surface ready to break spit

But squeaking out in a whisper I can barely translate.

We are armed for discourse about the Issues but not the Issue

We are complacent in our space to stay away from this

While we should be breaking open our voices to scream

“We did not fight for ignorance!”

We did not fight to have our hands shake with fear of Color being the bottom line

As hands silently unravel the work of past generations and mine

Retying it into a firm and solid slipknot-

I cannot comprehend that we are back at this

That this 11^th hour pipe dream is as black as fists

We have progressed so little in our quest for progress

Yet we are willing to settle for less

If it means we can tape our tongues and give voice to the racist.

I’m left wondering what defect iris has eyes seeing nothing but skin tones,

what heartbeat thinks that matters.

I hear a man who is pumping motivation back into the veins of my generation

See a protector of my life-giving body, a world I would want to bring life into

Taste the success of teachers who can harbor their craft and still afford to eat

Smell the Middle East sands settling into dust with the memories of soldier’s feet

Touch the face of the college student who never saw a diploma as an option

I cannot imagine what you see.

And I fear that my hands are too shaky to change your mind.

To stop Southern teenagers from shaving their heads and cutting this off at the source

To try and show them that hands can hold change

Even if their palms are a different shade.

But I am left with only one week

And as results hang in the air

Like nooses on Alabama trees.

All I can dream to say is Yes We Can

Yes We Can

This mantra

Once inspirational, now making me feel numb

Wondering if this candidates slogan should echo the words of

We Shall Overcome