Tonight's Poet Corner: Three Works By Black Poets

Black Privilege
by Crystal Valentine

On Evaluating Black Privilege.

Black privilege is the hung elephant swinging in the room,
Is the memory of a slave ship,
Praying for the Alzheimer’s to kick in.

Black privilege is me having already memorized my nephew’s eulogy,
My brother’s eulogy,
My father’s eulogy,
My unconceived child’s eulogy.
Black privilege is me thinking my sister’s name,
Safe from that list.

Black privilege is me pretending like I know Trayvon Martin on a first name basis,
Is me using a dead boy’s name to win a poetry slam,
Is me carrying a mouthful of other people’s skeletons
To use at my own convenience.

Black privilege is the concrete that holds my breath better than my lungs do.

Black privilege is always having to be the strong one,
Is having a crowbar for a spine,
Is fighting even when you have no more blood to give,
Even when your bones carried you,
Even when your mother prayed for you,
Even after they prepared your body for the funeral.

Black privilege is being so unique that not even God will look like you.
Black privilege is still being the first person in line to meet Him.

Black privilege is having to have the same sense of humor as Jesus.
Remember how he smiled on the cross?
The same way Malcolm X laughed at his bullet.

And there I go again,
Asserting my Black privilege,
Using a dead man’s name without his permission.

Black privilege is a myth,
Is a joke,
Is a punchline,
Is the time a teacher asks a little boy
What he wanted to be when he grew up
And he said, “Alive.”
Is the way she laughed when she said,
“There’s no college for that.”

And it’s tirin’, you know?
For everything about my skin to be a metaphor,
For everything Black to be pun intended,
To be death intended.

Black privilege is the applause at the end of this poem,
Is me giving you a dead boy’s body and you giving me a ten,
Is me being okay with that.

And I tried writing a love poem the other day,
But my fingers wouldn’t move.
My skin started to blister like it didn’t trust me anymore,
Like it thought I was trading in this noose for a pearl necklace.

Some days I’m afraid to look into the mirror
For fear that a bullet George Zimmermaned its way into my chest while I was asleep.
The breath in my mouth is weapon enough to scare a courtroom.
I’ll be lucky if I’m alive to make it to the stand.
For some people,
Their trials live longer than they do.

Black privilege is knowing that if I die,
At least Al Sharpton will come to my funeral.
At least Al Sharpton will mason jar my mother’s tears,
Remind us that the only thing we are worthy of is our death. We are judged by the number of people it takes to carry our caskets.

Black privilege is me thinking that’s enough,
Is me thinking this poem is enough.

Black privilege is this.
Is this breath in my mouth right now,
Is me standing right here with a crowd full of witnesses to my heartbeat.

when the officer caught me

by Nate Marshall

what is the age when a black boy learns he’s scary? 

—Jonathan Lethem, “Fortress of Solitude” 

me & darnell 

crossed at the stop sign 

in front of a car ready 

for getaway, like every car 

in our neighborhood. 

the voice shot out, a stray bullet

of accusation. stop, police. 

our jog became sprint. 

how could you blame us? 

we were terrified 

at the potential 

of older versions 

of us hopping out of the car 

ready for the come up. 

when the officer caught me 

my legs crumpled 

like the stubborn plastic wrapper 

of a rap CD, finally ripped open & free 

when the officer caught me 

my grape pop tumbled to the crabgrass, 

spilled like piss. my fear 

or the fear i now evoked 

when the officer caught me 

i cried. i gulped 

answers to his questions 

i endured the slip of hand 

into pocket. the groping 

of birthday money 

& the accusation of drugs 

this was the first time i used 

my magnet school namedrop 

to subdue my scary 

it was not the last time. 

when the officer caught me 

i fell hard into the reality 

of being 13 & black 

& wild hundreds. 

darnell in his 3 year older wisdom, 

a witness to my new manhood. 

my answers to interrogation 

a reading of torah. 

the cop a rabbi at this bar mitzvah 

this is how black boys are baptized 

into black manhood while they are still 

boys & scared & going 

to get their backpack from grandma’s 

crib for school tomorrow & scared 

& learning how to steel a sobbing face

into a scary one.

dirt

by Kwame Dawes

I got one part of it. Sell them watermelons and get me another part. Get Bernice to sell that piano and I’ll have the third part.
—August Wilson

We who gave, owned nothing,
learned the value of dirt, how
a man or a woman can stand
among the unruly growth,
look far into its limits,
a place of stone and entanglements,
and suddenly understand
the meaning of a name, a deed,
a currency of personhood.
Here, where we have labored
for another man’s gain, if it is fine
to own dirt and stone, it is
fine to have a plot where
a body may be planted to rot.
We who have built only
that which others have owned
learn the ritual of trees,
the rites of fruit picked
and eaten, the pleasures
of ownership. We who
have fled with sword
at our backs know the things
they have stolen from us, and we
will walk naked and filthy
into the open field knowing
only that this piece of dirt,
this expanse of nothing,
is the earnest of our faith
in the idea of tomorrow.
We will sell our bones
for a piece of dirt,
we will build new tribes
and plant new seeds
and bury our bones in our dirt.