Blessed Black
By Shanta Lee
or is it African American, Neosoul Love Jones finger snap negro,
or is it blessed my nigga rom around the way, or the new negro
sprung from the loins of Zora, Countee, Langston, Augusta, Billie n’ dem
Maybe fam, cuz, brotha, sista...
Legend says the Dutch
were trynna say from Niger
others blame Latin
All we know
is from the spray
from spittle of White mouths
like a Circean wand,
we be blesstized Black
Back in the day Birth of a Nation be our Gorgon, Black bodies
turned stone in America’s gaze. Dangerous, good for nothin, lazy...then who
the hell built all this? Here, the Obamas rival the Huxtables rivaled the
Jeffersons rivaled Good Times, movin on up uppity...careful, they can’t
believe we wanna be above our colah, venture beyon station of skin. Back
in the day, all that causin White rage: 1923 Rosewood, the 1919 Red Summer
that reigned three seasons, 1917 East St. Louis, 1906 Atlanta, 1834 Philly’s flying
horses, all the ways they say, We been doin this
Applying Ovid’s
Pythagorean theory:
Black bodies shapeshift
Shape and shift, neva bucks, neva wenches, nobody’s stud, notchya
mammy, pickaninny, jezebel, nobody’s wedding gift, nobody’s inheritance.
Defiled mulatto and yellow, tainted quadroon, octoroon, all shades
of names for massa-got-him-some. Simply put, rape-colored
Unbranded good natur’d, good temper’d
Unmade stout, nobody’s sturdy able, straight limb’d...
What we really sayin is, ‘These here, they reeealll valuable.’
Maybe be like Black hair, that natural, rice water grown fully weaned
from that whack creamy crack, that loosen the curl chemical, no more
faux natural. No more prayin to the God of Good Hair, good hair’s cancelled,
no nostrils filled with the sizzle of Blue Magic kissin hot combs, no more
askin to be like Myra, Ebony, Toya, Lisa, those girls, any girl with that
good hair. Maybe be like forgettin the word that rhymed with happy,
Droppin happy, droppin kinky, droppin coils altogetha. And for
the record, nobody's boxer braids, but once-coded-for-freedom-
corn-rows
Tignon laws told us
they been policin our bodies
legal shades n’ cadavers
became the mistake
meant for a sewin machine
turned test on dog’s fur
It was really Madam C.J. preachin
Let your crown glory be
...is it Black as in river-bed-Black, Bedouin Brown, Deep-Chocolate-Alek-Wek-Brown,
Sahara Brown, Red Bone as in fine as in Light Skin, Cinnamon, Sugar-
Cookie-Slightly-Burnt as in Caramel, Ginger Snap. Maybe Trail-of-Tears under-
tones like Rose Gold hue. Hershey’s Kiss, far, far away from plantation as in
massa-ain’t-touch-none-of-this. We-need-a-new-name-to-describe-that-kind, the
nothing-added-to-that-epidermis, nothing added to dare reflect any other color,
Offensively-uncategorized-Black
or is it Blaque, Blaq, POC,
is it BIPOC,
not colored but of some color
is it ?
?
?
Original names? We know nothin. We be the
Unnamed,
Nonamed
Renamed
Shanta Lee, "Blessed Black" from Black Metamorphoses. Copyright © 2023 by Shanta Lee. Reprinted by permission of Etruscan Press.
