Juneteenth: Love & Liberty

On the 4th of July we were told 4 lies…

We’re entitled to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and we were free…

But it was 13 years shy of a century 

Before that Independence applied to me

1776 to 1863

An additional 2 years before the message was received

And here we are in 2023

Using 23 & Me to find ourselves. 

The commonwealth bonded our freedom and placed it on the back of the shelf

Sharing space with our chance at generational wealth and the loss of our identities

Even Vatican City can claim no spiritual kin to me

How can men of the cloth be complacent in our captivity

Are we not also the image of God?

Some may say we are the parents of civility,

But not even you came for me

Because at this point, it’s subpar

To continue running that same line

About how the meek shall inherit the earth

To keep us docile, broken, unhealed & hurt…

This was the psychological warfare of Freddy mixed with the physical terror of Jason

As you slaughtered your way into the fittest position in a survivalist nation

With The Crown still racism adjacent

And we were but dream warriors of General Order #3^*

Not even the Holy Father put on his cape for me

So, respectfully, the only Pope I acknowledge is Olivia

And since our history is reduced to quizzo trivia

Excuse me as I reference Shondaland

Like my good sis, I am a lethal visionary with a pen

And I will beat you Black & Blue

You were a glorified hunter, until the lion spoke

We been gentle folk

But I will not be humble

I will not make my voice small

I will not minimize the facts

You will not rewrite us as indentured servants and get away with that

You will not keep inciting arguments debating whether Egyptians were Black

Its location within the Motherland proves it’s an undisputed fact

But let you see a Black Achilles on TV

And you’re so quick to anger 

Homer’s Iliad was a work of fiction, but the truth is stranger 

Insert the studies of Professor Leakey

But the knowledge is buried so you’d never have to free me

Indoctrinated our minds so meticulously

That we willingly celebrate the holidays that mock our humanity

Oh the insanity of fighting for the same rights over and over again…

But they say when you know better, you do better

So bake my mac with extra cheddar

Grill my hotdog with extra char

And no raisins in my potato salad because that’s going too far

For I am only here for the food.

No longer will I allow the voice of Frederick Douglass to be drowned by the sounds of fireworks

decorating the sky

As he implored: “What to the slave is the 4th of July?”

For on that day, 4 things were excluded from our lives…

Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness & the right to be free

Juneteenth is our true jubilee

Where the koolaid is cold

The colors are bold

The cornrows are giving sacred geometry 

The sister locs are flowing

And the afros defy gravity 

I can already hear Before I Let Go mixed with Megan The Stallion savagery

May your neighborhood be blessed with at least one unapologetically black family

Who celebrates so grandly with their God Given Audacity

That our timelines merge with the bloodlines of 1863

And touch the ancestors’ spirits so they’ll know they were free.