A Demand for Acknowledgment
A tribute to the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March
By Alexis Randles
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Perhaps it is the complexities of the complexion of my skin.
Is it its tint that gives you the hint: “I mean business”?
Is it its distinct appearance that tells you
I cruised across the furthest seas to a land
that still profits from the work of my hardworking hands?
Is it its smooth quality that clearly personifies we and beauty are one and the same?
You ignore my existence and pretend to not know the pronunciation of my name
That was somehow created by the same syllables and consonants from the makeup of your brain.
I Demand Acknowledgment, not an apology, not forty acres and a mule.
You can stop the preparations for the reparations.
I want you to see that behind this wall that hides all that which divides is pride,
That remembers the cold Decembers, the cotton fields, the sharecropping for a hopeful profiting, is me
But somehow will still be a mere shade that will soon fade.
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