apology a·pol·o·gy
1. An acknowledgment expressing regret or asking pardon for a fault or offense.
2. a. A formal justification or defense.
b. An explanation or excuse.
3. An inferior substitute.
(I'm using definition 2a.)



"Not the Expected Apology"

Descendant of Ofey,
Are you stupid, ignorant, arrogant,
Or all of the above?
You can't understand why your colored neighbors,
Great-great-great-great-great-great-grand slaves
Refuse to show you any love? And then,
Stupid, ignorant, arrogant, aforementioned,
You always ask me "why"
Like the forgetful snake you are,
Like I really need to explain
Like I just forgot
Like a boiling pot on the back eye
The history of racist white in tights...

So today, Ofey, there's no need for you to bother me
Just sit back devil and peep out my APOLOGY...

Because it flew over Selma, Alabama as my people, peaceful protesters, were tear-gassed and beaten by policemen wearing it on their strong arms;
Because its shadow crept its way around America's Concentration Camps for Japanese-Americans;
Because it's draped over the bodies of soldiers deemed disposable, disowned by the very military they served;
Because it stood at attention on the rooftops of segregated military barracks;
Because it shrouded the coffin of one of America's president killed by the government he served;
Because it had no black, no yellow, no green;
Because it has no black, no yellow, no green;
Because its stripes represent the scars on my ancestors' back, and the scars on my Black consciousness;
Because all of the stars in the midnight sky ain't white;
Because stars were what we saw when the bars were on our necks;
Because it represents something arrogantly archaic, something from “Grate” Britain, something called “Man-infest Guessdiny”;
Because it sanctifies taking, raping, disease, Puritanical, Satanical, Maniacal;
Because it loomed over a court house that freed 4 cops for brutality captured on film, for turning a Gorilla into mist;
Because it sanctimoniously waved over segregated schools and found itself adhered to segregated school buses;
Because it's on the uniform of cops that harass Black crack dealers but ignore white people snortin’ China White—it’s still cocaine;
Because it swings above a house of Black majority known as Prison, which houses many a Black unfairly imprisoned;
Because it flew over your parents and blew over my parents;
Because you would never stand up to acknowledge or pledge allegiance to the Nazi flag;

Because standin’ to it equates me as a good lil boy, for compliance is alliance, not defiance, to his highness;
Because to me it's nothin’ but a reminder of the Old America, oddly reminiscent of New America;
Because it's my right;
Because of all of this and so much more, I don't dare give this...thing any respect.
I don't dare stand and give homage to this pagan—
despite the 80's and The Gipper Ronald Reagan.
I may as well bend over and gingerly, passionately, patriotically,
kiss the Devil's ass!
For if we are to celebrate the unity of a nation, then it starts with a new symbol,
a symbol without individual stars that bars particular stripes of color
from reaping the benefits of crops they themselves sowed so many years ago
in slavery,
A symbol in which blue doesn't represent a state of mind, and red doesn't represent the blood of the Na-va-jo, the Buff-a-lo, the Ne-ga-ro,
And as long as these images are part of my version of the flag
It gets no respects from me!
You tell me "If I don't like it, leave."
Well I'm tellin’ you the same.
Let's all go back Europe and Africa
and back to Potato Famine, Black Plague, Inopportunity,
balkanization, Paganism, Palm-leaf Huts, Malaria,
tribalization
And let's all start all over--no takers? No takers.

I find it interesting that this country is replete with individuals who can respect other individuals
Who find it impossible to wear an article of clothing because it reminds them of a bad relationship or the death of a loved-one,
Who find it impossible to carry a child that's the product of rape,
Who find it impossible to believe in abstract over substance,
But, by talkin’ out the side of theirs necks, cannot respect other individuals
Who find it impossible to stand and reverently acknowledge
A symbol that worked so hard
to keep them enslaved,
that certified genocide, and genital mutilation,
and rape, and the products of rape,
and Iynchings—God yes, the Iynchings done in your name,
and the break-up of the family
yesterday and today.
So when they ask me "Why?"
Why can't you people just be happy with what chu got?
Why can't you people look to a brighter future?
Why can't you people realize that color makes no difference?
It suggests to me that obviously these people have never had a cross
burned on their lawn at 3 in the morning
Or never had a problem catchin’ a cab in Downtown Anywhere anytime of any day,
Or never had a problem getting’ a loan with good credit,
Or never had to undress down to their draws just to pays a 14-dollar bill
with a check and 5 pieces of i.d.
You see, these people remind me that
Color does matter—Perhaps not in Camelot, or in Utopia.
But this ain’t Utopia; this is America.
This is America, my America. Remember,
My country pissed on me
Urine of Misery and now I stink!
Land where my fathers died
And all my mothers cried
With Massa at her bedside—now wha' chu think!
I wish I could afford to be myopic, narcissistic, romantic,
about this "thing" and my situation, but I can't.
The cops that harass me won't let me.
Nor can I worry about bruhs and sisters who do pay respects to
The Dead Life in You;
They're still in a form of mental slavery—and might even find my
APOLOGY comical.
But I see nothin’ funny about the 13 stripes representing
The 13 Original Comedies
The collected commodity of the Puritans that begot a child
Known as the "Immaculate Deception," nicknamed the
"Steal My Rights."
And this begot Fifty Shifty United Snakes
That wrap around everything that ain’t a snake
and slowly suffocates it while smilin’ in its face
talkin’ bout, "Meltin’ pot? Meltin’ pot!"
Yes! My answer could only be "Because!"
Cuz we're long overdue for a new symbol
One that I can stand to
One that has black, or brown, or gold,
Yellow, green, and black.
One without whip-marks, one without stars,
One without the arrogance of White Man's Burden
One that means what it's supposed to mean
One that turns anybody, who's nobody to everybody,
to somebody.

You see, we have to reach a point where
we stop worshipping things based on potential,
based on supposed, based on intention,
based on imagination—see the man in the moon?
See the cat? See the cradle?
See the tooth fairy? See Santa? See the Easter Bunny?
You can “see” those things, so takin’ a page from your book,
"Why can't you see my point?"

You see, we have to reach a point where that splash of black ink on white paper
Is just that, a blot.
I don't know the final form of this new symbol
But I know it ain’t the Stars that Bars, and as such
It gets no love from me.
Because I can't ally myself to it
Anymore than I can stand in allegiance to Mars
and all its potential for sustaining human life
Anymore than I can stand in allegiance to that pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow
Anymore than I can stand in allegiance to a Constitution
that's based on make-up instead of wake-up
that gave me superficial freedom a century later
that gave me separate and definitely unequal,
that gave me no forty acres nor a mule nor fifty dollars
but did give me a caged bird that didn’t sing
named Jim Crow
that gave me literacy tests for my right to vote,
that gave me, not you or him or her or them, me! 3/5ths of a right to vote.
I CAN’T STAND IN OR PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THIS DAMNED THING!
So sayeth me as a Black Man.
So sayeth me as a Human being,
H-U-E-M-A-N Being.
Now, stand to that!
And while you’re standin’ realize that
I can never do anythin’ worse to this flag—ANYTHIN’!
That can make low the things it did to me and my people.
More than my prerogative, this is my APOLOGY.

Not quite the apology you expected, huh Ofey?
Don't sleep! The Revolution continues...
We ain't all on Xbox...