Patriots

© Mwalimu K. B. Baruti
excerpted from his book entitled Battle Plan

we surpassed all

in camouflaging our

homes, yards, clothes, cars, offices, bodies, world

with an ol' glory

confused victims

glorify their smiling victimizers

in hope

of peace and love

in this place

in this time

we

more so than all others

express undying loyalty

hoping to stave off

an eternal bloodlust

their colors

in our homes

to ward off

demons within

in our yards

to avoid

identification by the state

on our clothes

to blend into

a uniform individuality

on our cars

to confuse

the killer blue lights

of blacks and whites

in our offices

to increase

a competitive negro advantage

on our bodies

to prostitute

our most personal space

in their world

to escape punishment

for being born great

our patriotism goes

beyond the crispus attuckses

beyond the dorie millers

beyond a host of black firsts

seconds servicing the pale supremacy

which sought/seeks

to kill the Afrikan gene

our patriotism has gone

beyond urging

our sons, fathers, brothers, nephews

to kill yellows, reds, browns and blacks

even competing whites

for psychopathic destroyers

we renew

our vows of loyalty

with fresher and fresher sacrifices

fearfully responding to

the hateful, retaliatory envy of feminist politics

toward white male homosexual military domination

of them and, inadvertently, us

we renew

our vows of fidelity

with our daughters, mothers, sisters, nieces

pushing and allowing them

to lay down

their lives, their children, their sacred wombs

for alien men

coming under the rule of their alienated women

witness

the red, white and blue

discoloring domestic battlefields

as our children

young and old

make history

giving colors

for the first time

since our captivity

priority

over style

even putting gang colors

valiantly safeguarding barren turf

to shame

witness

our children

draping themselves in

the red blood

of other's ancestors

the white skin

of their enemies

the blue waters

of our middle passage

basking in mentacide

escalating their suicide

gloating over our genocide

again and again and again

buying flags, ribbons, tags, clothes, whatnots

good money after bad

witness their parents

desperately fighting

for the right

to redefine

submission as empowerment

insanity as consciousness

genocide as rebellion

european as Afrikan

fighting for the right

to win the lie

of being free

of feeling safe

in hell

witness

our wasted genius

our dogged search

for ways

to prove our worth

to others

alien

hateful

incomplete others

us begging the approval

of barbaric children

planning, wishing, thinking

"if i could only save one european

in battle

please, Lord, just one

i would be a hero

i would be visible

i could lay down my cross

be admitted into whiteness

become colorless

be loved as their own"

such determined genius

addicted to a deeper form of crack

called whiteness

sad.

so, so, sad.