A Slave for Life – The Life of a Slave
By Edwin Turner aka Tāriq Zaynu-l-Ábidiyn
[This is a spoken word poem about the perspective of an African slave,
historically and in modern times.]
My historical presence within this country was a gloomy atmosphere of chaotic situations and,
although I never had the intentions of coming here,
Fate has led me into shackles of a foreign people.
Wading through the tracks of Nigerian mud,
chains producing scars of blood, ripping through the humanity of my ankles is all I remember!
O, ha! I remember being led through an assembly line of slaves to a boat called the Mayflower where,
we were shoved inside of a small dark room, exposed to the dreadful smell of urination and feces and,
all I could think about was that it would be contrary to the historical strength of African people for me to allow this circumstance to defeat me!
See, I was the victim of colonizers motivated by greed for material possessions,
forced to work in cotton fields to produce capital for American capitalists, while,
at the same time, questioning the meaning behind my existence as an African.
I was told that my position as a slave would be temporary and the Christianity in our oppressors would force them to emancipate us!
Ironically, the emancipation proclamation was alleged to have freed us but
the Jim Crow era showed us to what extent the US Government had deceived us!
A perpetual status of inferiority, the 13th Amendment could attest to this reality,
the stratification of society with Africans as its lowest class thus,
industrialized slavery was born!
The case of a man named Freeway Rick illuminates to what extent the local police departments, in cahoots with the CIA, had conspired to introduce drugs into LA thus,
creating a social structure conducive to the hijacking of Africans with the goal of assimilating them back into the slave plantation (prison)!
No Comments