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My
Heart Aches Like the Black Ghetto,
The Big Black Ancient Ghetto
By Kamau Tebogo Zulu Damali, Prisonersolidarity.org
May 5, 2007
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto
...
like the anguished spirit of the battered wife, fed up with her
abusive husband, who gets up in the middle of the night, retrieves
a hand gun from the dresser, and turns on the light. With teary
eyes, she stands over him as he sleeps, and snuffs out his life.
Twenty years of domestic horror gone in a blink of an eye. She falls
to her knees and inquires to the Most High - why?
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto
...
like the drug addict who stole his Mama's t.v. and microwave for
a $20 free base, like the desperate father who robbed a bank to
feed his family in good grace, and like the pain hidden behind the
smile on a little ghetto girl's face.
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto
...
like an uzi machine gun leaning out a car window, spitting death
on a lonely, broken-down ghetto street, like the painful kick in
the stomach that a Black man receives from a racist pig-police.
Like the tempestuous growls vibrating in the tummy of a two-year-old
child abandoned in her home, devoid of any sustenance, as her Mama
lay dead on the bathroom floor, overdosed for two weeks from bad
dope, with a needle stuck in the belt wrapped around her left arm...
and with the few words that the baby girl knows, she mewls: "Mama,
mama, mama." But Mama can't hear her, because Mama is gone.
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto
...
like the hungry kids in Ethiopia who haven't eaten in days, like
the orphan babies in South Africa who have no place to stay, like
the diabolical genocide that stifled Rwanda, like the U.S. encouraged
Civil War of Liberia, like the world's deprived and starved children.
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto
...
like the slavery that claimed over 100 million Afrikan lives in
the middle passage, like the European monsters who pillaged and
defiled the beauty of Mama Afrika, like the racism that hung my
grandfather, father, uncle, brother, son, cousin, nephew, and friend
from the sycamore tree, like the wicked white xenophobic lust that
raped my grandmother, mother, auntie, wife, sister, daughter and
niece. Like the police dogs and water hoses that attacked and splashed
Black men, women and children in the street, like the injustice
that terrorized Black and Native people because they wanted to be
equal and free.
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto
...
like the blood stains left on the side walk from a young Black man
who died at the hands of another Black man ... and like the cries
from his bereaved mother.
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto
...
like the prison walls, the prison stairs, the prison guards, the
prison letters, the prison phone calls, the prison air, the prison
blues, the prison dues, the prison grub, the prison hunger, the
prison hate, the prison love, the prison loneliness, the prison
screams, the prison fears, the prison dreams, the prison rage, the
prison tears, the prison pain.
My heart aches like the Black Ghetto, the Big Black Ancient Ghetto!
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Please send your correspondence to ....
Reformed Conscious Prisoner
Kamau Tebogo Zulu Damali (aka Raynell D. Morgan)
#279380
WSPF
PO Box 9900
Boscobel, WI 53805
Look for other essays written by this Kamau, in the commentary section
(and archives) of the Prisonersolidarity.org website. This talented
writer has recently completed a book and is looking for a publisher.
For more information, please contact him at the above address.
---
Kamau Tebogo Zulu Damali is housed in Wisconsin's sole supermax,
the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility. He describes himself as a
self-educated man who has been learning Swahili and dreams of receiving
a college degree if ever released. He is helping his wife-to-be
plan the founding of a nonprofit organization for underprivileged
children in Washington, D.C. Kamau recently completed a book entitled,
Prison Letters, and is working on a second, called Poetic Revolution.
He is looking for progressive publisher
for these two works. If interested (or if you'd simply like to write),
please contact Kamau by writing to him at the address listed above.
Below are links to his previously published
Prisonersolidarity essays.
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/RaynellMorgan.htm
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/RaynellMorgan2.htm
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/RaynellMorgan3.htm
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/RaynellMorgan4.htm
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/RaynellMorgan5.htm
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/RaynellMorgan6.htm
http://www.prisonersolidarity.org/RaynellMorgan7.htm
The
following link offers tips for writing to prisoners: http://prisonersolidarity.org/TipsForWritingPrisoners.htm
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