Spoken word by the spiritual poet

First and foremost, I am human before The Middle Passage sailed the seas for centuries. I am human before the Declaration of Independence became a figment, fluid, form and fruition. I am human before the Constitution of the United States was conceived, crafted and consummated. I am human before Emancipation Proclamation became the utterance of authority that would vet, vouch and validate our freedom. I am human before the Black Reconstruction, before the Black Codes and before the Jim Crow. I am human before I was granted human rights, civil rights and equal rights by the alleged nation founded under God. I am human before I was classified as part man and part beast by the saintly, civilized and sovereign nation. I am human before I was classified as mutant, mongrel and a minority devoid of meaning and magnitude worthy of measure on the Richter scale of Western society. I am human before I was classified as black, benighted, barbarous and dangerous. I am human before I was classified as criminal, corrosive and cancerous to the commonwealth of this country. And I am human before I was classified as predator, parasite and proverbial pariah in society.

For over four hundred years, we have been strategically, systematically and selectively demonized, demoralized and dehumanized in the name of racism. For over four hundred years, we continue to experience concentration, centralization, ghettoization and now mass incarceration as a people group in the name of fear, fantasy and felony. And for over four hundred years, we continue to march tirelessly singing freedom’s song of justice and peace as she rises from the marrow of our soul until victory is won.

“Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast”

The spirit of freedom will not allow us to stand-down, will not allow us to step back and will not allow us to step aside as we will march on until victory is won for I am human. I am human.