“The First Black”

by Too Black

"The First Black"
     the Clayface of the Black race --
     shape-shifted
     to fit the state's mission
     Muddying the waters of slaughter 
     A farcical marvel;
     built by white guilt
     Sculpted and welded
     to quell a rebellion 
"The First Black" 
     is almost always the safe Black
     Raised as a docile rotwild
     Taught to bark down at its own breed,
     but rarely seems to bite 
     the white hand that feeds
"The First Black"
     the single needle 
     conveniently placed 
     within the colonized haystack
     Handpicked -- 
     personified as the proverbial reminder,
     "Hey, maybe now the evil empire might have a soul???"
     Or at least an irredeemable heart beat
"The First Black"
     the empire's artificial pacemaker
     A white device
     pumping electrical impulses of 
     'hope' and 'progress,'
     to prevent the cardiac arrest
     of the American project
"The First Black"
     indoctrinating little Black kids 
     with their elitist trends,
     "if they work hard too"
     they can grow up to be grifting assimilationists 
     "just like us" 
     Achieving the same decadent "Black Excellence" like:
         The First Black President 
              to order a drone strike on a wedding night       (Change!)
         The First Black Billionaire 
               to help gentrify a borough (Brooklyn Stand Up!)
         The First Black Colonel 
                 given the job to train an African death squad (Africom)
"The First Black"
     When 'rooting for everybody Black'
     goes wrong
     like a "First Black" mayor 
     authorizing a MOVE bomb
     Simmering in the inflammable contradictions, 
     the truth spawns
"The First Black" 
     is the unsavory labeling of genocide and slavery
     as democracy's marketplace of "imperfections"
     While arrogantly proclaiming, 
     "hey, look at our first Black person section!"
"The First Black"
     IS NOT a person --
     it's a false assertion
     A deluded assumption
     That a corrective to oppression
     is the individual achievements of a few
     That Power comes 
     by trickling down some sour crumbs to the collective
     Or by an inevitable glass ceiling we negros can break through
     Instead of a burning imperial home, white-hot to collapse 
"The First Black" 
     IS NOT "progress" 
     Progress is not a hill we climb
     It's a series of colonial mountains we load to explode
     It's the Igbo people 
     The first enslaved Africans
     To rise from the bottom of the deck
     ravaging their slave Lords 
     Tossing their captors overboard
     While arriving free on shore
     Only to march back into the water 
     because they'd rather die as martyrs
     Than survive the terror 
     to become a "first Black" whatever
"The First Black" 
     DOES NOT exist --
     only everyday Black folk 
     Who collectively defy and persist
     Everything else...
     is a white supremacist myth

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Too Black is a poet, member of Black Alliance For Peace, host of The Black Myths Podcast on Black Power Media, and producer of The Last Dope Intellectual. He is based in Indianapolis, IN and can be reached at tooblack8808@gmail.com or @too_black_ on Twitter.