Dear Black Twitter: poems on the young black experience

By Jasmine Furr

Do you remember the first time you realized your race? Do you remember an incident that led you to believe your life would be different because of your race? For years, we've carried around thoughts and emotions that seem to only be addressed during times of crisis. Well, here we are in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Where do we go fro

• Language: English
• Publisher: Untraditional Publishing Company, LLC
• Release date: Jan 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780988777521

Book preview

Contents

Identity

Individual

Face

Worthy

Jesus

Sun of God

Within

African Violet

First Impression

Beat

Prayer

Alike

Divine

No Color-Blind Allowed

One Long Question

Silver

Black Baby, Silver Spoon

Life

Open Book

Appearance

Beauty

Sphinx

Expanding

Love

Strangers

Queen

2 from 1

Music to my eyes

You Can Be

One Time

Man

Just One

Solidarity

Generational

Fire

Tradition

Culture Vultures

Behavior

First

Our Own

The Dollar

Taken

Risk

Leader

Now

Justice

All

Our Youth

Love

More

Protest

Respect

Plug In

Loyalty

Opt Out

Choose Wisely

News

Woke

Manifest

Cycle

Relentless

Identity

Individual

Americans

allow me to acknowledge my blackness freely

in any school or business setting

allow me to exude

my excitement to be a product of an HBCU

my intelligence doesn’t need validation

from european indoctrination

I can read about Orishas

and wear adinkra symbols

and teach the children our contributions to history

since you insist on only remembering slavery

to misconstrue my own image of me

my black allegiance will never lag

behind the image of the American flag

and even if I don’t celebrate Columbus Day

I am still an American

all the way

Black people

allow me to accept the hyphen

allow me to accept the African and the American

allow me to spend time with my family on the 4th of July

as your objections rise on my timeline

as if people didn’t die

so we can enjoy American life

allow me to wear my hair straight

while you have a Willie Lynch mental

as you change your bio from #teamlightskin to #teamnatural

want to hold our blackness in separate files

because you reduce acceptance of identity to a hairstyle

and I know they created a white image of him in their favor

but that won’t stop me from accepting Jesus as my Savior