By: Jade Brooks
And this is who I struggle for
This is who I fill my brain with knowledge for
My heart with love for
My spirit with resilience for
As they say, there’s a method to the madness
& no step walked in resilience is walked in vain
Even when I feel alone in the world
I couldn’t give up struggling if I wanted to
My conscience wouldn’t allow it
There’s no plane that could fly me far enough to escape the struggle
There’s no car I could drive far enough to escape the struggle
No train track, no piggy back
No means of escape could separate me from the struggle
Cause the struggle lives in me
Black life is a part of the struggle
From their conception to their homecoming when our ancestors receive them again
Cause Eugenics and narcotics and pharmaceuticals and GMO don’t want to see us live
Black love is a part of the struggle
Spring weddings and 60 yr anniversaries
Jumping the broom
Something old and something new
Young and in love and can’t get enough of you, of us black love
Brown eyes in a trance, black fingers holding hands, big lips kissing away tears of pain and passion
That black, black love
Old and still in love black love
Still respectful of, still protective of black love
I’ll be yours until we die then I’ll see you on the other side black love
Black love doesn’t die
It’s more than the rose that grew from the concrete
It’s the baby born with the cord around its neck
And all of the fatality rates that say it won’t live
That cord is the system
But we gon’ go on living anyway
Black families are a part of the struggle
Like big squeals from tiny mouths, “Daddy’s home, Daddy’s home!”
Black love like Mom saying, “You guys won’t be going anywhere until that homework is done!”
Black love like my sister saying, “If anyone tries to jump in, I’m jumping in!”
Black love like my brother taking me on dates and his only explanation of why is that he’s showing me
how a man is supposed to treat me
Black love like candy from Nanny and favorite aunties and a tidal wave flow of first cousins to play with
on holidays
Black love like tattle tales and teasing and fighting and ‘fending for
Cause they’d rather tell us that we don’t exist in that capacity
They’d rather portray the lie that we’re incapable of loving like so, of living like so, of surviving like so
But we’re in it and we did it and we continue to do so
Being black is part of the struggle
Whether you’re a yellow bone or a brownin or a dark skinned beauty
We’re in it
We resist the system in our own ways and I know in my heart that we’re always only one step away
from liberation
& when we walk that step in resilience, we walk alongside and within the spirits of our ancestors
As soon as we step away from disunity, we step towards freedom
We have nothing to lose but our chains since our black is eternal
I know now that as soon as my mother gave birth to me
I was born to struggle
Struggle is the foundation of freedom
We don’t live to die
We die to live
And that’s all we want to do is live
Live free from the constraints and confinement of the system’s oppressive, destructive, and murderous
ways
Like Assata Shakur
I am she who struggles
I was born to struggle
I was born in struggle
Even if no one sees me struggling
Even when I lose hope for the world and don’t believe in struggling
I couldn’t give up struggling
My conscience wouldn’t allow it
When my ancestors rise from the floors of the oceans and the bottoms of their unmarked graves and
through the soil of the trees they hung from to ask me what I did with the struggle that they passed on
to me
I will say I lived it, I survived it, I wrote it down and gained strength from it
I shared it with words and tears and love
And I conceived it
I left it’s legacy to live on
And I knew that no step walked in resiliency would ever be walked in vain
As long as I’m here, in this life, I’ll be she who struggles and when I pass it on to my own reflection of
creation
That reflection will draw upon the strength I’ve received from those before me
And we will struggle
In spirit and love and resistance