"Ah, Merica"- Poem by Rushelle Frazier
Channel: Rushelle Frazier
Date: 2015-01-04

Rushelle Frazier reads her poem, "Ah, Merica."
This video was recorded at Worcester Stands with Ferguson Benefit Show at Stone Soup on January 3, 2015. 

rushellefrazier.com

Transcript: 

Ah, 'Merica

It's 2015, and anyone with the paper can be a citizen of the world, 
but in this country, we play with the definition of civilian on a case-by-shade basis. 

Do I look like I praise my god like a patriot? 
Am I dressed like a friendly?

Am I dark enough to be detained without question? 
Indefinitely Disappeared without fanfare or twitter hashtag. 

Ah, 'Merica. 
Where we all have the luxury to change any channel except the one that matters, 
freedom to scroll on by when friends post images of war, 
freedom to feel more productive after the 2:30 lolcats break.   

Things are good. Things are so good that it is near-guaranteed that the children of the children I refuse to bear have the same chance of drowning in the rising waters that will sink the lungs of my neighbor's progeny

Is this what the new equality looks like?
Does my appearance line up with the right ideas of gender in this region? 
But not too much that I look like I'm asking for it or anything?
Am I textbook harmless enough to pass by?
To Over-Underwhelm you? 
Some non-feminine non-woman considered barely human even in the highest fashion I can afford. 
Working twice as hard for an eighth of the respect. 

Do I look weak enough to harass?
Now, I have the freedom to be policed by the state or my neighbor. 
The whole world is telling me to straighten my hair from their car windows.

This anger is not new, my predicament shouldn't be news to the NPR set
surprise is a sign that you should be shamed of yourselves
this whole system was built on the backs of black brown yellow red women and men
gagged beaten branded second-class, children hoodwinked or bled 
purchased to pave the way/ stockpile the riches of your ancestors 
who today swim upstream against school to prison pipeline or the flow of random stop and frisks
the color of my face and the thickness of my hair shade me the possible local terrorist 
sketchy demographic threat in your neighborhood (formerly known as my neighborhood)
throwing your great white whiteness into relief
one every 28 hours- our blood slowed to a steady stream 
chain-linked to my ancestors strewn under the ocean along the slave route. 

Do I sound like I'm from here?
Started killing my spirit before I even made it to your stolen shores
no surprise today they kill the children of my sisters under right to work laws, cultural mores, identity politics and fixed history books

"first-run poverty draft pick, you know you're not going to college, better work on that hustle" 

Does it look like my father is still in the picture?
taught to play into a system that creates good prisoners, bad negroes, and unaddressable unrespectable bitches
like it's the only game in town
My president is blackballing the voices of the poor
And I'm supposed to celebrate like we all made it now? 
I'll reverse this racism twice over your smug colorblind face  

All I want to do is live my life under better conditions
spending rapidly falling currency in the presence of clerks who want to diminish me on sight
purchasing under added surveillance food items with less vitamins than versions in decades prior
fighting the now knee jerk impulses to pursue things that will not lift me up 
fighting the now knee-jerk impulses to police my own small privilege 
programmed to act on a model of scarcity
until it's a radical act to love a queer black woman.
until it's a radical act to love myself and not fight or flinch at the hands of others attempting to do the same.