The brilliance of black children
Can not be seen by those accustomed
To solving algorithms and problems
Who crunch data
and believe that information is wisdom
the brilliance of black children
has no room here
so we plow through lessons because
Saving us must not be disrupted
Or off script
Or out side the line
Education designed not to
make us curious about the world
Or love learning
or love ourselves
Teaching us is always about compliance and obedience
making us believe who we are is never enough to
stand alone
The brilliance of black children is that
we know what you think
What you believe about
our innate capacity our humanness
Our character
and we still find joy
The brilliance of black children is
that we can not be reduced
to test and text books
to put your cell phone away
or take out your pencil
raise your hand to go to the bathroom
sit up
walk straight
stare ahead
metal detectors
have no magic about you
Like black boys with no headphones listening to fetty wap on the train
And trashing talking
Like the after school let out
We know we are our own best kept secret
And the only place we are fully free is with each other
With our own bodies
So we sit quiet
Even though now a days that too
Has a cost
If ever I am ripped from my chair
Tossed like a rag doll
Told by hands of a white man
a stranger
forcibly taking my body
to satisfy his own rage at my defiance
Let the rage of my sisters be penance you pay
Let the love and protection of my dignity
be a force for you to reckon with
Because only a woman was brave enough to save and stand for another
We are the ones we been waiting for
And to the rest of the room
To everyone else
we are collateral damage on the way to
our peoples full destruction
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