as my hand flew flag-high for attention,
Though the principal was present, administration monitoring quite prevalent
not a chance was I afforded to mention
My contribution was considerable high status, on a seemingly conversant high stratum
to the disquisition evaluating curriculum,
But the inequities I peeped, on who was called on by the teach
made me reflect on arbitrarily encampments of “us” and “them”
Fiscal allocation, commensurable to our social-status station
was the academic topic being dissertated,
How the hell can we students stomach the gimmicky imprudence
of the praxis not properly excogitated?
For the topical dialogic though replete with rhetorical gymnastics
caught the rapt fervid assiduity of some of them,
Howbeit, my flag that’s not flagged, though still flying high with proud swag
made me ponder the students’ demographic ratio of twenty-seven to one
One was me, though completed by the addition of two of my sistas
subjected to this erudite lot we daily endure,
And because it’s hard to trust teachers, fiduciaries, cops, and the media
who’ve succumbed to biological explanations of blacks as being deterministically impure
Especially those beliefs that were founded on the wealth
of taxonomies delineating the human reticulum,
Though my hand still appears raised, my culturally-collective position remains staid
at the bottom of Blumenbach’s strategem
Howbeit, originally four–thanks to Linneaus and Bernier
human classification was hierarchically ranked superior to inferior,
Albeit, by supplying the fifth and increasing the terminal points breadth
this model module cast the negro ineluctably way out there
But this myth that’s been created, inherently divisive in nature
makes the numerical minority discount their own count,
Too busy shinin’, divinin’, appearing to be nominal and like-minded
remonstrates teachers for not providing historical narratives that truly count
Trans-racial solidarity broken, jockeying to be the accepted flavored token
while xenophobia, racism, inequity, and hate seem so lasted,
For the streets aren’t too safe, when jingoistic patriotrism is on display
for to wear a turban as a sign of your devotion may get you blasted
Way out there, so out there, corporeally and existentially projected to the peripheral
of social orders arranged along concentric zones,
Whether it’s the ethnic caricatures that define us, or the red-lining that confines us,
this systemic ad nauseam distrust is prescribed as a national sure-order nostrum
Perhaps Ellison was right; we have been made socially invisible,
as risible as an anthropological spectre
So though my hand still waves high, with answers to ply
ignorance of my cultural contributions have rendered me mute to her
So past in the past, boondocks dank in the past
infinitesimally remote it appears last,
Though the last is where it started, before the Blue and White Nile charted,
gems of history were discovered in Herskovit’s The Myth of the Negro Past
Now, that’s not where it started, for we have always provided voices
to the narratives that speak to our accomplishments in civilization,
Go ask Du Bois, go ask Jackson, Blyden, Diop, Van Sertima, or ben-Jochannan,
Al-Jahiz, or when Volney speaks on the ruins of empires and nations
So this ignorance of me, this me who makes we
of the “them” that has been conventionally decided
Makes me appear as the antithesis of morality, beauty, and good in the synthesis
to this teacher to whom my presence–with raised flag–is derided
Room one one zero one, every academic building usually has one,
sometimes doubling as a classroom, lab, or place to develop policy treatise,
Though the learning is sometimes feigned, and multiculturalism disdained
there is where learning is determined for society’s human detritus
“I’m supposed to be a scholar,” I hear the conscientious voice deep in me holler,
“you’ve damned near selected every signaled contribution but mine,”
However, in a transcendental moment, I ponder the conundrum,
of how many other ignored hands result in the extinguishment of young black minds?
Now, I presumed the other scholars’ quivers quivered, when they reached for their arrows
that perhaps may have eradicated this farce,
But these idealistic dragons, buttressing Westernized canons
don’t need fire, for they’re etiolating the initial historical source
That bankruptcy model of pedagogic logic that has excluded more than included,
if lacking in trust, then consult hooks, Freire, Delpit, Bell, or Tatum,
However, turn a blind-eye and deaf-ear, while remaining in culturally-proficient arrears
then let Zinn, Howitt, Wise, or Kivel tell of what has become of the “us” against “them”
So, my flag is unhoisted, not because it’s become flaccid or placid
but, now it’s time to pick up the pen and pen what I want
I don’t need teachers to fear me, or to be intimidated by my ‘aql–just hear me
but what I do demand is a curriculum that is critical and culturally relevant.