Issue 2, February 2007
RECONSTRUCTION
by Antonio Howard
Writer, Poet, Artist, Solutionary, Prisoner and Human Being
Kidnapped—transported…
Stripped of our names
And forced to accept new ones.
Arrested—transferred…
Stripped of our names
And forced to accept numbers.
Auctioned off auction blocks;
Bought and sold – prison stock.
Slaves ships now busses
With “D.O.C.” painted on the sides.
Long rides;
Bound in chains,
Rusted from the moisture
Of our ancestors bloodstains.
They’ve been replaced
By the Newer model:
Adjustable – one size fits all.
Even the bullwhip design
Has undergone an overhaul—
Evolved;
Now they’re called batons.
But they’re still black.
And I still got the marks on my back.
Education once forbidden;
Now permitted but with restrictions.
They got rules against the kinds of books
We can and can’t get – in.
Prohibitions against gatherings
In groups of more than 10—
Back then.
But they’ve since cut that number down to 5.
And we’ve gone from prayin’ to God
To sayin’ we God:
Death to barely alive.
Castration through non-contact visits.
And where contact is permitted
A man can barely get hard to hit-it.
I know all this ‘cause I live it.
Plantations—prisons;
Freedom still envisioned.
The word “nigger”,erased.
But it’s been replaced by “inmate”;
Spoken with the same contempt in every state.
Signs that once read “WHITES ONLY”
Now read “STAFF ONLY/NO INMATES ALLOWED”.
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