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The Cross-Continental Black Nation: A Poem by Rukayat Ololade Aliyu

The Cross-Continental Black Nation

The Cross-Continental Black Nation is a place
I see The Cross-Continental Black Nation as a place
I see The Cross-Continental Black Nation is a place where Black children attend schools
To learn more than just the rules
Of upholding a white supremacist capitalist system
But the truth of their historical identity
From Black teachers
From Black teachers who treat Black children as their own
These Black teachers teach Black truths
For the nation
With books
Written in Giz
We pray over the word written not in ink
But lion’s blood

[With a love for the children
As if she laid on her back
And brought him into the nation
As if she laid on her back and brought him into the nation
Because she laid on her back to bring him into the nation]

The Cross-Continental Black Nation
There is a Cross-Continental Black Nation
I said the Cross-Continental Black Nation
Is a place where Black minds and Black hearts unify
We don’t spite
One another
For whites

In the nation, there is peace
Organization
In the least
What we can do for one another
Is to teach the Black Gods and Goddesses
Of the truth
While we build
Aero planes
To one another
Throughout The Nation

And in the Cross-Continental Black Nation
We are one
Of a kind
We wear wraps made of cotton
From the River Nile
In the Cross-Continental Black Nation
I said the Cross-Continental Black Nation
An organization
Of Black States
Of urgency
Consciousness
Is here to fix this mess
And correct
The best lies ever believed in
Prayed on
In the minds of young Afrikans
In The Nation

And we pay dues to our center
The capital is Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania
KUSH
Is the Mecca
We go there to repent
To ancestors
We relent
All the loads
With which we are burdened
As a people
As a person
I am burdened
I need a nation
To support me
I am burdened
With the souls of Black Folk
Who are lost
Who don’t know
They are Golden
Gods and Goddesses hiding under
Expensive clothing
Russell Simmons did a number on white fashion
Makes more off misguided passion
Into video ho-ing, intellect killing
Black destruction
Lack of instruction
Is my problem
Which is why I need the Cross-Continental Black Nation
To destroy him
To make clothes out of Kente
Not bleached out of poison
The cotton fabric
Made in China
In Alabama
Comes out of hatred
Comes out of hatred
For Black People
Who could anoint
We could anoint their lost children
With the melanin touch
Because
We are golden

We feel God speaking to us
In pigmentation
We see God speaking to us
In pigmentation
We hear God speaking to us
In pigmentation
The Black Nation
Is an incubator
Of Gods
And Black children
Will come here
To be saved
And Black parents
Already members
Are Black jewels
Because they shine
With the sun
In unending lamination
Of the world’s secret stories
Of Black destruction
Genocide
Depletion
Of our lives
Striving to be white
With blonde perms
And contact lenses
Fake nails
On our menses
We take pills
Made to quench the white woman
Of her sanity
We inject
Pins to make us bleed more
Killing women
By the menses

So in The Cross-Continental Black Nation
There is healthy
Women wanting
Women joining
Women supporting
Ends the menses
And in The Cross-Continental Black Nation
There is healthy
There is men
Unifying
Boldly fighting
Never fearing
Without fighting

You see The Cross-Continental Black Nation
Is like praising
And then praying
Like with all fists together and heads bowed
Black souls
Communicate
Without making a sound
And through melanin receive
All the power
Of the spirit
All the comfort of the healing
All the stable of the feeling
Knowing God lives within us
We are healing
We are bonding
We are one
We are fearless

Because The Cross-Continental Black Nation is a place
I said The Cross-Continental Black Nation is a place
I said the Cross-Continental Black Nation is a place
Where arms join
Side by side we stand together
Wars we fight
And our union
Is like butter
Organic
Chemical
Is like July 27th Movement
Is like Ashanti resistance
Is like the biggest Black War
That killed imperialism
In history

Like not a single foreign national left in Africa
That fine morning
That fine morning
When Saxes play
The melody
Of victory
And drums were made to speak songs
To my Black body
So when they beat
On that day
Black bodies dance and shake, move and break bones
To the calls
Of the victory drums
That we beat
Across
The Cross-
Continental
Black Nation

And men in Kenya
On the sides of the roads
Selling goats
Will dance in jubilee
And women
Weaving cotton
On the roads
Of Ethiopia
Will stop weaving and sing
And the street hustler
Will stop hustling
And start break dancing
Dying mothers will find relief and relaxation
In the victory of The Black Nation
Construction workers will stop hammering
Coltan miners will stop searching
Diamond miners will stop searching
Oil suppliers will stop pumping
Hair designers will stop twisting

For a moment
To feel the exhale
Of The Cross-Continental Black Nation

African Children and grown people
Will pour into the streets
They will dance, they will sing, they will shout in jubilee

When the last battle’s won
Yes the last battle’s won
Yes the last war is won

And the announcement
And the announcement
And the announcement

WE ARE FREE!

=============
© 2007 Rukayat Aliyu

Rukayat Ololade Aliyu
Rukayat Ololade Aliyu
Rukayat Ololade Aliyu is a published poet and spoken word artist based in Brooklyn, NY.  Born in Ijesha, Lagos Island, her works deal passionately with the plight of our people and solutions to the problems we face.  Her blog.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Well your poem sounds musical and long…. Guess you are political about it, but still I like the way your river flows through it all and your message is very obvious

  2. I like the intensity in the poem; it puts it at the level of epic (and even prophecy). Good style and strong voice. Keep it up!

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