"we all rose / every black one of us still alive / and went to meet that man / the same man who had erased our blackboard, crashed our computer heads, / burned our books and cooked our elders in superstitions and trivial / remembrances slave traders called fairytales from when massa was animals"
— Kalamu ya Salaam (b. 1947)
Author
Place of Publication
New Orleans, LA
Date
1989
Metaphor
"we all rose / every black one of us still alive / and went to meet that man / the same man who had erased our blackboard, crashed our computer heads, / burned our books and cooked our elders in superstitions and trivial / remembrances slave traders called fairytales from when massa was animals"
Metaphor in Context
this is my story, the story of slavery is their story
the story of survival is my story, the lacerations aching
my back were meant to break me down into subhuman submission
but the balm of my music salved my suffering
and when the whiplash fever broke, in the morning i rose
and went once again to meet the man, we all rose
every black one of us still alive
and went to meet that man
the same man who had erased our blackboard, crashed our computer heads,
burned our books and cooked our elders in superstitions and trivial
remembrances slave traders called fairytales from when massa was animals,
the story of survival is my story, the lacerations aching
my back were meant to break me down into subhuman submission
but the balm of my music salved my suffering
and when the whiplash fever broke, in the morning i rose
and went once again to meet the man, we all rose
every black one of us still alive
and went to meet that man
the same man who had erased our blackboard, crashed our computer heads,
burned our books and cooked our elders in superstitions and trivial
remembrances slave traders called fairytales from when massa was animals,
Categories
Provenance
Contributed by Suzanne Morgen, searching "computer and "mind" in Chadwyck-Healey's LION
Date of Entry
06/10/2009
