[Poetry] The Revolt of the Children of a Lesser God - Baltimore Today, LA Yesterday...

As Baltimore burns over the death of Freddie Gray, we're once again reminded that today's reality is simply history repeating itself in a different form. Here, for example, is a poem that I wrote on April 30, 1992 (exactly 23 years today) during the second day of the LA riots which erupted after the acquittal of four LAPD officers who had beaten Rodney King to a pulp a year earlier during a traffic incident.

 I bet that today, someone somewhere is writing a similar poem, this time about Freddie Gray and about Baltimore...

Black Power

All that glitters' not gold
Goes the saying of the old.
The city of angels
Has unearthed its mongrels
The beautiful sun city
Has become ugly sin city
The legendary Hollywood
Has exhibited its rotten wood
Infested with bugs of racism
And ants of narcissism.
All its glamour
Hides nothing but rancor.

It's oppressed have risen
Calling the oppressors to reason,
Matching racist power
With people's power.
The children of a lesser god
Have pulled out their swords;
Terror's unleashed
As anger's released
People's fury unfurls
As the drama unfolds
Hurricane Rodney
Is gone loony

The haughty angel city
Is just another burnt out city
Crippled by the cataclysmic echoes
From its furious ghettos
And by that ultimate power;
Street power
People's power
Black power!!!

Dibussi Tande,
Buea, April 30, 1992

Comments

[Rebecca M]

Unfortunately, humans never learn from HISTORY.