[PHOTO CREDIT: BOSTON GLOBE]
By Christian Gines
I. Every time a firecracker pops I think of every pop of a whip that cracked a back of my ancestor
An uncle or aunt
A cousin
A best friend
Every whip that drove my people
Deeper
*Whip*
Deeper
*Whip*
Deeper
Into oppression
Every whip that moved my parents
One step farther from their homeland
And closer to their new land
A land that’s not really theirs
Where they are a troublesome presence
A land where they are 3/5 of a person
“A slave”
“A nigger”
“A coon”
“A boy”
“A negro”
“A convict”
“A drug dealer”
“A thug”
A
ME
II. Every time a firecracker pops I can hear their fingers pop
The blood seeping out
A paper cut
But from thorns
The same color of the white stuff that they make out of trees
But the white that makes the white people a lot of money
The pop that makes me want to complain and get Band-Aid
But the pop that if they didn’t keep picking then they would be DEAD
I think of the crackling heat of that day
Gleaming on their flared backs
“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?”
III. Every time a firecracker pops I think of the popped naps
The naps from the black panther party that uncurled into an Afro
The naps of my people that remains
Un kept
Un picked
Un bothered
To reflect that we are from our homeland Africa
To reflect that we belong here in America
To show that we shouldn’t be defined by our haircuts or our skin color
To show that when we pick our hair it is a symbol of black power
And that power doesn’t have to infringe on anyone else
For some reason I have to say that
But when you’re accustomed to privilege
Equality feels like oppression
When I pop my knuckles I think of all the black women that struggle with their natural hair
That need to pop their naps to fit into what society preaches
So they can seem intelligent and smart
So they can be accepted into a society that stresses how they can and should look
IV. Every time a firecracker pops I think of the hanging nooses
The nooses that have my brothers head hanging in them
That pop
One piece of rope at a time it pops
Waiting on the limb to break
POP
There it goes again
Another black boy dead
When I pop my knuckles I think of the gunshots that go off unexpectedly
One that didn’t have to happen
One that makes another black boy disappear from this earth like nothing ever happens
And when I pop my knuckles I think of
99% percent of those gavels that leave those officers convicted of nothing
And how this criminal justice system fails us
Time and time again
And when I pop my knuckles I think of the moment when that time will stop
And a pop will sound but
It will be a firework of equality and justice
Spreading across the world one by one
On a path that will stop only when that pop is a firework on June 19th not July 4th
V. Every time a firecracker pops I think of Thurgood Marshall and his fight for equality
I think of him hitting his gavel as the first black on the Supreme Court of the United States of America
When I pop my knuckles I think of the jails locked forever
The mass incarceration of African Americans
I think of the closing of MLK’s jail cell and the letters he sent from there
I think of the killings of
Medgar Evers
Malcolm X
Fred Hampton
Patrice Lumumba
Laquon McDonald
Eric Garner
Sandra Bland
Freddie Gray
Trayvon Martin
Stephon Clark
Sandra Bland
Kaleif Browner
Ahmaud Arbery
George Floyd
Breonna Taylor
Oluwatoyin Salau
VI. Every time a firecracker pops I think of the last poll closing on election night in 2008
Black people were lynched for this right
I think of the opening of the White House door
And the hope that came with it
The dream that we could become a better America
VII. Every time a firecracker pops I think of Crispus Attucks
The first person killed in the Revolutionary war
A black person
Not even fighting for his own freedom
We have fought in every American war
We are more likely to join the army than any other race
But we're still not seen as American
Yet you still hate us
You brought us over here yet you hate us
We were told once, by virtue of our bondage, that we could never be American.
But like Langston Hughes said
“They’ll see how beautiful I am/And be ashamed —/I, too, am America.”
