I Am Still Your Negro

An Homage to James Baldwin

Valerie Mason-John

• Publisher: The University of Alberta Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781772125337
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

Social Justice PoetrySpoken-word poet Valerie Mason-John unsettles readers with potent images of ongoing trauma from slavery and colonization. Her narratives range from the beginnings of the African Diaspora to the story of a stowaway on the Windrush, from racism and sexism in Trump's America to the wide impact of the Me Too movement. Stories of entrapment, sexual assault, addictive behaviours, and rave culture are told and contrasted to the strengthening and forthright voice of Yaata, Supreme Being. I Am Still Your Negro is truth that needs to be told, re-told, and remembered.I was your NegroCaptured and sold I am still your negroArrested and killed—from "I Am Still Your Negro"

Yaata’s Lament

I was born in the red-hot dust, among the luminous green foliage and the sweet-smelling fruits of the earth. My guardians left food at the base of my roots, and bowed down and worshipped the land they depended on. In return I protected them from the hot swelling sun with my luscious emerald green shade and sustained them with the abundant crops I produced all year round. And so my progeny were happy.

Then one day the Hungry Ghosts voyaged into my waters, arrived on my shores in their big tall ships. I told my progeny: “Befriend them. They are part of our human race.” My people thought the men on the ships, with their pasty faces, were sick. They thought the men must have a bad fever with all the clothes they clustered upon their bodies under my blistering sun.

So my people gave them food and medicine in the hope they would recover. Some turned scarlet. But those who recovered burned a golden brown, and soon became strong.

I saw it coming, tried to warn my people not to tell them our secrets. My heavens opened and poured out my warning signs. Squalling rains and thunder came in February, months before the rainy season was due. My earth became mashed like fufu. But it was too late. The Hungry Ghosts knew all they needed to know. They climbed out of their tall leather boots and learned that barefoot was the way to tread.

In the middle of the night they stole up silently on my people with fishing nets, chains and guns. They herded them up like cattle, slaughtered them like pigs and beat the wretched survivors into a pulp. My guardians were destroyed, broken people. Those who survived—who were clamped at the feet, wrists and necks and dragged off to the ships—were never the same. Their spirits were crushed.

Their bodies sagged. They called out for me: “Yaata come nah. Punish we no more.” They cried, threw libations at the trees, the mountains, the plants and everything that lived. Oh, how my progeny howled. My soil is stained with the blood of my people.

Then the Hungry Ghosts sailed back to my land, and with their hatchets, choppers and bulldozers they cleared my jungles. My trees were hacked down, severed and splintered. This ransom of my land is forever visible in the red dust that scratches the eyes.

The next time the Hungry Ghosts cursed my land with a visit they returned with their missionaries. They destroyed my idols, my artefacts, sacred stone deities, places of worship beneath the trees, beside the rivers and on top of the mountains. They pitched their wooden crosses at my holy sites and choked my people with their white Jesus, brainwashed them with their primitive laws, banished anything that did not conform to the union of Adam and Eve.

The backbone of my people broken to smithereens. Our religion, culture and language fractured almost beyond repair. Oh how I wept, the beliefs of my people corrupted by Christianity, with Islam charging fast behind.

But I, Yaata, still roamed the heavens, and many of my inhabitants continued furtively to worship my animals, trees, minerals and mountains. And I protected them the best I could, providing overgrowth to protect their places of prayer and treacherous tracks that only my people could find.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

—JAMES BALDWIN

The Ghost of Thomas Peters

Me slave name Thomas Peters

And me can read

Yes me can read

Real good good good

Me neva let me massa know me can read

Iza smart slave

Iza let me massa tink me need de newspapers

To keep me warm at night

1775 it was when de massa wife trow

She old papers at me feet

Me eyes catch de ad

Real good good good

Kings army needs recruits

And me eyes clap down pon de words

Negroes we need you too

Lawd ave Mercee pon me

Him a give me dese two good eyes

For a reason

Him a give me dese two strong legs

For a reason

Him a give me dis newspaper

For a reason

Me run and me run and me run to de flour mill

And me whisper to me Fren

Look, Dunmore Proclamation

Co...