*America is RUBAR
Future America, you are RUBAR.
Racially
Unified/United
Beyond
Aspired
Recognition.
I recognize you.
I stand with you.
In grade school, I learned the importance of peaceful protest and speaking up when my teachers taught us the stories of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.
In grade school, they taught me “sharing is caring.”
And when I woke up that day drinking the “wine with a merry heart” God was there to approve what we do (Ecclesiastes 9:7).
I was unbelieving in America,
that we had finally achieved
sharing:
is caring.
And then, I woke up.
After, the massive hangover.
And I continued drinking the wine.
And I realized that the wine tastes like paradise, joy, the dream, unification, celebration, and the breaking down of walls of white supremacy and racism.
Future America, your flag (stars and stripes) now serves its people.
The stars now belong to your beautifully brown people (all shades, all hues) — repatriated, paid forward, in the black (no debt), and grounded in solidarity.
The stripes are plentiful. You took your ill-begotten 13 and multiplied it quadrice and spread the reparations, brought equality, and ensured all bountiful.
The red, white, and blue have been repatriated, re-remembered, and given new meaning.
The red, white, and blue now look like joy.
Red, for the flourish, the sanguine, the compassion, and kindness shared between your native peoples. White, for the dove of peace, and the clouds that carried the dust and sin away. Blue, for the blood that runs through every vein of humans making a home on this patch of earth called America and every collar worn by these same humans now reaping the same benefits.
Future America, your people are paid in full — in love, joy, life, prosperity, and jubilee.
Future America, you are holding hands with Lady Justice in holy, wedded matrimony.
Future America, your tab with spouse, Lady Justice and all past white perpetrators has been washed clean by the blood of the lamb, paid up by Uncle Sam.
Future America, Trump was a fart snuffed out with a lit match, some of that good bathroom spray, some smoldering herbs, incantations, and answered prayers.
Future America, that new talk and that fine ass walk look good on you. Keep on struttin’ with yo damn self. We are here with you and we are feeling all that.
In the words of Lizzo, “Do your hair toss. Check your nails. Baby, how ya feelin’? Feelin’ good as hell!” and Todrick, “This whole club is my runway, run bitch.” and Dolly, “But you got dreams he’ll never take away.” and finally, Nikita, “What else helps us overcome suffering if not by giving hope a chance to bloom.”
- This is a call and response to my earlier piece, America, you are FUBAR: a Two-Part Prosaic Declaration. This piece is inspired by a talk that Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr. gave where he called upon poets to help lead the charge on policy and write into existence, an America we want to see. While this piece is not policy-driven, it is a future-looking piece about what I would like to see in America. Racial unity. Where no matter your shade or hue of brown skin — light, dark, or somewhere in between — we all matter and we all stand on level, equal ground.
Visual representation of story on @tolbert_on_medium Instagram.
