Author: czvasser

We don’t want zeppelins.
no matter how badnificent.
We want unfettered dreams
so we can soar
air need not apply.

We want uplifting flight
without anyone thinking
we are no more than wax.

We bled in willy-nilly wars
to prove we are airmen.
What we want now is acres
where lambs don’t eat lions
because they can
afford to
have been taught
have learned
father to son
father to son
father to son
that is the way
the world can be.

We won’t be barbequed
on the lawn
or flamingoed anymore.
Nor will we hold your horse.
We will sit astride
a beast of cosmic portent
and consider heaven
or hell
and holes black enough
to contend with our stature.

We don’t want constructs
of men removed from apes.

We want the languish
of lakes and rivers
ponds and streams
seas and oceans.
We want to flow together
without one current greater
for more than a moment
before changing place.

Yes, that’s what we want.

Why Lemonade is for Black Women by Dominique Matti

My Mellow 4/27/16: There are days when, as a black man, I am so filled with pain I cannot even scream. If I could, it would not help. Most days I don’t feel your pain. I have enough for myself. I hear you, but its not fair to heap more unearned guilt and shame on Black men by calling them betrayers. To assume that black men see black women as collateral damage is unforgivable. When someone looks at you sometimes you see their hurt and suffering. Sometimes you see their pain. You sometimes see their lack of trust, faith and love or a look that judges or a love qualified by fathers and lovers past. A look that says you are shiftless and lazy. Yes, same stereotype, different words. Black men know what it’s like to be hammered too. We are the American nail that must be beat down. We are in this together.

I’ve been married 37 years. We’ve known each other for 40 years. My grown kids are currently having some bad patches and they have come back home, my daughter with her husband and 3 kids.

I love your piece. I understand this is a Black women’s story. I’m ok with that. I just don’t feel some of the comments fit all Black men. Forgive me.

Black Like Me? by Andrew Grant-Thomas

My Mellow 4/23/16: Great article. Connecticut, especially New Haven, is considered by many to be one of the most racist places in America. You were truly lucky, but it’s clear you have you share of “other-side-of -the -coin” stories. Yes, beneficial treatment is from the same poisonous tree. Tokenism is a perfect example. We’ll let one in that meets our criteria and standards and he/she will suffice for the entire community and assuage our feelings of guilt and impropriety. That’s just wrong.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention skin color. lighter colored blacks have always enjoyed some of the better treatment you mentioned. They also often benefit from the non-black sounding names and the more educated speech patterns. A friend of mine who was a top quarter miler and attended an ivy league school on scholarship learned from his coach to be a better runner he had to learn “to embrace the pain. Pain was going to come. Learn to understand it, work with it and through it”. I agree. We need to embrace race.