Reprinted from She Speaks Psalms by Michelle R. Yisrael
ISBN 1-60813-056-8
There's a sister in the White House!
braiding her daughters hair sitting on the kitchen floor betwixt her long brown legs
cooking chicken flipped and turned in a bowl of white flour
frying hot water cornbread with water from the White House kitchen tap
that satisfying scent she got from her black mamma in the hood
and smellin' the White House up with sweet potatoes, peach cobbler, black eyed peas, and collard greens on the stove
insisting her children make up their own beds
Whose youth are hopeful and now don't have so much to loathe
Who is sure to teach her daughters how to pray
And the Lord is still coming soon someday.
We have a Black First Lady y'all
inspiring our daughters to love their blackness
It might not be so hard for the children of the folks who enslaved us to accept the African American president born to a Kenyan daddy
but the First Lady spot was always beheld as this nation's symbol of a lady
a sentimental mother THEIR beloved housewife with the occupation
held high, esteemed good quality, distinguished, and refined
Look at that sister sitting on THE pedestal
How will they accept their newly darkened white house redesigned?
The same color as the one coming soon
when the sun will be darkened and we will see blood instead of the moon.
Are they ready to look at this very BLACK woman in THE house?
With her degrees and her austerity and her intellect
Are they really ready to see her as the epitome of the American wife, mother, and first lady
On their White House carpet now walks wide feet like copper with traces of wooly got to be permed hair
Their White House mirrors see her wide nose and thick lips
This confident revolution reared from a black mother and father's assurance is televised
The legacy of enslaved chocolate dark slave girls calling the Lord's name
Not even second class, whipped, chained, beaten, and raped in clandestine suites
who does not have to sneak into the white house through the back door to join the President of The United States of America under his sheets
You go my sistah with your beautiful black self.
Their White House has been painted Black.
An occasion for our young daughters to increase their self wealth
An occasion to get our noble, regal, royal, stately, distinguished, dignified, fine back
