Years that ask questions
By Marcy Rae Henry
Black like me said John Howard Griffin and the world listened
(Black like losing electricity)
Black like me said Rachel Dolezal and the world blistered
(Black like the plague)
Black lives matter (now) say my neighbors
(Black like squares on a checkerboard)
Black is beautiful said Bill Allen (maybe) and the world paused
(Black like hair before silver)
Doesn’t matter if you’re black (or white) said Michael
(Black like a birthmark)
And what did I mean by ‘black’? asked Coates
(Black like seeds)
I became black in America said Adichie
(Black like pepper)
Black Power is a cry of pain said MLK
(Black like blindness)
The Black Revolution is controlled only by God said Malcolm
(Black like Goth)
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide
welling and swelling I bear in the tide wrote Maya
(Black like ink)
(Black like mud)
Education is indoctrination if you’re white—subjugation if you’re black argued Baldwin
(Black like leopard spots)
(Black like the unlucky cat)
(Black like guns)
Animals weren’t made for humans any more than black people were made for white
(or women for men) claimed Alice Walker
(Black like pupils)
(Black like funerals)
(Black like devil’s hooves)
(Black like beaches)
Las caras lindas de mi gente negra son un desfile de melaza en flor sang Susana Baca
(Black like asphalt)
(Black like all colors blended together)
(Negro como mina de lápiz)
(Black like the absorption of all colors of the spectrum)
(Black like film noir)
Black, brown, beautiful—viviremos para siempre Afro-Latinos hasta la muerte lyricized Elizabeth Acevedo
(Black like eyeliner)
(Black like beans)
(Black like a cocktail dress)
(Negro como el opuesto de blanco)
(Black like the depths of Langston’s Africa)
(Black like a red-beaked swan)
Who would have thought, when they came to the fight
that they’d witness a launchin’ of a black satellite said Ali
(Black like charcoal)
(Black like black holes)
(Black like coal)
(Black like Christ)
(Black like Olbers’ Paradox)
(Black like the anoxic Euxine Sea)
(Black like the eight ball)
I am black because I come from the earth’s inside answers Lorde to the question she posed
Marcy Rae Henry is a Latina born and raised in Mexican-America/The Borderlands. She is a resister and an interdisciplinary artist with no social media accounts. Her writing and visual art have appeared in national and international publications and the former has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. Ms. M.R. Henry is working on a collection of poems and two novellas. She is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Fine Arts at Harold Washington College Chicago. Visit her website at marcyraehenry.com.