I'm of A Different Black

Here is the poem in full to read along. Since this recording I've made some changes, but overall the message is the same.

I don’t have enough pride?

I’m from an island where we learn to walk
as quickly as we learn to whine our hips.
Yet you tell me I know nothing about the black experience.
Did my family not bleed in the fields?
Cane sugar grown into mountainsides
creating rum for white men to put their name on.
Yet you feel free to disinherit me of my history,
because you don’t feel I’m black enough?
My Mom says, “Leave the American girl alone
the one who feels her blackness surpasses your own.
The one that, even though she is shades lighter,
feels she is blacker than you.
As if you have no history.
As if black hands didn’t crawl over black hands
seeking freedom from the hulls of ships, just the same.
As if your ancestors didn’t work the fields, just the same.
As if they weren’t oppressed by masters, just the same.
As if they didn’t receive re-education 
by the hand of oppressors, just the same.
As if your great grandmother 
wasn’t raped by a white man just the same.
As if your family didn’t serve 
the US proudly despite this, 
just the same.”
My family has faced set backs
like so many other blacks.
Generations spent reinventing themselves
after so many decades of trauma.
We are still not ourselves.
Instead we are the
ferocious and strong remains of
a system meant to break us.
Following the natural beat 
of our hearts to steel drums.
We sang past our pain
and moved our feet to the rhythm 
of soca that stirred our souls.
Rising above everything we were taught not to.

But, who am I to have pride.
A young black girl
Searching for equality
even amongst those
who look like me?
What kind of shit is that?
Hoping one day
We can all just be.
Exist as we are,
with our differences,
instead of finding reasons
to treat each other differently.