Answer Me: A Poem About Accepting One's Blackness

I've been contemplating on this since I was in my adolescence. An incident happened where I was attending a church camp with my fellow peers. Being that my family was the only black family in the church congregation, I stuck out like a Milk Dud in a bowl of rice. We were playing games with groups and my group had to make a song about a pig. When we were done, a fellow black, young man came my way and insisted on informing me that I was acting black. I was shocked. I thought being black meant...well...being black. My fiance reminded me a year ago that my black experience is my own and no one else's.  Despite my dialect and intellect, my perspective is still valid. I recently decided to write about it in the form of a question. 



Answer Me

Am I black enough ?
The only shots fired
I’ve heard we’re on YouTube
comedy roast sessions .

I don’t drink Hennessy
Or eat potato pies,
Patti Labelle , if only you knew
How much I preferred your voice
Opposed to your commercial sweets.

Am I black enough?
I’ve never been to Queens
And I’m no King of spades
But a fan of Kevin Spade
In Grown Ups with
The King Of Queens,
Kevin James ,
I’m familiar with Wu-Tang
And Woo staring Jada Pinkett.
I know you’re thinking,
Is he really asking this,
And the answer is yes,
But what is yours?

I bump Toby Mac
And slip Kenny G
Into my ears, taking a nap
That makes me feel 10 again,
Then again, that’s all the Jazz
I knew three years after 1992.

Am I black enough?
I never held a gun
Or had a friend held
On six shoulders
Because someone
Thought a gun was God
Deciding death
Earned merits for a gang’s reputation.

I never owned the Jordan elevens,
Threes or black and red ones,
My number one shoe
Are Chucks tailored
For fitted jeans and a baseball cap,
I’m fluent with the dap, hug
And snap, but not Atlanta trap,
Music makes me move
Like Weekend at Bernie’s,
Me and RnB are like
Burt and Ernie.

I enjoy movies
With predominantly white casts
If the content answers
Psychological questions that I have .
I enjoy The Breakfast Club--
Both the 1985 classic
And the radio show
Where Charlemagne’s insults
Are sadistically fantastic.

I will ask it until I get a reply,
Am I black enough
Because statistics say yay all day,
Expecting fatherless experiences
And a need to only read
When Hip Hop teaches relevancy
In 16 bars or more.

Being black isn’t something
I can buy from a store,
But a solid assumption
Declaring my race when one is robbed
Or shot through,
I’m through with trying to satisfy you.

Black is what I am,
Despite your retort
Or report of what I can or can not do
On a basketball court.
I am black.
I am that.
Exact.

I take the question back,
Don’t retract your facts
Because I need them
To prove
Nothing.
Black , I am
Going to always be
Until it no longer matters.