There was a poetitorial written a few months back that addressed the impassive glances of Dick Cheney and John Edwards when they overlooked the impact of AIDS on African-American women. And yet, while this inactive stance deserved to be called out, a few of the more astute AllHipHop patrons noticed another blatant discrepancy: the poem failed to place any accountability in the hands of the Black community.
There exists within the Black community, a vow of silence that aids and abets the AIDS threat with deafening volume. It is a silence of shame that has haunted our people through several generations. It’s hard to explain, but when it comes to imperfections within our families, it seems that the quicker and stronger reflex is to cover up and deny before we address and admit to them.
OUR sons can’t have AIDS because OUR sons can’t be gay. That’s why we’d rather traipse halfway around the world to address AIDS in the open terrains of Africa rather than confront it in our own backyard. Not to say that the epidemic in Africa is trivial, but how can we fix a problem in another country while our people are dying here – in our displaced, yet native land?
Much the way some true Africans will space themselves from their American counterparts, we’ve created a distance large enough to disassociate ourselves from this disease because of how it behaves and the blemish it places on whomever’s connected to it. If our women have AIDS, it’s because they’re either sleeping with men in lapsed or disregarded judgment or because the men have forced themselves deep into the closet for fear of being disowned. It’s a sickled cycle full of skeletons that we need to deal with – lest these ‘dead men walking’ turn our dying livelihood into a thriving necropolis.
“Undercover Brother Lovers”
Undercover brothers these days
Are ripping sons from mothers
with diseases like AIDS.
It’s no longer a theme plague for
gays, hypes, fiends and addicts.
Undercover brothers these days
Make suckers for love deeply afraid
As poisonous covers smother
comfort with H-IVy league status.
You know the adage
that catches ladies up:
On average, there’s a
famine for lady luck –
To safely pluck good men
to love is a number’s game.
Numb from the vain
attempts of layin’ up
With these lame exempts
from player’s clubs,
Their faith’s been slung
through the sewers of lovers’ lane.
These lovers lay in the
bane of awkward spaces
From lookin’ for love in
all the wrong places.
They’ve all but wasted
their grown-up intuition.
Glued to dudes with
something to hide
‘Til they come up with
bruises and HIVes…
They willingly brood with
wool over their eyes
to soak up suspicions.
With broken senses enhanced,
A provoked vixen begets
conviction for her man.
Though wincin’, she knows her stance –
her man is straight!
So though crooked as Nixon’s scams
And riddled with nicks and scabs,
She’ll piddle with this p####
and advance her damage rate.
Though B-littled A little by
his sexual deviance,
She’ll O-mit his sexual malfeasance.
She won’t test him even –
not with those ABs of steel!
Besides, it was only a compliment
When those lonely women accosted him…
Why admonish him if
young blood’s got whip appeal?!!
Hidden and concealed beneath
such fabric cloaks,
Undercover brothers
perform magic shows.
DL cats are a tragic joke –
forget Hughley and Eddie Griffin.
These dudes are deadly weapons
That are fooled by a deadly obsession…
As daily suppression’s
fueled hugely by petty traditions.
As forbidden fruity pebbles
make waves in the pond
And shoes get unsettled from
the grains they lodge,
Society aims at it hard to get it
beneath and beyond its insole’s keep.
That’s why these cats toss
red herrings and cover-ups
Like fat capitalist,
red-wearing Republicans
Making public runs and fronts
that stun like Mark Foley.
Incensed men with a bone to pick
Are the wrong victims to
get screwed over with.
If bent over in the pen –
what man admits to it openly?!!
Whether raped or the
acting c### provocateur,
They lack the prophylactics
to block the worm…
Talk to the wardens –
no condoms transmit like an open feed.
This transcends hopes and dreams –
if not stockin’ rubbers
means no sex is happenin’,
Then a lot of pregnant teens
have conceived immaculate.
That policy’s hardly accurate –
‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ don’t work.
Providing jimmies doesn’t
advocate sex in jail,
But denial’s a river that
saturates death in cells
That’s swept females into
vast swells below the earth.
What’s their soul worth if none
address this disastrous pandemic?
Why travel the whole earth
to dress Africa’s appendage?
We’ve got a Diaspora of women
dying in states of united medleys.
Why don’t our reverends preach
it to choirs and converts?
Why is there hesitance in
leaders of tireless concerts?…
Why’d they retire like codgers
releasin’ silence so deadly?!!
Why is it Reggie? – ‘cause we’re all
appalled and speechless
To find out OUR sons
juggle balls and peaches.
That’s the image we all speak in –
deacons and deviates alike.
Judgmental and homophobic,
We hush and fuss fickle over the notion…
With explosive emotions,
blinded bigots can’t see the light.
We concede to fright – once tempers flare
with night-vision gay-dar equipped,
The vision impaired turn blind eyes
to distance gays at arms length.
Bright as day, such ‘logic’ robs our sensibility.
Even those spiritually enlightened
Seem empirically frightened…
Chastisin’ gay specs with beams in their eyelids
that can’t be sensed visibly.
Don’t get tense with me –
you know our community.
We always bomb with scrutiny.
Like Islamic mobs of mutiny –
our resolve is dutifully rigid.
But when I see unlawful unities,
Though my remarks disregard its impunity,
I can’t launch darts immutably
dipped in lunacy’s liquid.
Hidden beneath such memorial quilts,
These ‘menstresses’ sneak with deplorable skill.
They share agendas in horrible guilds
of unscreened actors.
As unseen factors torridly build
From unclean match-ups of immoral guilt
Mashed up passion fruit spoils and spills
into jars of pristine stature.
I don’t mean to be
the bastard who generalizes,
But polarized views create static
on the wool of general eyelids –
Pulled to hide genital hybrids,
visual blindness is society’s solution.
So as the wool cover-up
becomes spools of fine yarn
That binds a dis-comforter
over the whole nine yards…
We can’t cry: ‘Not in my backyard!’
and j###### ‘til our eyes
lose their prime usage.
© 2006 Reggie Legend
Steel Waters, Inc.
