Posted on February 2, 2021 by M.A. Dennis Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate the contributions, achievements, and resilience of Black Americans, and to also reflect on the systemic racism that continues to pervade society. One manifestation of this inequity is that Black people are disproportionately affected by homelessness: Approximately 57 percent of heads of household in NYC shelters are Black. As we wrote in our State of the Homeless 2020 report, “Homelessness is unequivocally a racial justice issue, and is one manifestation of historic and persistent housing discrimination, biased economic and housing policies, extreme income inequality, and disproportionately high levels of poverty among people of color, as well as biased policing and incarceration in communities of color.” We recently asked some members of our Client Advisory Group to share their perspectives on Black History Month, as Black New Yorkers who have experienced homelessness. In response, M.A. Dennis wrote this powerful poem about history, identity, and the ongoing struggle for justice and equity. “After Frederick Douglass” By M.A. Dennis What to the Slave’s Descendant Is the Month of Black History? Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the creators of this February celebration, who were well-intentioned, wanting to give well-overdue attention to African-American achievements — countering the bitter, twisted lies of a whitewashed history; honoring Black heroes for causing good trouble — But I struggle during the Month of Black History. What am I (formerly homeless individual) to do with your celebration of Black History? What does February mean to Black people like me, who have almost no History, who cannot trace my lineage past my grandparents? The enslavement of my Ancestors was the ultimate identity theft. Our unknown history is the ultimate homelessness: If we have no history, we have no roots. If we have no roots, we have no home. I am Black and I want my History. In my dreams, I see visions of Oprah: You get a history! You get a history! You get a history! I need a history that goes beyond Dr. King, beyond Malcolm, beyond Tubman and Tupac, beyond Black-owned businesses distributing formulaic calendars during the Month of Black History. (Those calendar illustrations do come in handy though for your child’s last-minute Black History Month project.) Yes! Give Matthew Henson his props — Not for being the first to reach the North Pole, but for being the first brother to enjoy working in frigid cold. On the Pulse of Morning I will lift up mine eyes unto The Hill We Climb —despite infallible military strategy which states: The Hill provides superior position to the elevated enemy — not the climber. Yet, Black people keep climbing. A monolithic Moses, seeing the “I Have A Dream” speech Promised Land but not being allowed to enter it. This Month of Black History, gives me the joy of a toddler opening a Happy Meal and realizing it contains no toy. Will serious reparations be given to the illegitimate children of the founding fathers? I want the compound interest on my mule & 40 acres to include Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Harvard University’s Center for Research Finding My Roots: African descendant owed the American Dream as inheritance — Till this day it remains lost in the Tallahatchie River, lost in the sauce of transatlantic transactions. We the lives who are all darker than blue; who trap demons in blue bottles; who use blue paint to ward off harmful spirits; who have only spoken words with severed mother tongue, our oral tradition passed down by assassinated prophets, brown Listerine anger swishing in our mouths. We the People of Color (Purple) use humor as a coping mechanism: Have you heard the joke circulating around the Black people water cooler: If Black History is the shortest and coldest month, whose history is March through January? Is it the history of records putting pale faces on the covers of albums sung by dark-skinned voices? Is it the history of names on the marquee and their forced entry through rear exits? Only in America could the talent on stage not be good enough to sit in the audience. Only in America do trees — Life-promoting entities — get noosed in deadly perversion. Only in America can the sounds of Walt Whitman be drowned out by broken record death threats for hammering too many homeruns. Only in Feb-uary, is there an unnecessary hard r — realistically Only in February, is insufficient length to celebrate; Black History truth cannot be a 28 to 29-day sojourner. It’s time to remix This Month of Blacktasticness let it last year-round let it rewrite history as it should’ve been written in the first place. This Month, I focus not on the first Black this or that — But instead, I ponder the last: Who will be the last Black person murdered in cold blood, in their driveway, in their bedroom, in their car, in a holding cell, in a chokehold? On the concrete sidewalk, on the asphalt street? During a wellness check or “routine” traffic stop? Who will be the last of us subjected to generational spirit-crushing poverty? Which forces The Souls of Black Folk to yet again stretch a meal, so that five loaves of bread and two fish can make 5,000 sandwiches. Inspired by the Frederick Douglass speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
