I Saw… I Cried

Click to view this article in its
original format as it appeared in
The Transformational Agenda Magazine

Inspired by
From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried
by Carrie Mae Weems

from here I saw what happened

from here I too saw
what happened

we were a strong people, a proud people…

we were a civilized
people with an
advanced and humane
culture

but that reality was taken from us and
replaced with something evil

they stole us from our
homeland, herded us into ships,
and sailed us across the world.
They ripped away our traditions,
tore apart families, and ruined
life after beautiful life.

i haven’t forgotten

beaten and whipped,
and whipped and beaten,
and beaten…

i have seen the pictures of the picture of
that old man with the corded backside

and beaten…

and the bone thin men, women, and children

and whipped…

i saw what happened—I see what’s
happening. Can you see what they have done to us?

can you believe what
they are still doing to us?

the prisons… how we populate them,
how we fill them, how they put us
behind bars en masse and then call
us a scourge. And what about the children?

you mean how they refuse
to teach the realities of our
shared history, how they
water it down so the acid of it
doesn’t burn through the pages
of their textbooks?

lets not start on our financial state

or our economic struggles

or our social situation

or our civic sadness

i saw what happened—I see what’s
happening. Can you see what they
have done to us?

can you believe what they are
still doing to us?

what about you? Don’t you see it too?

what i see is worse

what’s worse is you stand looking backwards yelling at the top of your lungs when only the ghosts of those you yell at can hear you. What’s worse is you peer into the shadows slowly loosing your ability to see any light at all. What’s worse is you spew out calamities from your self-righteous mind rather than crafting solutions. I can’t believe what you are doing to us? Just stop complaining; it doesn’t do anybody any good. Learn from the past don’t live it. Wake up! Leave your reveries and move into a better tomorrow with clear minds and lightened hearts. Tomorrow can be so much brighter if only you would shine your brilliant light on healing solutions.

by: Erin Imena Falker

Click to view this article in its
original format as it appeared in
The Transformational Agenda Magazine