The Questions
In this issue of “For the 44th on the 4th,” artists Panama Soweto, Bobby Lefebre and Theo Wilson pose collective questions surrounding the election of Barack Obama in a performance poetry piece. It is followed by the first “Haiku Memo” by LetterToObama creator, M. Liz Andrews which also performs a question. Some questions warrant serious contemplation rather than simply answers. Visit www.LetterToObama.com on the 4th of every month for more Letters.
“OBAMA IS PRESIDENT”
PANAMA SOWETO, BOBBY LEFEBRE, THEO WILSON
Obama is President!
We made it to the Mountain top! This was a good year for us,
DreamGirls won at the Oscars
We had two black coaches in the Superbowl
And Obama is now our president!
They said, “Barack Obama is too light skinned to be the first black president!”
My president needs to be Wesley Snipes black,
“But Obama went to Africa to find him self, didn’t he?”
So did Dave Chappelle!
But he wanted to find his family!
So did Angelina Jolie!
And I heard that if we had a black president
The grass won’t get cut in the entire state of Maine
If we had a black president
There will be Barbeques on the White House Lawn every Sunday
If we had a black president
The State of the union speech would always run twenty minutes late
And America’s Credit score would automatically drop by one hundred points.
Gone are the days of hooded terrorists that ride thru our communities and burn the effigy of Christ on our lawns,
Today they merely ignore us
As if we were never swallowed in the bellies of wooden whales and made the Atlantic Ocean the largest graveyard for black souls
But, now Obama is President
And the same flag waving patriots spawned from 9-11 have threatened to highjack a plane and crash it into the white house.
Barack
Hussien
Obama.
Would Harry Truman have been elected if his middle name was Adolf?
Imagine the first Black President!
Try to snatch the smile from grandmothers that lived long enough to spend the Obama dollar bill on their groceries,
Try to stop the singing in the streets!
Try to speak over the sound of 35 million shackles falling to the ground at once!
But how can the first Black President have no slave blood?
And last time I checked
Ain’t no cotton fields in Hawaii.
But where does he stand on the issues?
Like the economy!!
Because an ink pen in my hands costs 80 cents: In a president’s hand, it can cost a million funerals
So, can he dry up all of the water,
that fell from the eyes of the mothers of slain veterans.
Because if the light hit those tears just right
It’d spangle 50 stars right out of the reflection!
White enough to be the severed wings of fallen angels
blue enough to be draped over a coffin.
Because the color of false freedom is red.
Ask the crimson moon looming over the battlefield
Painted that shade by a thousand roadside bombs,
and children who sacrificed their heartbeats for American apathy.
Who didn’t know that heroes still exist!
Barack Obama is President!
Will he be our Moses or our another Clarence Thomas?
Is that fair to put that on his shoulders?
Will he fix our broken prayers? Will he give our voice to a world that never listened?
Or is it even worth trying?
Has cotton money, now counted as campaign contributions bought us a day of reconciliation?
Barack Obama is President
It sounds like the whisper of turning Alex Haley pages,
Like the sound of dogs quieting their fever in Selma
Like the waving of Old glory over Lincoln’s tomb.
Barack Obama is President
It sounds like America
But is America ready to hear?
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ARTISTS. STATEMENT.
“Obama is President” was written by Bobby Lefebre, Theo Wilson and Panama Soweto. It is a performance piece and has been read at the National Poetry Slam 2008, The Democratic National Convention, and can even be seen on Youtube. This poem stirs the winds of oppression and forces the listener or reader to come to terms with the struggle it took to get the first African American elected to the White House.
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HAIKU MEMO #1
M. LIZ ANDREWS
Is H. I. V. a…
virus, disease, syndrome, or
is it a symptom?
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
PANAMA SOWETO, BOBBY LEFEBRE and THEO WILSON are members of Denver’s Slam Poetry team “Slam Nuba”. They are professional artists, actors and touring poets. They have won dozens of competitions and are heralded for their writing and performances across the nation.
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For the 44th on the 4th: September 2009 by M. Liz Andrews, Bobby Lefebre, Theo Wilson and Panama Soweto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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