"Yoruba Girl"

Diamond Sharp

To be closer to Africa through Arabic syllables.
Learn languages of ancestors unknown,
hoping that words could connect the pieces lost
during middle passage.
I know that Ivory Coast runs through my veins,
though history has layered
it with Native America and Great Britain.

Yesterday I was told three more times
I look like a Yoruba girl.
Asked where I was from.
Responded two-hundred
years ago my primogenitors
were sold from coast,
beaten south
and eventually freed north.

A Lukumi woman said
"Yes honey, you look like my people and
if it has been said that many times,
there must be truth to it."
I am proud that my African roots show through
because history has spent centuries
trying to repress them.

But when asked where I am from,
I can not answer Ivory Coast or Nigeria.
Only my blood lines claim them.
And though the orange of the Cote d'Ivoire
and the green and white of Naija
are most likely combined in my blood,
they have been tainted by red, white and blue.

Instead, when asked,
I must answer that I am the product
of master and slave relationships.
The progenitor of those who refused
to bow down to Jim Crow South;
left 1930's Mississippi for Chicago
because they were accused of being uppity niggas.
Their only crime being able to read and owning their own land.

I will live life understanding
that I come from greatness on both sides of the Atlantic.
I will tell my children bedtime stories
of their West African ancestors
and instill in them that greatness begets greatness.

And though I may never be able to define my ethnicity,
Je suis libre (French)
Manun kaduf (Wolof)
Mae wait saudi (Arabic)
Inweta onwe (Igbo)
Riaye (Yoruba)
I am free to explore it through languages learned.