Vietnam | Black Agenda Report

Kemet Mawakana

26 Mar 2008

🖨️ Print Article

7_foot_poet_upright_250wide Kemet Mawakana (aka “The Seven-Foot Poet”) is a highly acclaimed spoken-word artist, and has published two books A . . . Z . . . Infinity and Crucifixion of My Soul. The collective body of his works presented weekly in BAR are in tribute to Listervelt Middleton, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, and “For The People”. Currently, he is a facilitator at AYA Educational Institute (www.ayaed.com) and can be reached at sevenfootpoet(at)gmail.com.

To read or listen to "Vietnam", please click on the link below.

Vietnam

To listen to the audio of "Vietnam< click the flash player below

Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio commentary.

At a young and impressionable age

sealed was his fate.

Taught the enemy was an animal

sub-human

now he’s brainwashed

so that he can start boomin’:

“Boom boom boom yeah I was gunnin’

And then you look and all you see is . . . .”

The enemy’s tiny foothold from within

would not submit or bend;

thus and so the war begins.

“Homies all standin around just hangin
Some dope-dealin some gang-bangin
We decide to roll and we deep . . .”

The American went on a mission called search and destroy

killing men

raping women and girls

and crippling boys.

Napalm strikes by air support

reinforced thoughts

that the enemy was either a criminal

or should be shot for sport.

Because of the undeniable conflict

between his training

and the independent conclusions

reached by his maturing brain

the American turned to narcotics

to put his mind at ease.

“Since I was a youth, I smoked weed out . . .”

But the war won’t end

it can never end for him

until he looks in the mirror and sees

-- he’s Vietnamese.

By Kemit Mawakana (aka The Seven-Foot Poet)

Peace (when appropriate) War (when necessary)

Copyright 2008.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio November 25, 2022
24 Nov 2022
Analysis of the 2022 midterm election results and a report on the COP27 climate conference.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
2022 Midterm Election Analysis
24 Nov 2022
Dr. Anthony Monteiro is a Duboisian scholar and founder of the Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. He joins us from Philadelphia…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
COP27 and the Climate Crisis
24 Nov 2022
Kali Akuno is co-founder of Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi. He recently attended the COP27 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. He joins us to discuss why…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Xi Jinping, Justin Trudeau and White Supremacist Ideology
23 Nov 2022
Western arrogance and anger about the economic prowess of a non-white nation resulted in Xi Jinping's very public dressing down of Justin Trudeau.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
EXCERPT: Pentagonism, A Substitute for Imperialism, Juan Bosch, 1967
23 Nov 2022
A book by Dominican politician and historian Juan Bosch explains the connections between U.S. foreign policy, permanent war, and the defense industries.