There's no big accomplishment

in acting white

(after being subjected to some third stream muzak)

1.

if a chamber orchestra / complete

                                             w/tympani as percussion

plays a pentatonic scale

includes sis and one half bars

of flute improvisation

& the tune was composed

by an intelligent moor

does that make it

black

                                           music?

2.

does a dollop of musical melanin

make orchestrated scores

something blood might

want to dance to

or squeeze lover flesh to

or fit to express

what we been through?

is acting

white

really more profound

than afrikan aesthetic?

more tragic more magic

more real more desirous

than soulful us jumping straight up

and being down, head thrown back

wailing into the blue, slightly off their key

but in our tune, blowing bodaciously

like there was no tomorrow

must we really

dot all our eyes

with fields of blue,

cross all our tee's with the deafening silence

of liberal-arts-degreed negroes demonstrating

they have arrived by sitting quiet

legs crossed and morosely

concentrating on deciphering

well modulated arias

which resist the tapping foot, still

the bobbing head and

reject the shaking of any entraced

body movements other than polite

and discreetly tepid applause

to indicate we're in the pocket?

must we make ourselves

into something our enemies love

to listen to

in order for us and our art

to be considered human?

3.

if you want to play compose and be respected

as a classical musician why not just do that

and not insist that there is anything culturally black

about such a quest except perhaps our skin

and a few reference to your lynched

history thrown in

why not just openly embrace what they do

and be what you've been trained to do

there is nothing prohibiting you

or me or any of we

from acting white

except maybe our individual angst

constantly trying to justify

that there be something real

black about passing

over into the age-old truth

of negro life and history,

abjectly supplicating to white supremacy

with a sambo-colored shibboleth

on our lips: boss, i may not be quite your color,

but i've disciplined my black ass to be your kind

4.

acting like our bodies are not us

is one of the most frequent ways

educated blacks manifest

they are cultured

the denial of blackness

is petite bourgeois power

insisting

there is nothing wrong

with disappearing

into the tinkling

quiet

of a well composed

ode

to otherness

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