By Button Poetry
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One of the submissions from the 2019 Button Poetry video contest.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:02
(upbeat gospel music)
00:11
– The Alpha and the Omega.
00:15
The beginning and the end, the balm in Gilead.
00:20
My protector, ha, my provider, ha.
00:24
All praise to Jesus,
00:28
that’s my nigga.
00:32
Ode to black Jesus, raised in the projects of Nazareth.
00:37
Nostrils wide enough to breathe life, born to a carpenter
00:40
and a housewife, Jesus knows the struggle, y’all.
00:43
Ode to black Jesus, rolling 12 deep with the type
00:47
of ride or die cats that’ll cut your ears off,
00:50
the only nigga I know that can kick it with gangstas
00:52
and priests and still not lose his peace,
00:55
speaks peace be still, looking at the storm like,
00:58
“ay, yo, chill”, my nigga, Jesus.
01:01
Shows up to the party with the best wine.
01:03
You might think he’s late, but he’s got his own time.
01:06
Walking in the cut, healing the sick and the blind,
01:08
then ascended into heaven,
01:10
watch that black boy shine, my nigga, Jesus.
01:14
Knows what I’m going through.
01:16
Understands that every day as a black man
01:17
is like sitting back knowing the universe
01:20
rests between your palms.
01:21
Understands withholding the apocalypse
01:23
when your colleague talks to you crazy,
01:24
because you know you still got work to do.
01:26
Understands the pressure of being perfect all the time,
01:29
because your father says, “being just good,
01:31
“isn’t good enough”.
01:33
I was raised in a home where Christianity and black history
01:36
were taught like a double major,
01:38
but everywhere outside my home, the latter was treated
01:41
like a minor, but my ancestors used minor chords
01:45
to climb Jacob’s ladder into the former,
01:47
searching for answers to endure oppressors
01:50
who lay claim to a caucasian Christ.
01:52
And to this day, every time I close my eyes,
01:54
my image of Jesus is still the blond-haired, blue-eyed,
01:57
white man from the cartoons I was raised on,
02:00
and I’m finding it increasingly harder
02:02
to surrender to a savior with the face of my oppressors,
02:06
so I praise black Jesus.
02:08
And I rebuke anyone who says he can’t be black
02:11
when, really, haven’t they always been mortified
02:14
at the idea of a black savior.
02:16
Ask J. Edgar Hoover what happened to Fred Hampton,
02:19
Malcolm X and King that were all crucified
02:21
for the exact same thing.
02:23
And if Jesus could be a husband to the widow
02:25
and an orphan’s father, why can’t Jesus just be my nigga?
02:30
Is there any difference between the Audubon Ballroom
02:33
and the Garden of Gethsemane?
02:35
Any difference between overturning tables in the temple
02:38
or cars in Baltimore?
02:40
Any difference between hanging on a tree in Mississippi
02:43
or a cross on Calvary, he died for me.
02:48
Not because I deserve it,
02:50
but just cause we go way, way back.
02:54
Like, even before I was in my mother’s womb,
02:56
he rolled away the stone that was in front of his tomb,
02:59
ha, brought back the hope where there once was doom,
03:01
when this world is sick and only seems to get sicker,
03:05
when the poor dig for crumbs, while the rich get richer,
03:08
when all of my faith seems to fade and flicker,
03:12
I look to black Jesus, cause that’s my nigga.
03:16
(clapping)
03:19
(somber piano music)
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
