The American Dream
by C.C. Garrett
At an early age, I knew freedom
Was not that much different from Hell.
Only a bit cooler. Inside books
Read aloud from white hands across black skies
Ancestral stars of symphonic scarred lightness,
Reopen with every stammer over BLACK, or NEGRO
Scream-striped in white font on the face of a 9 year old kid
Who couldn’t understand why no one was pissed off.
Anger, often the accomplice of youth
So I kept my hands tied
Louisiana hands wrapped inside
A caged dog
Scarred from learning of burning crosses
That underneath every white glove, are rope burns
From hoisting the weight of 40 acres and a mule
Blood is soaked into the roots of oak.
Oak used for crosses.
In Louisiana streets
White folks spent a century telling stories
Of the happy slave, but
You can’t sweep blood under the rug.
Ancestry laid to rest with pain
That will last long after we get the history right.
Our very own American Dream.
“I don’t mind saying this, because I know my family never reads my poetry. As a child of the 80s and 90s, I was thrusted into the white world. The only colored boy in class, on the team, at the bbq, at the summer enrichment program. At the time it was believed that this is what a child of color would need in order to survive in the white man’s and woman’s world. As with most insurgence, the scars come with little explanation. So I processed it all the best I could.
I wrote this poem right at the height of academic backlash for the whitewashing of history. The mother of my children is a school teacher. Social Studies/History but holds extremely staunch views in regards to race relations and socioeconomic inequities. So much so, that I worried my children would never really know and understand the significance of being BLACK. Especially since they are BiPOC. I thought I needed validation from the white kids, that my black experience was real. It never came. I thought I needed validation from the black kids, that I was still down for the cause, that I was still black.” —C.C. Garrett
C.C. Garrett is a father, brother, and son based out of the Hub City of Acadiana, Lafayette, Louisiana. He is the eldest of a very conventional, black southern family. The White sheep, among black wool. He is, at-present, pursuing a Psychology Degree with an emphasis in Forensics. Plays flanker for the Baton Rouge Rugby Club's Men's Semi Professional Team. He is widely published as an author and poet. He was the 2021 recipient of the National Performance Network’s Take Notice Award and hopes that he can stay true to the craft of writing, as writing has for him.