Rhyming

One of my most recent discoveries about the New America is that I no longer have to rhyme my words in order to be listened to.

For years, I’ve been trying to be taken seriously as a, well, as a person, but I’ve found that people expect me to sound a certain way. Yes, people think I am going to talk in “black English” but really, after many years, I’ve discovered that what they really want me to do, in order to be remembered, it to rhyme. You know, they want me to sound like Jesse Jackson or any number of hip-hop artists. It’s all the same- for white folks to remember what you said, it’s best to make things rhyme.

But now, I can speak my mind and people actually understand me- they actually get what I am saying and they remember it! One person actually repeated my words to me the other day and got the gist and the details of what I was saying correct. When they couldn’t remember exactly they asked me “now, how did you frame that idea?” This is much different than the usual “okay, say it again. How did it go?” as if I were pitching them a song, or commercial jingle. I finally feel like I’m being taken seriously- without the need to rhyme.

And to that I say, maybe we have reached the day “when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.”