1st Generation Integration (America) Part 2

 We were watching Alex Haley's    
“Roots”      
And I turned to my Mother      
And said      
“Mama, they cut off Kunta Kinte’s foot?!”      
My mother replied      
“Well baby, yea” like she was baking a cake      
Jesus in the back of my mind we waiting for the forward but      
And your gonna send me to school with who now, the Nuns? hmpf      
And your gonna send me to dance class with who now, Russia? hmpf      
And your gonna send me to ice skating classes with who now, Italy? hmpf      
This was an executive schedule before it was even fashionable      
Which made me wonder why my home girls could be      
Co-parented by the streets; the promenade, front porches and open fire hydrants-      
My uncle opened it up, which is an urban ritual in 100 degrees of heat      
And I was among the kids in it and she snapped the fuck out this day anyway      
Soliciting for this, that and the other-uncertainty among…      
Squeezed by immigration into predetermined, ethnically diverse areas with tension      
That children didn’t have the capacity to perceive;      
The Hispanic and other Black adjacent community in the city- annexed (strangest shit- there goes the foot again)      
but Itinerary wasn’t like that; she uh believed in keeping me “constructive occupied”      
(You gotta be kidding me; scratching my head)      
Baton corps was all black, well thank you      
So it was uh difficult at certain stages or junctures      
To reconcile what I knew to be historically true      
And the people whose houses I sat down      
With at the dinner table      
Cognitive dissonance      
For lunch though, never dinner      
(Don’t wear your welcome out;      
That’s all she ever really had to say,  
Which was odd seeing as how I was  
Walking paths she knew nothing about:  
That's normally how it goes-your children  
Will have hardships that you've never heard of
Regardless of who you are or what you got)      
There were never any men/fathers ever      
At any of these houses      
Well that’s the city for ya shrugging      
The matriarchs were running the thing..      
Supervision and uh hmpf      
Ok this is trying to route me back to GT Beretta which is where I don’t want to go…We don’t like repetition especially if we can’t offer it in a new format...so ending here.