Mustafa Santiago Ali
Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali is the Executive Vice President of Conservation & Justice for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), former Interim Chief of Programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and Instructor at American University. He is the Founder and CEO of Revitalization Strategies. He also serves as a commissioner for The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He is an award-winning writer and poet focused on social justice. Dr. Ali is frequently seen on television, including appearances on MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, VICE, FUSE, BET, National Geographic, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and Democracy NOW! Mustafa is also a regular guest on Roland Martin Unfiltered, Black News Channel, Tavis Smiley Show, The Dean Obeidallah Show, and many others…
Editor's Note: This poem is the third in our Democracy and Peril Series. This series will highlight the threats and challenges to our Democracy using various genres including poems, interviews, short stories, and articles about political events.
They preach 'Great Again' while we suffocate, frontline folks, bearing the weight, MAGA’s vision of ’25, a dagger in disguise, another lie, another guise, to decimate our skies.
Beneath the smog of power, where dreams go to rust, the rich man’s tower stands tall, but who can we trust? Promises of gold, while we drown in dust, denied, defunded, our justice turned to disgust.
In these streets, both rural and city, where the heartbeats of the forgotten dwell, they sell us hell, wrapped in red, white, and blue, a future skewed, our plight their amusement, their view.
Urban jungles, rural lands, all connected, a chain of pain, but our voices rejected. Coal dust, fracking cracks, pipelines bleed, a creed of greed, ignoring every desperate need.
Environmental racism, a blade at our throat, cutting deep, while they gloat, flint’s water, New Orleans' flood, they tell us it’s for the good, but it’s soaked in blood.
The climate crisis, a looming tide, but they deny, they hide, funds diverted, truth perverted, our cries for help, unheard, deserted.
Communities of color, left to fend, against a world that seems to bend, under the weight of policies, so vile, stealing breath, stealing smiles.
The factories, the refineries, the poison streams, in the land of the free, where are our dreams? We fight for scraps, for clean air, for life, in this strife, where justice is a knife.
But we rise, oh we rise, with fists and screams, for our children’s dreams, we tear at seams, of this fabric sewn with lies and hate, we refuse to let them dictate our fate.
Resist, persist, with every breath, we fight against this looming death, for our earth, our worth, our sacred ground, in unity, our strength is found.
Frontline warriors, from street to field, our wounds unhealed, yet we refuse to yield, for every tree, for every stream, for every child’s untainted dream.
The danger’s real, the battle steep, but through the dark, our spirits leap, for justice, for truth, for all we defend, until the bitter end, my friend, until the bitter end.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
#Poetry #Project2025 #ClimateCrisis #EnvironmentalJustice #Vote2024 #AirPollution