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 57th in our Democracy and Hope Series. This series will highlight hopeful aspects about our Democracy using various genres including poems, interviews, short stories, and articles about political events
grandma said, when you know better, do better, her words a seed planted deep in the mind’s soil, roots tangled in the memory of storms / the kind that don’t end with a sunrise, the kind that settle in your bones, like a warning, like a lesson.
we knew / we were told / they said the fires would come / that the sea would rise / that hurricanes would carry fury, names like Helene & Milton tattooed on our lives, spinning chaos, bending cities to their knees.
we were warned / that to burn fossils would mean to bury / to scorch / to bleed our futures dry / but they still stoke the flame, fuel the storm, sell our breath to the highest bidder, while we drown in their denials, while they spin stories to make us doubt the sweat on our skin, the heat of our hands.
leaders peddling fiction like salvation / say it’s all in our heads, say it’s not real, as if words can stop a wave, can cool a feverish planet, can rebuild a home ripped apart by the wind’s teeth.
grandma taught me: knowledge is power, but it is also a burden, a gift you carry like a torch in the dark / & now the dark is everywhere, is all around / & still they cut, still they cut, still they cut the funding that could save us / as if there is no tomorrow to answer for.
do better / she said, as if she knew the weight of these days, the way they twist truth into myth, hope into ash, the way they would deny us the very breath we breathe.
we stand on the edge of a storm that does not care for politics, does not choose sides, does not wait for us to wake up / it is here, demanding we see / demanding we act / demanding we do better, not for ourselves, but for the hands that will reach for ours, long after the floodwaters have receded.
so let’s burn brighter, let’s do more than they said we could / let’s refuse to go down silent, let’s refuse to let them write our end in smoke.
we know better / we do better / for those who are yet to be, for the storms that are still to come, for the earth that is asking, for the sky that is crying / for the future / that still believes in us.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
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