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 fourth 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.
We are the ink-stained hands, scars written in headlines, speaking truth from the basement, our words a shield and sword, yet we see our stories erased, replaced by mouths that spit fire and venom into the bones of our history.
How do we hold this weight, bear the cost of integrity? When the gatekeepers let wolves in, we watch our fields burn, our legacies singed by tongues that twist lies into the marrow of our kin.
We are not thugs, not the shadows they cast, but suns, burning bright, each name a constellation in the night of a nation's reckoning.
But here they stand, those who sought to drown our voices, now handed a microphone by the very hands that once clasped ours in solidarity.
We scream into the void of their indifference, remind them that our pain is not a spectacle, our lives not a platform for the peddlers of hate.
They call us journalists, but we are more than that, we are the truth tellers, the griots of our time, and we refuse to let our stories be sullied by the likes of those who would see us silenced.
In the echo of the chambers where decisions are made, we demand respect, not just for ourselves, but for the ancestors who paved this rocky road with their blood.
Do not mistake our kindness for weakness, our fight for fury without purpose. We are the storm, the calm, the eye, and we will not stand for the betrayal of our own.
If we don’t hold the line, keep our integrity as a banner, they will see our people as less than human, our stories as less than true.
So, to those who hand the mic to the wolves, we say: enough. We will not let you rewrite our narrative, for we are the authors of our destiny, the keepers of our truth.
We are here, unbroken, unbowed, and we will speak until the world remembers our worth.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
#Poetry #ProudBlue #Resister #KamalaHarris2024