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 19th in our Democracy and Peril Series. This series will highlight hopeful aspects about our Democracy using various genres including poems, interviews, short stories, and articles about political events
Part 1 - “Pimping People’s Pain”
This ain’t a rap, it’s a eulogy, for a man dead in spirit but living in greed. Trump has been selling pain like stock options, turning tears into profit, hate into doctrine.
©️MustafaSantoagoAli
#Poetry #ProudBlue #Resister #BlackLivesMatter #Unions #Immigrants #TransLives #WomensRights #KamalaHarris #Elections #Vote
Part 2: “Pimping Peoples Pain”
And now there’s Project 2025, a blueprint carved in disillusioned stone, a plan to control, to privatize souls, to rewrite the rights that keep us whole. He hides it in daylight, sells it as cure, a future dressed in chains we’ll endure.
The working class sweats, the military dies, but all he does is tweet out lies. He’s pimping out your sorrow, selling it tomorrow, like this pain’s gonna pay for his hollow empire to follow.
This ain’t a battle rap, this is a call to arms. We see the charm, but we hear the alarms. He pimps pain like it’s the latest trend, but we’re the ones who bend, break, then rise again.
This might hurt a bit, but truth always bites. He’s been hustling pain, but we hold the light. We’re the ones standing after the smoke clears, while he drowns in the flood of our unbought tears.
Conspiracies spun like webs in the night, disinformation flooding, blurring wrong from right. He sells you chaos to keep you confused, but we know the truth, and it won’t be used.
This is the end of the hustle, the lie’s last breath, the moment we rise from the shadows of death. We are votes forged in fire, voices sharpened by pain, we are the dawn breaking his dark reign.
No more pimping, no more chains to reclaim— we are the storm that ends the Pimping of People’s Pain.
©️Mustafa Santiago Ali
#Poetry #ProudBlue #KamalaHarris #Resister ##ElectionDay #Vote