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 fifth 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.
In the heart of a city that’s seen fire and flowers, where echoes of marching feet and soulful tunes linger in the air like the scent of magnolia blooms, we gathered. Journalists, poets, storytellers—voices of the unheard, the unyielding, the unbroken. It was a convention of black ink on white pages, telling truths that refuse to fade.
But in walked a specter of privilege, wrapped in arrogance and a suit that reeked of ignorance. He strutted through the doors of our sanctuary, uninvited, unwelcomed, yet unperturbed. He came to tell us about jobs, about blackness, about ourselves. A man who’s never known the weight of our histories, the rhythm of our struggles, dared to speak over us, to us, about us.
“Black jobs,” he said, as if they were some artifact to be displayed, some trinket of a bygone era. “Real jobs,” he proclaimed, his voice a blunt instrument, cutting through our dignified air. What does he know of the labor of our ancestors, who built this land with hands roughened by hope and despair? What does he know of the resilience that courses through our veins, a legacy of endurance and grace?
And then, the audacity—a pointed finger, a dismissive wave. Kamala Harris, a beacon of possibility, was reduced to a mere shadow in his monologue of mediocrity. A Black woman, running to lead a nation that’s never fully acknowledged the weight of her stride. Disrespected, disregarded, but not diminished. For her strength is not a question but a statement, a testament to the power that lies in our blood, our bones, our being.
White privilege is a veil, a cloak, a shield. It allows one to walk into spaces not meant for them, to speak on matters they barely comprehend, to pontificate on lives they’ve never truly seen. It’s the audacity to rewrite our stories while silencing our voices, to redefine our existence with a lexicon of lies. But we, the bearers of the true narrative, see through the facade. We know that our worth is not defined by the whims of the privileged but by the wisdom of our ancestors and the promises we carry forward.
In this room, where the walls have witnessed the births of revolutions and the deaths of dreams deferred, we stand unyielding. His words, sharp as they aimed to be, fell bluntly against our collective armor. We are the descendants of Baldwins and Angelou’s, of warriors and scholars. We are not to be told who we are, for we already know. We have always known.
He came to our convention, not to listen, not to learn, but to lecture. Yet, in his ignorance, he revealed the truth of his own impotence. For power is not in the title one holds but in the legacy one leaves. And our legacy is one of survival, of thriving against the odds, of transforming pain into poetry, and struggle into song.
So, let him speak. Let him spill his misconceptions onto the floor of our sacred space. For we will gather them, turn them into ink, and write the truths that his privilege blinds him to. We will tell the stories of our heroes, our heroines, our everyday warriors. We will lift up Kamala and all the Black women who’ve been told they are not enough, who’ve been overlooked, underestimated, and scorned. We will lift them up because they are the heart of our narrative, the soul of our future.
In the end, his presence was a footnote in our history, a fleeting intrusion quickly overshadowed by the brilliance of our own voices. We are not defined by the judgments of those who cannot see us; we are defined by the light we cast, the shadows we dispel, the truths we uphold.
White privilege may allow a man to enter our house and attempt to dictate our worth, but it cannot strip us of our dignity, our identity, our power. We are the narrators of our own destiny, the architects of our own future. And in the face of ignorance, we stand unbowed, unbroken, and unapologetically Black.
©️MustafaSantisgoAli
#Poetry #NABJ24 #Trump #BlackExcellence #ProudBlue #KamalaHarris #BlackTwitter #BlackWomen