“Not My President”
A Poem by Staceyann Chin

From Crossfire

October 2, 2019  By Staceyann Chin
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Every time I step to a microphone
I develop an uncontrollable itch to shout
Donald J Drumpf is not my president

And that’s not just because I didn’t vote for the fool
not just because he’s become the latest tool
members of the contemporary Klan
pull out of from their modern day sheets to remind us
of when their cloths covered this land with the brutal hand
of white racist terror

If you have ever had to dress down some
Melanin-challenged motherfucker
talking bout all lives matter-
raise your right hand and say amen

So you know exactly what I mean when I say
Donald J Trump cannot be recognized as no motherfucking
president

First of all
he’s been breathing on this planet for 70 years
and still has the vocabulary of a third grader
not to mention his mouth always looks to me
like an incontinent asshole that can’t hold in its own bullshit in
spewing the septic defecation of ignorance and discrimination
contaminating the already polluted air with inarticulate entitle-
ment
steady providing validation
for all the other them other white men who feel like
equal opportunity for anyone else
means we are trying to motherfucking oppress them

Donald J Trump could never be my president
because he began his political career
by questioning the legitimacy of the first Black president
elected in a country
built upon the hard-working backs of Africans Americans
he could never be my president
because he had the gall to call for Barack Obama’s birth papers
as if this were 1831 and he was one of them cruel White men
free or grab any Black body and demand documents

In the America we are currently fighting to create
men like that can no more lead us
than can a predominantly White police force protect
the black descendants of the very brown bodies they enslaved
to gain the racial advantage they refuse to let go of
no matter how obvious it is—that in America/race and opportuni-
ty
Are linked/like poverty and the prison system
like rape and a woman’s right to choose
like who has wealth and who pays the least taxes
like gerrymandering and who gets the right to vote

it’s time for poor white folks to admit
they’ve all been sold a six for a nine

This con artistry of race and sex and economy isn’t new
Donald J Trump is just another white knot in the noose
they keep tying around the necks of the disadvantaged majority
just another fairytale in the elaborate inheritance of lies
they sell to anyone who isn’t rich
and white and longing for the good old days
when racially cloaked narratives of nationality
was the only history available to average Americans
fed to them/to keep them from being woke
to keep them from poking too deeply
into whose pockets most of the wealth that ordinary people work for
from 9-5 everyday in this country/goes
Black people have had enough of this systematic bullshit
between the 500 years of unrelenting racism
and the recent rise of this fake-ass over-tanned-idiotic orangutan
Black bodies have got no more tears left to cry
we ready to try some next level shit
to resurrect some Black Panther
Angela Davis
Assata Shakur Shit

I’m willing to bet the same is true the rest of y’all motherfuckers
I’m willing to bet you know that
the state of things as they are/is unacceptable
having spent my whole life fighting for better than this
I refuse to give deference
to this walking, shameful evidence of what fear
and prejudice
and a lil Russian interference/can birth in a nation
obviously asleep at the wheel of our own democratic elections

Donald J Trump is not my president
because his tenure in the Whitehouse is a result of unchecked
sexism
a culture of rape
and the ever present undercurrents
of the newly emerging twenty-first century klu klux klan
Donald J Trump is not my president
because he wants disappear our Muslims neighbors
because he wants to deport Mexican-American families
because he fails to recognize that the only Americans
who are not immigrant Americans are native Americans
he is not my president because he sexualizes his own daughter
he will never my president
because I want to clearly demonstrate to my daughter
that a man who boasts about grabbing women by their vaginas
without their permission/does not ever deserve her respect
no matter who he is/or how rich he says he is
that even though that egotistical airhead
master-minded and pulled off the greatest political coup
in the history of modern elections
he remains nothing/but an illegitimate, embarrassing burden I
hope we won’t have to have to carry for four whole years

every time I see this orange snake slithering around on my screen
I want to break my fucking TV
rip it off the wall and let it fall from my fifth floor apt
I wish I could just close my eyes and pretend
that none of this is not happening

But if we do not keep our eyes open
the consequences will be catastrophic
every kind of resistance if necessary
when the arm of injustice persists
we have to develop new ways to resist
we have to keep trying/keep changing tactics

we have to find a way to impeach him this motherfucker

we cannot be discouraged by these political tricks of distraction
it’s will take longer than we anticipated
to get this fucker off our TVs/out of office
and outside our collective consciousness
it could take a year/or two or—God help us—it could take four
but no matter how long it takes
we have to keep to the truth of what we know
—this buffoon cannot lead
so we cannot follow him to the sordid places he would have us go

no matter how normalized the actions
of this incredibly imbecilic and inhumane administration has
become
no matter how numb we become to what the news anchors say
you have to say something different to yourself
Donald J Trump is not my president
has never been my president
will never be my president
make it a mantra
say it to your fish
your parrot
your republican counterparts/say it over and over again/to them
and one day/when everyone else sees
hes no more than a snake-oil-salesman no than cheeto-dusted Freddie Kruger
invading every aspect of our lives
like all the great walls of divisiveness built before him
he will fall/revealing the yellow bellies of all those
who brought him to power
and whoever is responsible
be it Vladimir/of one of them funny looking Trump children
whoever it is/that Iago motherfucker
will have to answer to the rest of humanity
for this small-handed-wrinkle
in this bumboclaat warp in time

________________________________

Crossfire

Used by permission from Crossfire (Haymarket Books, 2019). Copyright © 2019 by Staceyann Chin.




Staceyann Chin
Staceyann Chin
Poet, actor, and performing artist Staceyann Chin is the author of the new poetry collection Crossfire: A Litany For Survival, the critically acclaimed memoir The Other Side of Paradise, co-writer and original performer in the Tony Award–winning Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, and author of the one-woman shows Hands Afire, Unspeakable Things, Border/Clash, and MotherStruck. She has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and 60 Minutes, and her poetry been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post. She proudly identifies as Caribbean, Black, Asian, lesbian, a woman, and a resident of New York City, as well as a Jamaican national.








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