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FILTHY NEGROS

Well, it's like this:

we others

negroes

filthy negroes

we won't take anymore

that's right

we're through

being in Africa

in America

your negroes

your niggers

your filthy negroes

we won't take anymore

that surprises you

to say: yessuh

while polishing your boots

oui mon pe

to the white missionaries

or master

while harvesting your

sugar cane

coffee

cotton

peanuts

in Africa

in America

poor negroes

filthy negroes

that we were

that we won't be anymore

We're finished you'll see

our Yes Sir

our oui blanc

our si Senor

and

attention, sharpshooter

oui, mon Commandant

when they order us

to machine gun our Arab brothers

in Syria

in Tunisia

in Morocco

and our white comrades on strike

starving to death

oppressed

plundered

despised like us

negroes

niggers

filthy negoes

Surprise

when the rhumba and blues bands

in your clubs

start playing another rhythm

to accompany the blasé whoring

of your pimps and your diamond-studded sluts

for whom a negroe

is but an instrument

for singing, n'est-ce pas,

for dancing, of course,

for fornicating, naturlich

no more than a commodity

to be bought and sold

on the pleasure market

no more than a negroe

a nigger

a filthy negroe.

Too late

deep into the heart of infernal jungles

will throb the terrible telegraphic beating

of the tom-toms tirelessly beating beating

beating

that the negroes

won't take anymore

won't take anymore

being your niggers

your filthy negroes

too late

for we will have risen

from the thieves' dens from the gold mines in the Congo

and South Africa

too late it will be too late

on the cotton plantations of Louisiana

in the sugar cane fields of the Antilles

to halt the harvest of vengeance

of the negroes

the niggers

the filthy negoes

it will be too late I tell you

for even the tom-toms will have learned the language

of the Internationale

for we will have chosen our day

day of the filthy negroes

filthy Indians

filthy Hindus

filthy Indo-Chinese

filthy Arabs

filthy Malays

filthy Jews

filthy proletarians.

And here we are arisen

All the wretched of the earth

all the upholders of justice

marching to attack your barracks

your banks

like a forest of funeral torches

to be done

once

   and

      for

                all

with this world

of negroes

niggers

filthy negoes

WHEN THE TOM-TOM BEATS

Your heart trembles in the shadows, like a face

 

        reflected in troubled water.

 

The old mirage rises from the pit of the night

 

You sense the sweet sorcery of the past:

 

A river carries you far away from the banks,

 

Carries you toward the ancestral landscape.

 

Listen to those voices singing the sadness of love

 

And in the mountain, hear that tom-tom

 

       panting like the breast of a young black girl.

 

Your soul is this image in the whispering water where

 

        your fathers bent their dark faces.

 

Its hidden movements blend you with the waves

 

And the white that made you a mulatto is this bit

 

       of foam cast up, like spit, upon the shore.

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