PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness

Naana Banyiwa Horne

A fly is a fly. . .
is one of God’s legitimate citizens
every where else but in an American
classroom where a fly is as un-American
as a boat-load of third world immigrants.
It is not home-grown.
Cannot be indigenous.
Not to this land of the fair and the brave.

Should a fly appear in an American classroom,
concerned citizens will immediately
construct it into an alien creature.

Oh no, it is not an alien from out-of-space.
This is no UFO but a merely unwelcome immigrant
absconding the barbarism of starving Ethiopians.

It is a horsefly alright,
one of the biggest one can lay
eyes on in this hemisphere.
And yet this fly has got
to be assigned its rightful place--
an immigrant; a wannabe American
from the third world, to be precise--
chirp American students.

Of course it could be American,
but only as in American humanitarianism
reaching out to save a distressed world.

In enlightened American eyes, a horsefly
wandering into an American classroom
can only be conceived as an African phenomenon.
The poor endangered creature is seeking
amnesty in this world of the free.

In this world of excess, reserved for
the righteous and the blessed,
God’s very own special city on the hill.
A horsefly in an American classroom
can only be a prize-fly for which
starving Ethiopians will kill, will kill.

That our fly appears inside
a classroom in the heartland of America
and it is unquestioningly super-size
as other wonders that come out of this
land of the endowed is inconsequential.
A fly can just not be American.
It is definitely a misplaced creature.
It is an immigrant
And needs to be repatriated
back to Africa,
where it definitely belongs!

Africa!
The designated terrain for unloading
the American unconscious.

Copyright © 2004 Africa Resource Center, Inc.

Citation Format

PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness: Issue 3, 2004