To read the original poem please visit the following link.
YES WE CAN! 
no sugar…small political football pun. please disregard.
as i watched the excitement last night sweep the nation..nay..the globe, i pondered to myself the meaning. i got calls and text messages from all over mother..father..auset..kapri..oshun…etc. i could anticipate the reaction of the elders. they were born of that part of the struggle that they had seen and the victories they envisioned themselves working towards. the younger ones were mostly just swept up in the tsunami of the times. we all, collectively, must wake up to the sobering reality of the day that the sky did not open up and grant us reparations…repatriation…or mental liberation.
i stayed away from most political discussion during this cycle though i watched the vitriol bleed through in this forum, others, and even my workplace. i recognized early on that a vote was a very personal thing and in such a polarizing time, not one of us is prepared to change our minds about which way we cast the die. today we still rise up and go to work at ups or beam global or the unemployment office. today will be much like any other day that black people have had since juneteenth at galveston. as in maybe a few of us, kinda sorta say, ‘ain’t you heard that we free yet?’ today i will still pass by auset’s place to drop off jah’kaya and there will be a gray cobalt outside license plate x38 2818 and it will be selling sweet treats to the panting fiends off of 92nd and cottage grove and i will spit in disgust and maybe i will call the cops again.
symbology is the science of manipulating figureheads to your advantage though as the name implies a figurehead is a stone statue that is often interesting to behold but a beast to change. if you cast your vote with any objective other than symbology in mind, then i have a feeling you will feel the sore loser over the next year or so because you can’t touch the hem of your christ’s garment once he has been perched atop the ivory towers to govern. the real work does not begin today. if the real work was not already in motion, then folks will get real bored real fast when obama starts to bark orders about what we need to do to get america back on track.
can we? yea…we can do that. if the tactic that you have been implementing has been effective at gaining ground for your cause. keep moving in that direction. if not, change horses in mid-stream. yea…mumia will be free and until then we will continue to draw attention to his writings and speeches and prison radio broadcasts and he will continue to lob sub-atomic auditory projectiles at whomever happens to inhabit a seat in the system because that is his role. and assata will continue to pen open letters from a "20th century escaped slave" to slash open the wound of history and warn us that it was never really healed. and david duke will still be heard as he was on npr only monday warning that the civil rights of white people are being infringed upon by racial quotas and immigration and affirmative action in order to further polarize relationships between black/brown and white advancing his ideal of a racial holy war and a sovereign white state. so i must do my "best work" to advance my interests.
post racial america is as much a myth and fabrication as america’s "discovery". much like multiracialism/multiculturalism means subjugate your heritage until we deem it socially acceptable for you to put it on display. the real work was already happening before today. i suppose the question we can ask ourselves on this november 5th is where was i when it started and what part of it should i jump on now that i am aware.
the word of the day comes from Cornel West circa April of this year "When he gets elected I will dance. I will dance on the morning of his inauguration and I will break dance in the evening, BUT the next day I will become his biggest critic. He must be held accountable." its the next day. do you (the collective "you") have your list of demands prepared?
canwe?!?
the aojumpingoverjubilation