Picture This
Annual Youth Initiative contest
I Am American Democracy
Undergraduate Winner
Nadiya White
University of the Incarnate Word
I am not democracy.
Yes, I Am American Democracy–
For that opportunity ends
With an equal
Finish.
Yes our start
May be in question,
But a dream
To accomplish.
I imagine
I’m not too far
From this United world
Of progress:
Of asking questions,
None answered,
For not to
Challenge authority;
Of inspirations
Turned to aspirations,
Breeding ambition,
But prolonging “the torments of man.”
But don’t lose hope,
Nietzsche,
For that is
Unamerican.
So Yes I Am American Democracy– With the hope, the urge
To have…
A dream…
I have a dream but…
Does it matter what dream I have
When this vision was marching
With Martin?
A dream with a rude awakening?
"Seared in the flames
Of withering injustice"
Stood that cross of sacrifice,
Dying for the sins of these righteous men.
That American dream
With American democracy
Is no beginning,
But an end,
Where progress is an illusion
Like a step forward trend,
But you keep passing the same backward promises,
Telling you to be the change.
That there will be change.
But we're supposed to keep hope in democracy. Dream of its potential,
Be the change
Like I Am American Democracy.
But what does it mean
To be apart of this nation,
Too proud to call itself
United?
Where the nation has to be reminded
My life matters,
Where those born on the plantation
Were reborn into poverty,
Reborn into the contradiction of united,
Reborn into a short life.
But we keep their memory
Engraved on a social headstone.
Yes, I Am American Democracy–
Social uniform, no division;
Because while death may be equal,
The living births this distinction.
“Our” American philosophy
Beginning from an optimists’ dream,
Awakening the hearts of a United American Democracy
Leaves them to believe,
“To be so blind with patriotism
That you can't face reality,”
X’ing out reality
When awakened from your dream.
But that American vision
Will no longer enslave my mind,
Disguising plantations as meadows,
Free labor as freedom.
Yes, I Am American Democracy–
In its true form,
For I represent myself:
Not a dream, but reality.
And soon, that American dream’s worst nightmare.