You were one of our sharpest social critiics, MarlonQuestioning the depiction
Of African Americans
Both past and present
Through your timeless movies
Ethnic Notions
Color Adjustment
Tongues Untied
Black Is/Black Ain't
I used your movies
In diversity training
And even donated
Copies to my local library
You showed the power
of documentary
To make us squirm
in our seats
Recalling those old sterotypes
you had uncovered
Mammy
Pickaninny
Uncle Joe
Aunt Jemima
Watermelon head
Characters designed
To deny us our humanity
While mocking the very notion
Of being black
And proud
If uncovering racism
Was all you had done
That would have been enough
But like James Baldwin
And so many other
Talented and black
Gay men
You had so much more to offer
In part because of
What life had offered:
HIV/AIDS
And love
With a white man
And a bigot
Named Pat Buchannan
Who put Tongues Untied
Into his
Campaign commercial
And broadened
Your audience
Indeed our tongues
Will forever be untied
By our embrace
Of this under world
Bring out our Black Gay and Lesbian
Brothers and sisters
Love them as our own
Challenge our ethnic notions.
Kenyatta Yamel