Fri, 10 Jul 2009 Feature Article

The Obama Serenades

Cape Coast, Ghana

At Cape Coast,
we bowed our heads
in sorrow
and shame,
recalling the agonies
of our forebears…
the wicked complicity
of kinsmen
and sometimes
even parents…

At Cape Coast,
the ghoulish stench
of slavery
stared us
stiffly and
morbidly
in the face,
flaring up
our nostrils
to the wrenching
point of
hyperventilation…

At Cape Coast,
we were weighted down
with the bloody crimes
of yesteryear;
still,
almost senselessly
and capriciously,
we either flatly failed
or rawly refused
to grasp
this bleak season
of misery and
abject penury
was wrought
by ourselves
upon
our own kind…

At Cape Coast,
we could only
half-fathom
what was
and what might
have been
had there not
been…and then
staggered
by the stygian depths
of such epic
savagery,
we could not
hold back
our tears,
those tears
which were not
really our own,
but those of
our forebears
in eons past,
callously wrenched
from their moorings
and rendered
beasts-of-burden
by those pale-skinned
blue-eyed men
with frozen veins…

At Cape Coast,
we were shackled
and packed supine
as sardines
in urine and
human waste,
bound for
chain-gang labor
in the Carolinas
Georgia, Louisiana
and Mississippi,
shorn of our clothes
and tongues and
names and
dignity…

At Cape Coast,
a disoriented
mulatto class
was spawned
mimicking
every misdeed
of those blue-eyed
creatures of
yonderland,
while retaining
almost none
of whatever virtues
with which they trod
our shores…

At Cape Coast,
time and tide
came full circle
even as seller
and sold
stood
face-to-face
like total strangers
staring
at the horizon
with a young
orange-sun
beginning
to rise up
once more –

7/10/09

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD, taught Print Journalism at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City, for more than 20 years. He is also a former Book Review Editor of The New York Amsterdam News.. More He holds Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude) in English, Communications and Africana Studies from The City College of New York of The City University of New York, where he was named a Ford Foundation Undergraduate Fellow and the first recipient of the John J. Reyne Artistic Achievement Award in English Poetry (Creative Writing) in 1988.

The author was part of the "socially revolutionary" team of undergraduate journalists at City College of New York (CCNY) of the City University of New York (CUNY), who won First-Prize certificates for Best Community Reporting from the Columbia University School of Journalism, for three consecutive years, from 1988 to 1990.

Born April 8, 1963, in Ghana; naturalized U.S. citizen; son of Kwame (an educator) and Dorothy (maiden name, Sintim) Okoampa-Ahoofe; children: Abena Aninwaa, Kwame III. Ethnicity: "African." Education: City College of the City University of New York, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1990; Temple University, M.A., 1993, Ph.D., 1998. Politics: Independent. Religion: "Christian—Ecumenist." Hobbies and other interests: Political philosophy.

CAREER: Ghana National Cultural Center, Kumasi, poet, 1979–84; Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, worked as instructor in English; Technical Career Institutes, New York, NY, instructor in English, 1991–94; Indiana State University, Terre Haute, instructor in history, 1994–95; Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY, member of English faculty. Participant in World Bank African "Brain-Gain" pilot project.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, National Council of Teachers of English, African Studies Association, Community College Humanities Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Essay award, Nassau Review, 1999.Column: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

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The Obama Serenades

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