It didn't start with Uncle Tom

 It didn't start with Uncle Tom

or even the black men

who pretended to be white men

who owned slaves in the south

it started in the heart of Africa

long before any black man

saw a white man to blame

black selling black

 slave owner being slave

 in a Madness that had most of the continent

enslaved at one point or another

so that when the Muslims came

 to take 14 million black men

nobody thought much of it

or when the Portuguese

saw the Muslims making money

they wanted their share,

then the Dutch, the French, British

and finally, Americans

black Kings sending black bodies

to the coast to be sold

friends, enemies, ex-lovers

even their own children

Kings angered when they heard

About Quakers in the west

Who wanted to stop

This flow of black gold

Kings who sent their victims along

In long chain lines to the coast

many not surviving the journey

many arriving so starved

that black agents for white slavers

killed them on the spot

or let them get thrown into the sea later

after disguising their frailty

Black kings who knew and could care less

as long as they were not the ones on the ships

in some cases, selling their own sons

into slavery or unwanted wives

This did not start with Uncle Tom

or even the Native American Indians

who had their own black slaves

or freed blacks who pretended to be white

it didn't start with white people at all

but in the rotten heart of Africa,

and black kings who got rich

until the west finally put a stop to it.