High Priced Conversion:
(After Reading Countee
Cullen's "Heritage")
Countee, with your brown eyes you saw His face
but could you love a savior who's not brown?
Even though He was not of your race
Did He not take on the thorny crown?
We heard the Gospel through the centuries,
and though we said we'd follow Him, we lied.
Your fathers were dragged from their countries;
humanity in chains; their freedom denied.
White men forced you into submission:
Families were ripped in sadistic fashion.
Slavery replaced their human condition:
forgotten were Christ's words of compassion.
After the war that divided this nation,
former slaves found more degradation.
Your people thought they had found liberation.
All they found was the shame of segregation.
If Jesus had skin that is pale and light
the same as the ones that enslaved your kind,
then can He still be the chosen one white
unable to live the black heart and mind?
Preachers say he died for you and me,
God come from heaven to feel what we feel,
to suffer so we may live eternally
for all of His children salvation made real.
From Africa, Asia, or Europe we're born.
We make up the whole human family.
So be not from your people torn:
In Christ we will find our unity.
George Cassutto
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