DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

I hereby claim my entire hueman heritage: Y'know, upon reflection, I must have something 'in common with' almost everyone else on earth. Lemme' count the ways:

First and foremost, I'm a Black Afrikan (and if you don't like what I call myself - it's not yer problem! All huemans are 'of Afrikan descent' - Check out the DNA studies!);

-then and not necessarily in this order - from an Elizabeth City North Carolinian Daddy, I'm Cherokee - (and damn annoyed at the backwardAss land-grabbing maltreatment those wretched wasichus in D.C. ('wasichu' - Indigenous for "whitey") are continuously handing out to my Sisters and Brothers of Native American ancestry);

-then I'm Irish from my Boston, Massachussetts Mother (and I'm sick and tired of my white Irish male NYPD cop relatives slaughtering my Black male Brothers like Amadou Diallo, Malcom Ferguson, Timothy Stansbury, Jr., Anthony Bryant, Corey Ward, Randy Evans, Johnnie Cromartie, Shawn Montague, Anthony Baez, Ed Perry, Earl Faison, Steve Ecxel, Michael Stewart, Sean Bell, et al. - too many to cite here!);

-then I'm white English (of course, you know that by now and by immigration, there are Britishfolk of every color - ha ha!) 'Chickens coming home to roost' - England'd bragged for years that it "didn't have a color problem like America's" - how now white cow?);

-then I'm of Jamaican-Caribbean descent from Mama (Family name's 'Francis' - and one day soon, we'll do a 'roots' trace and connect with da' Family! - in the meantime - Bob Marley's my International Hero - A'right?);

-then I'm Barbadian (by adoption and by my passport and by association with my two glorious Bajan children and my multi-talented Grandson);

-then, I'm a Trini-Tobagonian (from my marriage to my cricket-playing husband);

Finally, but not least, I'm a strong female-of-color (like Angela Davis and Assata Shakur) - part of the world's majority (tempered in the life-ovens of experience as a Mother, Mother-in-Law, GrandMother, Daughter, GrandDaughter, GreatGrandDaughter, Daughter-in-Law, GodDaughter, Sister, Sister-in-Law, Aunt, GreatAunt, Niece, Cousin (s) and Wife); Count 'em - there's more'n 15!

All of the above should stand me in good stead with the millions upon millions of other hueman beings on the planet - something in common with every single soul on earth and if I've missed anyone - forgiveness is a Blessing.

OOPS! Almost forgot, I'm a Boston, Massachusstts debutante ('came out' like the chicken pox - 'way back in 1948 - with Boston Philharmonic Conductor Arthur Fiedler in attendance!).

There you have it - I'm an aware amalgam of worldwide huemanity - very capable of caustic commentary -and standing squarely in challenge to any-other-one who tries to say I haven't the right to claim that I'm a 'citizen of the world' and that no other hueman (dropped probably by sheer accident by his/her mother) should be telling me where, why, how, when to go, or what to do on this planet.

And if this makes me unconventional, radical, militant, revolutionary, an anarchist, a rebel, a 'controversial,' an agitator, an 'enemy combatant' or indeed, even a 'criminal' - well YES!

So sue me.