We're cool like that - by Sojourner Ahebee

I’m cool like that, I’m proud like that and I’m African like that.

Not a bloated stomach, not a face encircled with flies, not a beggar's hand

I am part o a billion people, with a million dances and thousands of tongues

to tell not only stories of tears, to play not only in the mourning band

I have a direct link to the origin of all humanity and shout this fact with my lungs filled with sands of the Sahara and the Kalahari.

I'm cool like that, I'm proud like that and I'm African like that.

You place me in your books and newspapers as one mass face

of AIDS and Malaria and T.B. - always the loser of the human race

I am one piece of a mosaic of 53 countries full of resources and grace

I dream, when you come to arm the hungry and take our wealth out of its place

that the Mediterranean and Red Seas, the Indian and Atlantic Oceans would give chase

to drown your greed and let the waters be its burial place.

I'm cool like that, I'm proud like and I'm African like that.

You dare ti rescue Africa with aging rock stars and uninspired actors

with agendas that do not include using us as our own benefactors

Listen to our voices filled with wisdom and experience and not be only our detractors.

Listen to Kofi Anna, Nelson Mandela, Wangari Maathai, Wole Soyinka, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Listen to Africa

Because we're cool like that, we're proud like that and we're part of humanity like that