The Poem “For Sweet Honey in the Rock” is a lyrical poem composed for the infamous gospel-acapella group named Sweet Honey in the Rock. Although it was written almost twenty years ago, its message remains relevant today. Sanchez calls for equality among all walks of life, employing the measurement of time to put her impatience with human-kind’s inaction on full display. The lines “Im gonna stay on the battlefield till I die” and “Im gonna treat everybody right till I die” describe a clear message: Sanchez refuses to give up the fight for justice among all people until the day she dies. Her battle field is pen and paper and the many readers and listeners of her work. Sanchez then uses two stanzas which refer to two different time frames. The first; the present. She writes: “it is time to move us all into another century/ time for freedom and racial and sexual justice.” Throughout history, racial and sexual difference has been disowned in American society, Sanchez is telling us that it is finally time to remove society of the bigotry we have held on to for so long. The next stanza then refers to the past. “and they bombed our buildings and killed our babies/ and heir courts changed into confessionals/ but we kept on organizing we kept on teaching believing.” Sanchez is writing about the painful history of the marginalized minority groups in America and the world. There has been so much destruction, but the answer is always continue fighting – to teach and believe.
Sanchez’s poem resonates today just the same, if not, to an even greater degree in this current American political climate. Over the past five years, racial and general civil unrest has grown with the publicity of injustices against minorities by police and at the election of the controversial current American President Donald Trump. American society has become increasingly unsatisfied and impatient with the inability of our culture to make drastic changes in the way of political and social treatment of minority groups. Sanchez wrote “I say come wrap your hands with deeds and prayer/ you brown ones/ yellow ones/ you black ones/ you gay ones/ you white ones/ you lesbian ones.” Her voice was and still is the voice of the impatient agents of change in our society. During Sanchez’s moment in history, and at this moment in history we’re in now, the time to enter the next century is now.
Sanchez’s poem “For Sweet Honey in the Rock” and Danez Smith’s poem “Dinosaurs in the hood” share a similar underlying theme; A call for changes to be made in society. While Sanchez takes on a more broad enemy of injustice everywhere and across all kinds of people, Smith targets a more specific category of our culture; Hollywood. One of the key indicators for the political positioning of our country can be found in our media and entertainment. “Dinosaurs in the Hood” refers to the notion that few African-American’s are represented well in films- if at all. However, the difference in Smith’s poem is in the detail and honesty with regard to what he wants to see changed. While he wants a movie which represents African-Americans, he doesn’t want a movie which exploits any stereotype or acknowledges the difference in the African American experience in America versus the experience of others. To Smith, true equality will be recognized when a film contains these elements he asks for without him asking or looking for them. As he ends his poem “the little black boy/ on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless/ his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.” Smith wants to see a poem that simply presents the same life and dreams for “the little black boy” as it does for every other boy that we see in movies today.
Sanchez and Smith share a common goal, but each approaches the solution to inequalities in American society differently. Sanchez makes a direct recant of history and call to action for those who want to share her view for drastic and swift societal change. Smith takes the reader to a specific corner of society, popular culture, and how it reflects the underlying social inequalities or injustices in the real world. Although their approach is quote different, Sanchez and Smith are each incredibly eloquent and effective in conveying their point. There is a special potency to their message in the way that it is presented: as Wholesale changes to every facet of American culture or understanding realty and the necessity for change through a most effective lens.
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