Saya nak kaji sajak-sajak di bawah ni dulu. Ramai penyajak di bawah ni bukan Islam, kalau Islam pun pemahaman agamanya jelas tak betul walau fasih bahasa Arab. Jadi, fahami dulu segala kata yang mereka ucapkan, jangan terpengaruh. Saya tonton video-video di bawah ni berulang kali kerana saya seorang penulis, dan oleh itu saya perlu selidik persekitaran sastera dalam negara, juga di seluruh dunia. Dalam pada itu, saya malas nak komen perangai dan pandangan individu-individu tertentu yang terbabit dalam politik negara ini, yang saya perhati semakin mengarut. SOP lawan COVID-19 main redah - para penentang kena saman tapi para penyokong tak, para pembodek pemimpin tertinggi semakin bermaharajalela, manakala ada yang kerap berkhutbah mengenai sifat dan sikap orang munafik namun tak nak hala kata-kata kepada bukan musuh! Selanjutnya, dalam hal lain, aplikasi WhatsApp saya gagal dibuka sejak kira-kira sebulan lalu. Asyik keluar notis: "Sila betulkan jam anda yang tak tepat." Sedangkan, nombor yang tertera di skrin telefon saya sama seperti waktu sebenar. Mungkin aplikasi WhatsApp keliru kerana saya dah lama "tamatkan" nombor telefon ini agaknya! Saya cuba pula FB. Ah! beberapa bekas pelajar Sekolah Menengah Sains Pulau Pinang meninggal dunia, termasuk seorang rakan setingkatan. "Al-Fatihah," saya baca.

Aku Masih Bangkit 

(Beliau lontar sajak secara sepontan. Oleh itu, ada beberapa perkataan atau baris yang disebut oleh Mara Angelou tak sama dengan apa yang telah dituliskannya. Saya terjemah di sini ikut karya asal.)

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Kau boleh catat aku dalam sejarah
Dengan kebohongan pahit kau yang diputar belit,
Kau boleh injak aku ke dalam tanah kotor
Tetapi tetap saja, seperti debu, aku akan bangkit.

 

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Apakah kebiadapan aku mengecewakan kau?
Kenapa kau diliputi kesuraman?
Sebab aku berjalan bagai aku punya telaga-telaga minyak
Disedut di ruang tamu rumah aku sendiri?

 

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Seperti saja perjalanan bulan dan matahari,
Dengan kepastian terbit tenggelam,
Bagaikan juga harapan-harapan yang muncul,
Aku masih akan bangkit.

 

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Apakah kau ingin lihat aku putus asa?
Kepala tertunduk dan mata lihat ke bawah?
Kedua-dua bahu jatuh seumpama tetesan air mata,
Dilemahkan oleh tangisan jiwaku?

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

Adakah keangkuhan aku menyinggung kau?
Tidakkah kau ambil berat tentang hal ini
Kerana aku ketawa seperti aku punya lombong-lombong emas
Digali di belakang rumah aku sendiri.

 

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Kau boleh tembak aku dengan kata-kata kau,
Kau boleh kerat aku dengan mata kau,
Kau boleh bunuh aku dengan kebencian kau,
Tetapi masih, seperti udara, aku akan bangkit.

 

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Adakah keseksian aku mengganggu kau?
Adakah ia mengejutkan
Dek kerana aku menari seperti aku memiliki butiran berlian
Di antara pertemuan paha-paha aku?

 

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Keluar dari teratak-teratak sejarah memalukan
Aku bangkit

Bangun dari masa lalu yang berakarkan kesakitan
Aku bangkit

Aku samudera hitam, menerkam dan luas,
Melimpah dan menggelembung aku sewaktu pasang surut.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Jauh meninggalkan malam-malam penuh perasaan gerun dan ketakutan
Aku bangkit

Menemui kehadiran siang yang luar biasa terang benderang
Aku bangkit

Membawa hadiah-hadiah pemberian nenek moyang aku,
Aku adalah mimpi dan harapan golongan hamba abdi.
Aku bangkit
Aku bangkit
Aku bangkit.

(nota: Maya Angelou - dilahirkan dengan nama sebenar Marguerite Annie Johnson pada 4 April 1928 dan meninggal dunia pada 28 Mei 2014 - adalah seorang penyajak, penyanyi, penulis memoir, dan aktivis hak asasi. Beliau menerbitkan tujuh autobiografi, tiga buku esei, beberapa buku puisi, dan terbabit dengan beberapa persembahan drama, filem dan acara televisyen bagi tempoh lebih setengah abad. Beliau menerima banyak anugerah dan lebih 50 ijazah kehormat. Namun, beliau lebih dikenali dengan siri tujuh autobiografi yang memberi tumpuan kepada zaman kanak-kanak serta pengalaman awal dewasanya. Yang pertama, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - ditulis pada 1969 menceritakan kisah hidupnya menjelang usia 17 tahun – telah menyebabkan beliau menerima pengiktirafan dan pujian pada peringkat antarabangsa. Beliau mula bersajak dan berkerjaya sebagai penulis setelah menempuh pelbagai jenis pekerjaan sewaktu awal dewasa, termasuk tukang masak makanan goreng, pekerja seks, penari dan penghibur di kelab malam, berlakon dalam opera Porgy and Bess, penyelaras Southern Christian Leadership Conference, dan wartawan di Mesir dan Ghana sewaktu era penjajah-penjajah mulai meninggalkan benua Afrika. Beliau juga pernah bekerjasama dengan Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Pada 1982, beliau dipilih sebagai orang pertama menerima penghormatan Reynolds Professor of American Studies in Wake Forest University di Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Bermula 1990-an, beliau berceramah kira-kira 80 kali setahun, dan beliau teruskan aktiviti ini sehingga usia beliau 80-an. Pada 1993, Maya Angelou mendeklamasikan sajaknya On the Pulse of Morning - ditulis pada tahun yang sama – di majlis perlantikan Bill Clinton sebagai Presiden Amerika Syarikat. Beliau adalah penyajak pertama membaca sajak pada majlis rasmi sebegini sejak Robert Frost melakukan perkara yang sama bagi John F. Kennedy pada 1961.)

(nota: Di bawah ni ada dua berita. Pertama, berita dipetik daripada Tehran Times yang memuatkan surat didakwa ditulis Gabriel García Márquez pada 8 Disember 2000 – diterjemah daripada bahasa Sepanyol kepada bahasa Inggeris - sewaktu beliau menerima rawatan barah. Tapi, karya ini mencetus kontroversi apabila seorang ventriloquist Meksiko, Johnny Welch mendakwa surat terbabit adalah tulisannya. Namun, sasterawan Colombia berkenaan yang sedang mengasingkan dirinya kerana sakit tenat tak beri sebarang ulasan mengenainya. Kedua, surat anak Gabriel García Márquez, Rodrigo García  yang disiar The New York Times, ditulis dua dekad setelah kemunculan surat pertama. Surat kedua ini benar-benar tulen tapi ia ditulis sewaktu sebuah filem arahan penulisnya, Four Good Days akan ditayangkan tak lama kemudian! Dunia sastera, sukan, filem, politik dan segala-gala bidang penuh “warna-warni” dan kebanyakan manusia gemar ambil kesempatan untuk mempopularkan diri masing-masing! Gabriel García Márquez dilahirkan pada 6 Mac 1927 dan meninggal dunia pada 17 April 2014. Penulis novel, wartawan, penyunting, penerbit, juga aktivis politik ini adalah orang pertama yang memperkenalkan karya penulisan komersial dalam bentuk realisme magik sehingga melayakkannya menerima Hadiah Nobel dalam bidang kesusasteraan pada 1982.)

Gabriel García Márquez’ Farewell Letter

(nota: Bahasa Inggeris saya tahap pertengahan ja. Tapi, rasanya, lepas z' perlu ada s. Jika Moses, barulah kena taip Moses' Farewell Letter. Kalau cara saya salah, sila bagitahu. Apa-apa pun, setiap akhbar ada cara penulisan atau house style masing-masing yang kita sebagai pembaca kena akur. Bagaimanapun, ayat lets together light tomorrow with today yang ditaip timbalan menteri pengajian tinggi tu memang salah. Lebih senang taip ja let's light tomorrow with today atau petik ja seperti yang biasa disebut kebanyakan orang, light tomorrow with today. Pada saya, lebih baik taip, "sinari masa depan anda dengan kejayaan anda hari ini" yang ada gaya sastera gitu.☺☺☺)

Tehran Times 16 April 2001

Gabriel García Márquez , the great Colombian writer, has retired from public life due to worsening lymphatic cancer. He has sent this farewell letter to his many friends around the world. I hope you can glean something from it. Sad but inspiring, this may be one of the last gifts to the world from a fine man and a true master.

If for a moment God were to forget that I am rag doll and granted me a piece of life, I probably wouldn't say everything that I think; rather, I would think about everything that I say.

I would value things, not for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep less, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes, we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep, I would listen when others talk. And how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream! If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serrat song would be the serenade I'd offer to the moon.

I would water roses with my tears, to feel the pain of their thorns and the red kiss of their petals... My God, if I had a piece of life... I wouldn't let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them.

I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would live in love with love. I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to be in love!

To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own. I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetting. So much have I learned from you, oh men ... I have learned that everyone wants to live at the top of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.

I have learned that when a newborn child first squeezes his father's finger in his tiny fist, he has him trapped forever.

I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet.

From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won't be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying.

Gabriel García Márquez   

A Letter to My Father, Gabriel García Márquez

The New York Times 6 May 2020

Gabo,

April 17 was the sixth anniversary of your death, and the world has gone on largely as it always has, with human beings behaving with stunning and creative cruelty, sublime generosity and sacrifice, and everything in between.

One thing is new: a pandemic. It originated, as far as we know, in a food market where a virus made its leap from an animal to a human. One small step for one virus, but a great leap for its kind. It’s a creature that evolved over an incalculable time through natural selection into the voracious little monster that it now is. But it’s so unfair to refer to it in such terms, and I regret if my words have offended it. It actually bears no particular ill will toward us. It takes and takes, because it can. Surely, we can relate. It’s nothing personal.

Not a day goes by that I don’t come across a reference to your novel “Love in the Time of Cholera,” or a riff on its title or to the insomnia pandemic in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” It’s impossible not to speculate about what you would have made of all this. You were always fascinated with epidemics, real or of the literary imagination, as well as with things and people that return.

You weren’t born yet when the Spanish flu pandemic scourged the planet, but you grew up in a house where storytelling reigned and where a plague, like ghosts and regrets, must have made for good literary material. You said that people would speak of long-past events as things that happened in the days of the comet, most likely referring to the passing of Halley’s comet early in the 20th century. I remember how eager you were to see it with your own eyes when it returned toward the end of the millennium. It mesmerized you, a mysterious clock striking the silent hour once every 76 years, a cycle approximating the time allotted to humans. A coincidence? Probably just another red herring. You were an atheist, but you also pondered that it was inconceivable that there was no master plan, remember? No teller of the tale. In this regard you now have more insight than I do, perhaps.

A pandemic is back. Despite the great advances of science and the much-celebrated ingenuity of our species, our best defense so far is to simply stay indoors, to hide in caves from the predator. It’s a humbling moment for those with at least a little inclination toward humility. For others, it’s another bothersome thing to crush.

Two countries dear to you, Spain and Italy, are among the hardest hit. Some of your oldest friends are making the best of it in the same flats in Barcelona, Madrid and Milan where you and Mercedes visited innumerable times over decades. I’ve heard several people of that generation say that they are determined to persist, if for no other reason than to avoid being killed by a flu after decades of surviving cancers, tyrants, jobs, responsibility and marriage.

It’s not just death that frightens us, but the circumstances. A final exit without goodbyes, attended by strangers dressed as extraterrestrials, machines beeping heartlessly, surrounded by others in similar situations, but far from our people. Your very own worst fear, loneliness.

You often spoke of Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year “as one of your greatest influences, but until yesterday I had forgotten that even your favorite of favorites, “Oedipus Rex,” hinges on a king’s efforts to end a plague. It was always the tragic irony of the king’s fate that was at the forefront of my recollection, but it was the plague that unleashed the forces that precipitated the outcome. You said once that what haunts us about epidemics is that they remind us of personal fate. Despite precautions, medical care, age or wealth, anyone can draw the unlucky number. Fate and death, many a writer’s favorite subjects.

I think that if you were here now, you would, as always, be enthralled by man. The term “man” is not much in use that way anymore, but I’ll make an exception not as a nod to the patriarchy, which you detested, but because it will echo in the ears of the young man and aspiring writer you once were, with more sensibility and ideas in your head than you knew what to do with, and with a strong sense that destinies are written, even for a creature in God’s image and cursed with free will. You would pity our frailty; you would marvel at our interconnectedness, be saddened by the suffering, enraged by the callousness of some of the leaders and moved by the heroism of people on the front lines. And you would be eager to hear how lovers were braving every obstacle, including the risk of death, to be together. Most of all, you would be as endeared to humans as you ever were.

A few weeks ago, during our first few days sequestered at home, my head was straining to explain to myself what it could all mean, or at least what could come out of it. I failed. The fog was too heavy. Now that things have become more quotidian, as things do eventually even in the most frightening wars, I am still unable to frame it all in any satisfying way.

Many are sure that life will never be the same. It is likely that some of us will make big changes, more of us will make a few changes, but I suspect most will return to the dance. Won’t there be a good argument to be made that the pandemic is proof that life vanishes in the most unexpected ways and so we must live big and live now? One of your own grandchildren has expressed that opinion.

Restrictions on movement are starting to relax in some places, and little by little the world will attempt to venture out toward normality. Even daydreaming of imminent freedom has many starting to forget the promises they recently made to the gods. The drive to process the impact of the pandemic on our deepest selves, and on the entire tribe, is waning. Even many among us who long to understand what has happened will be tempted to interpret it to our liking. Already shopping threatens to make a grand return as our favorite narcotic.

I’m still in a fog. It seems for now that I’ll have to wait for the masters, present and future, to metabolize the shared experience. I look forward to that day. A song, a poem, a movie or a novel will finally point me in the general direction of where my thoughts and feelings about this whole thing are buried. When I get there, I’m sure I’ll still have to do some of the digging myself.

In the meantime, the planet keeps turning and life is still mysterious, powerful and astonishing. Or as you used to say with fewer adjectives and more poetry, nobody teaches life anything.

 

Rodrigo

(nota: Di mana-mana saja di dunia ini, ada saja golongan yang mementingkan perjuangan mempertahankan sesuatu bangsa. Di Tanah Arab pun sama. Berapa ramai orang kulit hitam berasal dari Afrika atau India – orang berketurunan Arab kebanyakannya berkulit putih - berada dalam "Kabinet" sesebuah negara di sana? Orang berketurunan lain seperti yang berasal dari China, lagilah tiada! Saya masih ingat, pada suatu hari sekitar awal 1980-an semasa saya berusia belasan tahun, seorang remaja lelaki berketurunan Afrika letak lengannya di sebelah lengan saya. “Oh! You’re darker than me, man,” katanya dan saya sekadar ketawa. Sajak mengenai masalah perkauman di bawah ni pun menggunakan metafora warna kulit. Saya terjemah secara bebas, dan cuba ganti perkataan-perkataan berbentuk carutan atau makian dengan bahasa Melayu beradab, melainkan tiada yang sesuai!)

 

The Everage Black Girl

Gadis Kulit Hitam Biasa-biasa

oleh Ernestine Johnson

 

They say I’m not the average black girl because I’m so well spoken
Poised, full of etiquette, a white man’s token
You know I remember my ex’s mother telling me, “I didn’t know how I was gonna react when he brought home a black girl, but I like you because you talk so white.”
But when did me talking right equate to me talking white?
They say I’m not the average black girl

Mereka kata aku bukan seperti gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa kerana cara aku bercakap amat bagus

Kemas, penuh beretika, sebagai wakil orang putih di kalangan orang kulit hitam

Kau tahu, aku masih ingat mak bekas teman lelaki aku bagitahu aku, “Aku tak tahu macam mana aku nak berdepan bila dia bawa balik seorang gadis kulit hitam, tapi aku suka kau sebab kau bercakap betul-betul macam orang putih.”

Tapi sejak bila aku bercakap bagus sama erti dengan aku cakap orang putih?

Mereka kata aku bukan seperti gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa

No! No! Not the average black girl because the pigment of my skin is just a shade lighter than that black girl over there
You know, the black girl over there
The black girl with the nappy hair
The black girls whose elbows can’t skip a day without lotion
Whose hearts and heads are filled up with self-hate and bottled up emotion
The cocoa brown girls who have to face society every day and be tough
Because no matter how good they straighten their hair, their good is still not good enough

Tak! Tak! Bukannya gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa sebab warna kulit aku cuma cerah sedikit berbanding gadis kulit hitam di sana

Kau tahu, gadis kulit hitam di sana

Gadis kulit hitam dengan rambut kusut

Gadis-gadis kulit hitam yang setiap hari perlu sapu losen pada siku-siku mereka

Hati dan kepala mereka penuh dengan sifat benci diri sendiri dan emosi terpendam

Gadis-gadis coklat koko yang terpaksa berdepan masyarakat setiap hari dan kuat semangat

Sebab betapa bagus mereka luruskan rambut mereka, bagus mereka itu masih tidak cukup bagus

Oh, but see. Luckily for me, see
I don’t fall in that category,

Oh, tapi lihat. Aku bertuah, lihat

Aku tak masuk dalam kategori itu

 

See they say I’m not the average black girl because I speak with so much class and
I don’t have too much but just enough ass and
Not too much but just enough pizzazz
You know, just a little bit of attitude
'Cause you don’t wanna come off as one of those average black girls and come off as rude
You know, popping their gum and shaking their neck
Yeah, 'cause those black girls get like no respect
But see luckily for me, see I get pass
'Cause the melanin in my skin matches that brown paper bag
And my father, brother and men that I date pants don’t sag
And when I speak, my tongue pronounces every syllable
And the combed part down the middle of my hair is naturally visible
Oh! Oh!
It must be a weave or she must be mixed
'Cause we all know the average black girl ain’t got that good (shit)
Or when I walk in a room full of white men, they all stare
It must be the long lengths of my un-average black girl hair

Lihat mereka kata aku bukan seperti gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa sebab aku bercakap penuh gaya dan

Aku tak punya terlalu banyak tapi cukup ass dan

Tak terlalu banyak tapi cuma cukup bergaya

Kau tahu, cuma sedikit sikap baik

Sebab kau tak patut muncul seperti seorang daripada gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa dan hadir secara biadab

Kau tahu, mereka letupkan gula-gula getah dan goncang leher mereka

Ya, sebab gadis-gadis kulit hitam itu tak dihormati

Tapi lihat aku bertuah, lihat aku tak tersekat

Sebab melanin dalam kulit aku setanding beg kertas coklat itu

Dan seluar ayah aku, adik beradik lelaki dan lelaki-lelaki yang aku berpacaran tak meleweh  

Dan sewaktu aku bercakap, lidah aku sebut setiap suku kata

Dan garisan sikat di bawah kawasan tengah rambut aku kelihatan secara semula jadi

Oh! Oh!

Ia pastinya dianyam atau gadis itu berdarah campuran

Sebab kita semua tahu gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa takkan secantik itu

Atau sewaktu aku berjalan dalam bilik penuh lelaki kulit putih, mereka semua renung

Mungkin rambut panjang aku bukan seperti gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa

See! See, they say I’m not the average black girl because I corrected the professor when he used the word conversate.

Lihat! Lihat, mereka kata aku bukan gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa sebab aku tegur pensyarah apabila beliau guna perkataan conversate.

Converse! The word is converse
And in case you didn’t get the memo, there are now eight not nine planets in the universe
And when you’re watching the numbers on your stocks move up and down
Remember Oklahoma, in a small town
One of the first Wall Streets was a Black Wall Street that got mysteriously burned down

Converse! Perkataan sebenar ialah converse

Dan sekiranya kau tak lihat catatan, sekarang ada lapan bukannya sembilan planet dalam alam semesta

Dan ketika kau lihat nombor-nombor saham-saham kau bergerak ke atas dan ke bawah

Ingat Oklahoma, di sebuah bandar kecil

Wall Streets dulunya Black Wall Street yang secara misteri ranap terbakar

Oh, they say I’m not the average black girl
Well let’s flip this script and rewind this (shit)
Repaint the lines and have them blurred over time
Because the average black girl that I know…

Oh, mereka kata aku bukan gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa

Baiklah mari selak skrip ini dan kembali ke sini

Warnakan garisan-garisan dan biar ia samar-samar seketika kemudian

Sebab gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa yang aku kenal …

See, the average black girl that I know made 19 trips through the Underground Railroad to free the slaves
Sat on segregated buses, refused to get up and paved new waves
See, the average black girl that I know…

Lihat, gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa yang aku kenal berulang alik 19 kali melalui landasan kereta api bawah tanah untuk memerdekakan hamba-hamba abdi

Pernah duduk di dalam bas-bas diasingkan tempat duduk, enggan bangun lalu melakarkan gelombang-gelombang baru

Lihat, gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa yang aku kenal …

 

The average black girl that I know were Egyptian queens like Hatshepsut and Nitocris who were ruling dynasties and whole armies of men
Excuse me, why I set fire to this poem on my pen 'cause I am tired!
Tired of the stereotypes black girls have fallen into because of American mentality

Gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa yang aku kenal ialah ratu-ratu Mesir seperti Hatshepsut dan Nitocris yang memerintah dinasti-dinasti dan bala tentera lelaki

Maaf, aku panaskan sajak ini dengan hidupkan api pada pena aku sebab aku bosan!

Bosan dengan stereotaip gadis-gadis kulit hitam yang tersungkur dek kerana mentaliti Amerika Syarikat

Oh!
But not half as tired as Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Septima Poinsette Clark
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired
Miss Fannie Lou Hamer, Daisy Bates, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, and Dorothy Height are far more tired than I am
But do you think the ones who say I’m not the average black girl even give a damn?
No!

Oh!

Tapi bukan separuh pun dibanding kebosanan Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Septima Poinsette Clark

Aku kecewa dan bosan kerana berasa kecewa dan bosan
Cik Fannie Lou Hamer, Daisy Bates, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, dan Dorothy Height lebih berasa bosan berbanding aku

Tapi adakah kau fikir seseorang yang ucap aku bukan gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa akan peduli?

Tak!

 

So pardon me if I can’t openly accept your compliments
Pardon me if I can’t openly accept your compliment
It’s just the average black girl that I know…
The average black girl that I know had courage that surpassed her every fear
And fought for justice and equality year after year
So as I construct these words, pardon me as I shed a tear
Because I’m not half the black girl she was!

Oleh itu, maafkan aku jika aku tak boleh secara terbuka terima puji-pujian kau

Maafkan aku jika aku tak boleh secara terbuka terima puji-pujian kau

Hanya gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa yang aku kenal …

Gadis kulit hitam yang aku kenal punya keberanian mengatasi setiap ketakutannya

Dan berjuang demi keadilan dan kesamaan tahun demi tahun

Oleh itu, sewaktu aku mengatur perkataan-perkataan ini, maafkan aku kerana aku meneteskan air mata

Sebab aku tak layak separuh pun berbanding gadis kulit hitam itu!

 

I am not half the black girl she was! See, there’s a minor clause
She was out there fighting, breaking and changing laws
So I bow down to my black queen standing in the merit of her work
And as America society continuously throws these supercilious words onto me
I say, “No!”
I am not the average black girl, I can only aspire to be.

Aku tak layak separuh pun berbanding gadis kulit hitam itu! Lihat, ada suatu klausa  kecil

Dia di luar sana berjuang, menentang dan mengubah undang-undang

Oleh itu, aku patuh kepada ratu kulit hitam aku yang teguh melakukan tugasnya

Dan berdepan masyarakat Amerika Syarikat yang terus menerus melontarkan perkataan-perkataan angkuh terhadap aku

Aku kata, “Tak.”

Aku bukan gadis kulit hitam biasa-biasa itu, aku cuma boleh berharap menjadi seperti dia.