*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

**Dedicated to a Ghanaian man in New York, who lost his mind on a “lotto” trip in
the American paradise

“The latest U.S. diversity-visa lottery drew only 8 million entrants, about half as
many as last year, when a record 15 million people participated. The three countries
with the most entries this year were Nigeria, with about 1.4 million, Ghana,
909,000, and Ukraine with 853,000. The purpose of the lottery is to make the U.S.
population more diverse and make green cards available to parts of the world that
typically don't send immigrants here. The United States makes about 50,000 green
cards available to the program each year” (Ghanaweb, November 12, 2011).

The myth of diversity
Ah! For laborers
Laborers the US didn’t train
The new slave ship
Lotto on the Atlantic
Of brain drain
What diversity
Whose diversity
Sadistic diversity
That defines the other
Othering realities
By “funny” accents
By color of one’s skin
Diversity for laboring
Fidelity to lure laborers
Free unfree foreign labor
In the land of opportunity
Of unequal opportunities
Brian drain as lotto
As nurses become cleaners
Cleaners of flaccid breasts
Cleaners of wrinkled butts
As Teachers become aides
Happiness become sadness
Pessimism eclipses optimism

Diversity on new slave ships
The new slave ships
Diversity like salad
In a salad Petri-dish
Together but separate
Diversity
Pivoting labor
The quest for labor
Free labor to bonded labor
Bonded in the myth of paradise
The myth of equal opportunity

The new Atlantic slave ship
Lotto-ship across the Atlantic
Lotto to paradise
Of phony paradise
Where food is plenty
But hunger of the soul reigns
Where freedoms exist
But freedom is prison-dom
Diversity lotto
Beamed to the innocent
Spaced in computers
In space within reach
Of millions
Luring millions
To new forms of labor
Sorrow at home
Regret in the heart
Culture shock at work

They myth of diversity
Lotto-rized on computers
Coasted on fingertips
Castled in Internet cafes
Slave catchers with computers
New slaves are unwary
Traveling on lottery
Crossing the Atlantic online
The Middle Passage on line
The new slave ships

Ostensible lottery
To the Hollywoodized USA
The land of trumpeted freedom
Where freedoms are prisons
Hollywoodized paradise
Ostensible freedoms
Magnetic brain drain
Poised to renew labor
Of cheap labor
Of unpaid labor
Of citizens trained overseas
Ghanaian doctors
Ghanaian teachers
Ghanaian pharmacists
Ghanaian nurses
Who see the lottery as paradise
Lost in paradise of slavery
Where race is kinship
Where skin color is a text
Read by all for all
Where pink is white
Where black is black
Lost in acidic racism
That marginalizes blacks
Lost in American slangs
That mocks our Englishes
Hostage to racisms
Hostage to myths
Hostage to acidic lotto

*Akadu N. Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained oral
historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania with
her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In her
pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical”
poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com