Taught to imitate those
who disparage and berate us
Call ourselves names
they created to degrade us
Partner with those
who defiled our wives and daughters
As though we’re cleansed
by swimming in septic waters
We’ve become remixes of their sickness…
so it seems
The aims of our enslavers
have now become our dreams
We must be redeemed
regain our common-unity our social ethic
Reclaim our own national culture
and protect it
Harriet Tubman said
There were hundreds she’d saved
And she could have freed hundreds more
If they only knew they were slaves
As my eyes are projected inward
I’m struck dumb
By the inhumanity
the insanity we’ve become
Reduced from creators of societies
among history’s greatest
To clowns entertaining
those who claim to hate us
Told we’re worth nothing
so we kill our own reflection
Our communities and children
left with no protection no direction
Swallowing lies told to the world of
our equal status
Still held at the bottom
where our lives have never mattered
Have we no dignity no esteem
no love of self
So we admire aspire
to be anyone else
Anything that reflects our image
we hate
We even glorify Italian gangstas
As long as it’s European we think it’s great
Abandon our youth to groups
that compete like sewer rats
Who think respect is reflected
by tats and gats
Slaughtered by those
sworn to serve and protect
Who pit us to war with ourselves
do we forget
These police agencies destroyed
our power movements
They studied our strengths and weaknesses
and now they use it
To wipe away
even the thought of emancipation
Trick us to believe a shopping spree
is liberation
Neo-colonized by traitors
disguised in dark skin
Overseers more brutal
than the rich white men
Whom they serve
to keep the rest of us in line
Bought off with puppet status
extra crumbs and cheap wine
With feminist appeals
our women isolate us
A thousand schemes crafted
to separate us make them hate us
Our males imprisoned
our women told they don’t need us
The forgotten source of our survival
now they don’t even see us
Until we make the break
reinstate another wave
Of education for liberation
we’ll never know we’re still enslaved
We must erase the clutter
all the imperialist lies
That exclude and mis-define us
normalize being colonized
Unite with others
similarly oppressed
Shared class not skin tones
must be the litmus test
In uniting with real friends
against real foes and defeat
Our ongoing enslavement
free the ground beneath our feet
