Color scheme

Young thugs,
The Crips and the Bloods,
Believe they all are on drugs,
Because they are different from us.

They’re pickin’ up guns.
Through the streets they run,
Lives coming undone,
If we knew the truth we’d be stunned.

Taking lives,
Like they won’t die.
Learning to despise,
Not to compromise.
They’ve been advised,
Anyone not like them will tell lies.

Think their bulletproof.
Acting so aloof,
Believing they’re shatterproof,
The state has the burden of proof.

Killin’ each other,
One after another.
Standing out on the street corner,
Trying to find the childhood of former,
Feeling responsibility not to be an underperformer.

It needs to stop,
Quit talkin’ shit like words are a prop,
Acting like you can drop,
Judgment on people while revering the cops.

‘Cause what you say can show respect,
Or it can have the opposite effect.
Leaving too many victims with lives wrecked,
Look at young brotha’s locked up, whose lives we neglect.

Then throw them out in the world on their own,
While we’re quick to cast the first stone,
Thugs need love too, they don’t want to be alone,
But you’re too damn afraid of the unknown.

Can’t meet their basic needs,
Too busy focusing on their misdeeds.
Ignore the fact that we impede,
Pretend their not fatigued,
of running from what precedes,
The failure they deem their creeds
Man, they just want to succeed,

Must they stay down on their knees
Trying to appease,
Never feeling at ease.
Around people who act like they have a disease.

It is with their lives that we are playing,
While they sit and wait for the next slaying,
And you have the balls to sit back and keep saying,
It is a price they must keep paying.
Because their image is different than the fakeness you are displaying.

Like we are so fuckin’ perfect.
While the facts we deflect,
Keep believing they have no regrets.
Think of the attitudes that we project,
That show how much we neglect,
Feelings that we all recollect.

Is it any wonder they don’t care,
Pretend to be aware.
Act like it’s their affair,
That they live in a nightmare.
Warn others to beware,
While we sit back and compare,
Think there’s nothing to repair.

Black lives matter,
But they think they won’t shatter.
Or one day be splattered,
When the bullets start to scatter.

The movement rocks,
Yet people are shocked
Think the civil rights movement stopped
Poverty and judgment that we concoct.
Agree we should keep the doors locked,
Cause if we look in the mirror we’d see how low humanity has dropped.

Yeah racism still exists,
Even when you deny that shit.
Think they live in the abyss,
We’re not the reason they resist…
Half hearted, bullshit attempts to assist.

Ask why?
Won’t get a reply,
We’ve all come to rely
On what we see in our mind’s eye.

We think we can command,
Something we don’t understand.
Think we’ve lived first hand,
The horrors they withstand.
And wonder why they live or die with a gun in their hand,

Survival depends on fitting in,
Even if it means committing a sin.
Much to our chagrin,
We’ve never experienced the same tailspin.
From the safety of our homes we can’t even begin,
To understand where they have been.

No one is perfect, though all that aside,
It doesn’t give us the right to commit genocide.
We don’t have to hide,
The tears that we cry
Or live alongside,
Enemies with whom we collide.

Cops shoot first ask questions later,
And young thugs get blamed like they’re the haters
Think we can deal with this later,
Act like we’re spectators,
When really we’re perpetrators.

Social media has provided the forum,
For people to act like they’ve been taught no decorum.
If there were choices they’d explore them.
Kindness could restore him.
Instead we act like we abhor the mayhem,
Like we didn’t contribute to it when we sat and condemned.

Say things they’d never say to a person’s face,
What the hell have we done to the human race?
Act like they’re a disgrace,
Like lives aren’t being erased.
And we sit back and embrace,
Father’s and mother’s they’ve had to replace.

People think they can be any way they want.
What are our kids learning, I’m so distraught.
Parent’s can’t afford to continue to have this blind spot.
Color doesn’t make one an afterthought,
This hatred erases all the love that you taught.

Words that are heard,
Show ignorance, it’s so absurd.
Lines have been blurred,
While we hear only what we wanted to be heard.

Making up lies
Just to justify,
To continue to swear we tried,
If you aren’t the solution you’re the problem, that can’t be denied.

People so quick to speak,
To give their critique,
Over something so unique,
Continuing their word streak,
Not realizing it shows they are weak

Defamatory, explanatory, inflammatory,
Prohibitory, derogatory, retaliatory,
Looking for society to be reformatory.
Judging another’s territory,
When they just don’t know the story.

People say they aren’t to blame,
Feel no shame,
While others are out to explain,
Words they proclaim,
that fans the flames.

Of hatred long held,
Hiding faces, makes it easier to be compelled,
To hate without reason, teaching the young generation
To divide this nation

Marting Luther King, yeah he had a dream,
Violated his words to the extreme.
Everyone wants to be supreme’
People, hatin’ those who see mainstream,
All they see is a color scheme.