Be Black

We wage wars on ourselves like Rwanda
And create watered down versions of ourselves cause we hate black
Pretending to be black but cant eat or sleep black
Because being everything but black is acceptable
To us black is just a fad
A cute saying in response to friends
But do we really know what black is?

Were a generation of Wesley Snipes Bamboozled children
Children that hate black
Cause the history of Mali is never spoken
And Egypt isn’t even in the same continent
So we’d rather be black for just a short moment then mix with a lighter race when its no longer convenient

Is that black? NO!
Protesters in the 60’s and 70’s knew black
Mr. X himself knew black
Our Last Poets knew black
Sista souljah knew black
But we don’t know a damn thing
So where does that leave us black?
A generation of people that don’t know black and hate themselves
Self hatred rooted so deep it eats away at our souls and we don’t even know it

With a prison mentality we can’t escape the box
The box of the projects and ghettos
Of street corners and crack houses
Gangstas and niggas
Gangs and killings
The spilling of black blood never thought twice of
Just another news headline, another black face across our TV screen
Please tell me is that what black is?

Baby mamas' not wives kneeling in defeat and dispare
Clutching on to their lost seed on a dirty street corner
Hands shaking, body weak
Her mentality wasn’t strong enough to raise that child
Too busy in the streets running wild
she was worried about man after man but not worried enough about the one growing in her household
So she kneels and cries
Cause another lost soul took her child
Another black boy killing another black boy
He didn’t know the barrel of his gun was staring at black
when he fired that shot
Hate from his heart consumed him, cause he couldn’t help but be black
A black he hated and wished to go away
Instead of seeing the beauty of black
Kings and queens black
Black that goes back for centuries
Past the cotton fields and the big house
Past the slave ships and slave whips
Past the ghettos and projects
The self hatred and the destruction of our own
That’s where black is
Will we ever find it?