They could've been heroes

Yet you make them into zeroes

Machines of Self-Fullfilling Prophecies

Causing nothing but tragedies

Youths full of hope

Suspended from school gleefully to sell dope

The ones who are supposed to care have no tolerance

The fellows of the ghettos only have negligence

Putting to use young minds trapped by what they see

Thinking the world is only filled with greed and poverty

They come to school and you teach them not how to be better

Instead you make them study for standardization tests whether

It helps in the real world or they do not

Schools are now making the community rot

My sisters get pregnant, my brothers get shot

Lessons are never learned from what you have taught

By misappropriating time to what's truly not needed

Our kids know nothing of themselves- can you believe it?

Yet zero tolerance makes it so easy

To forget the ones most needy

Leaving them to destitute conditions

Expulsions and suspensions

But how can a machine care?