African American
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She smiles at the sun
Taking in its rays with joy
She rejoices in its light
Dances in its presence
And admires its everlasting beauty
Black
One word, one syllable
Powerful enough to start revolutions and revolts
Hear my ancestors
Screaming, begging, crying not to remain invisible
We think that we have come far, but how far is 155 years?
How far from MLK, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X?
How far from fire hoses, and unleashed dogs, and hanging trees hidden behind the fog?
It smells like..Fried chicken baked in bacon greaseLike collard greens Like stringbings Like baked beans with beef filled with heart diseaseLike pig intestinesThat all but one eats
I am the seed that my ancestors planted.
Resilient and grounded-
From the freedoms they founded
I am the seed that my ancestors planted.
Black and educated-
Though my demise was premeditated.
I am the seed that my ancestors planted.
Resilient and grounded-
From the freedoms they founded
I am the seed that my ancestors planted.
Black and educated-
Though my demise was premeditated.
History Changed But Fate Stayed the Same
The world can be cruel sometimes,
But bare with me, it’s true
My brothers and sisters,
Related by the shade of our skin.
My brothers and sisters,
Targeted by men who can’t fit in.
My brothers and sisters,
Running from the pigs that harm our men just because they can.
Black Birds
As she flicked the rubber against her wrist
her eyes linger into nature’s abyss
undressing the land with her eyes
You see before I could read,the world had already burdened mewith the color of my chocolate skin.The world had taught me thatI was less than perfect outside and within.You see I didn't begin to understand
Black man,
I see the sulk in your eyes,
The wrinkles, the bags of countless years of work,
Trying to race ahead through the obstacles,
Dysfunctional Family
Let me introduce you to a family
They're one of a kind.
You learn to love and respect them once you get a look at their dysfunctional minds.
Let's meet dysfunctional dad.
Listen dammit! Our world appears perfect our town with families where everyone knows each others faces.Our televisions shows and movies seem like we laugh and were a family. The cookouts on lawns and the laughs spread abroad. It's the world you do
It’s not okay
You know, it’s just not
It’s not okay that I can’t just be me
You say that me is all I can be
But, then, tell me why I can’t be me when I’m with thee.
Hurt and abusedLost and confusedFeeling accused, just by being you.The color of your skin does not define youThe length of your dreads does not disguise you. The way that you walk does not deprive youBut the way that your heart is will arise you.
America,
The Beautiful?
Home of the enslaved,
Where those who are brave,
Are said to have no brain,
Where freedom of speech is limited,
I pledge Allegiance to the flag
for the DIVIDED of AMERICA.
A place your free and knowledge is key
but black hoodies couldn't be more scarier.
I pledge Allegiance to the flag
"The Land of the Free"
Was written by White men
As they fearlessly planted their feet on the black and brown bodies they burnt and bled to get there
And did not stop to smell the irony
Land of the free. Land of poverty.
In this country you’re judged on sexuality, and ethnicity.
In actuality, we shouldn’t be a theocracy.
We got legality that we can believe,
It took a bug flying into my hair
To make me realize.
A little beetle,
Brown,
And scared,
As I frantically untangles it from my mane.
I buzzed way,
Barely escaping suffocation
He's using his peer influences to abuse the chances that he was given
Life lessons run through his head you can tell he's feeling resentment
Aggravating headaches he seems to neglect propriety
I am a minority
You watch me cry
all my dreams...they're just a lie
you crush my heart and watch me die
I am a minority
forced to keep my eyes toward the sky
I see potential, I see the prize
They look down upon us and
Scoff, chuckle, take us for fools.
Fatten our heads with campaigns,
Ads that destroy the competitor,
I must admit I’m nervous.
Nervous to stand in front of those I know well and those only vaguely.
Nervous to proclaim the things which have caused turmoil within me.
My skin. Look at my skin. What am I? I am a mixed girl in a obscure world. When I would play on the playground. Small, this high, my wide eyes didn’t yet recognize the lies.
Little girl on a hill, be still
Little girl on a hill, be still
For the shadows are here
For the shadows smell fear.
Little girl on a hill, be still
Little girl on a hill, be still.
Everything that we do is a problem
They feel as if guns are the only way to
solve them.
They don't want to see us in no caps and gowns.
They'll rather see us in a cell or six feet under gound.
We are black,
The bridges extended to the other side
And obstacles were placed in our path to go across,
Yet we still made it to the shores and over the borders,
Our shoes approached the welcome mat
What was my crime officer?
That led to you pulling that trigger?
Was my crime pulling my wallet too fast?
Did I not raise my hands in the air fast enough?
Black.
That's what they see first.
Black.
That's what they hear first.
Black.
That's what they touch first.
Black.
That's what they remember first.
They continued to struggle
Living in the cracks
With the problems they juggled
Because they are black
But then they came out
They want us to educate ourselves
Yet when we do, they do everything to prevent it
They tell us to go get a job
Yet when we do, we are never "qualified for it"
They tell us to have more emotion
Hello from the other side.
A darker side of life where you are the last brown crayon to be picked in the box.
I come from a rich city with many different fast-food restaurants to pig out at. I come from a small street where let out my feelings and concerns in a new world of hip-hop dance.
I have wept the tears as I lost the ties to home,
I have broke my back with the day’s toils and pain.
I have looked on as my brothers in arms disappeared,
Take a big whiff and smell the pungent smell of name brand perfume and fumes This nigeritis chokes the esophagus with promises to bring human carcassesShiny belt buckles match the color of these infected smiles hoping this trend lasts a while Mone
To a brown girl, burdened by her skin
Bruised by stereotypes and self-inflicted doubt
Judged by her outsides not what’s within
My mother was a white womanbut a woman, all the same.
For years, I never thought much of white womenIn fact, I didn’t think of them much.
I’m just a kid from the ghetto
I’m not perfect
I’m not like those white people I see on tv.
Straight up.
See where I come from
Ebony
Noun
A heavy blackish or dark brown timber
I am ebony
Also known as a jewel
You would be considered a fool
If you didn't see me as beautiful
Look in the dictionary and
Who is this body?
Why is this body?
What can this body be?
Is it weak? Infantile?
Is this body even me?
I am not my own.
I live - for everybody else.
I love - for everybody else.
Who is to say what I am?
Am I a girl?
Well clearly, I am.
Does that not make me a woman,
Powerful and determined?
Because clearly, I am.
Am I my race?
My heritage?
He had looks that could kill.
Eyes that could melt your soul.
A stare that locked you in.
And lips that only he himself, could possess.
He was like no other.
He wasn't just another brotha.
I am a hyperpigmentation.
An overdose of melanin.
I am the aftermath of a merciless fire, and the darkness enveloping a starless night.
It is the color of my skin and the texture of my hair,
which makes people create assumptions that are not are not there.
With her spine align and head held high,
I knew she was a strong woman of color,
like rare flower that blossoms from the soil of Eden,
I am a Queen, a supreme human being
I bleed gold and my words are bold
I am a Black Queen, though it may not be easy being green
Being black can be just as bad, sometimes even sad
But as a Queen, I take pride
Blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.
Blacker the berry, the deeper the roots.
Blacker the berry, the more it's dehumanized by its own kind.
Blacker the berry, the more it's harder to find.
it's hard to believe i'm ***FLAWLESS sometimes
but looking at the evidence, who can deny?
with the way syncopated drum rhythms wrap around my head like a crown
Black is defined as the very darkest color owing to the complete absence or absorption of light
Black is the opposite of white
Black is people asking if your hair is a weave and a line of people waiting to touch it
You captured kings and warriors and now our bloodline fights back
You underestimated the mystery and power behind those of us who are black
You saw our strength and resilience and said “They’ll be fine to do our work”
We swear we live for liberation
So then why are we faking and making it seem we don’t really care about this nation
We are the people, the people that demand equality; it bothers me that we don’t even practice what we preach
This is a crime scene
There is yellow caution tape all around
The victims are screaming but are we in tune to their sounds
Aiyana Stanley-Jones is the name of a little black girl who was shot
The voice that creeps from my pencil, that leaps from my keyboard, that spills from my pen
Is the voice that struggles a fight from within
Fighting to be heard. Fighting to be heard.
Every day I look into the mirror and this is what I see.
Size 2 kids feet, stepping on me.
A Meaning LostWe were the beating of drums,
The beating of the sun against
The backs of our people.
We were the red of river banks,
The green of grass, the trees, the leaves.
How come when a white looking Hispanic man kills a black boy it's all over the news,
When,
African American is killing African American.
Sometimes they are boys,
Six and seven!
Caramel skin with an undertone of olive
Glowing in the fluorescent light
I stare at myself in the mirror
It is like the biting into the core
of a cold,chilled lemon, the realization
leaving its memory to taste like a deep, salty, sore.
It holds and grabs, a needle piercing deeply against
your skin, my skin
My naivete has led me astray from the real world.
This wonderland in which my mind obtains is nothing more than a fallacy
The eyes of wisdom have opened and realized this newfound knowledge is really my reality
I am an American Born and raised
But Society tells me that my race was enslaved.
"WAS" I say
Because obviously we still are
To me we are everything but by far.
We buy our sterotypes off of tv subconsciencely we feed our ignorance without a black face and watermelon red lips but with a pretty face and round ass we've become americas number one pupets our sistahs aunties and mothers have been degraded to o
Its a shame i'm seeing more coffins then diplomas
More babies, more mothers, no fathers just sperm donors
And life just don't Condon us to reach for those personas that developed into careers with fancy houses and chandlers.
Unlike you,
my copper skin glazes in the sun.
And my almond eyes twinkle.
Unlike you,
I sweat the fruits of my labor,
and make my living plucking from your collection
of cotton.
Unlike you,
Shhhh! Do not you dare compare him to I!
For he was not born within a skin that does not comply.
I am beautiful, of this I have no doubt,
But this is a fact, not a way to stand out.
And Kermit the Frog said
It’s not easy being green
Well being black isn’t easy either
I don’t blend in with the grass and the leaves
But I stand out in seas of ivory
Sometimes I get stares of disgust
We who believe in freedom still can't rest,
Cause we who believe in freedom can not rest until it comes.
I am Too Blind in the light Too fresh, too hood, too...Ghetto
World uses me like a puppet; Geppeto
African Americans need to Stop, and think
We want to see the Intellectual abilities you can bring,
Choose
Between
Hate or love
WHITE OR BLACK
Wrong or right
Parents or soul mate
Holding back or holding hands
Being ashamed or being proud
Seeing skin or seeing soul
I am not dark skin.
I am the sound of deep cognition.
I am the voice of thought-provoking composition.
So, if you feel like you are fiending just to stay and listen;
attacked, chained and forced on ships
brought to a land to face hardships
there is a light shining above us
illuminating our many shadeds of brown
unique souls and great minds that shaped
Pour her feet in emerald flames
Place her hands in ruby grains
They pulled his brain from the southern swamp
Clenched to a tree.
They poured their golden bleeds on his palms
The flares on his jeans sing to them.
I am bound to my chain
Never to be set free
The state of my confinement is one that is definite
A constant reminder that ensures my inhibition
From the middle passage, shackles, whips, auctions, cotton fields, negro spirituals, secret church, rape, abuse, scars, hangings, fires, hoses, boycotts, descrimination, segregation, Jim Crow Laws to protests, civil rights movement, NAACP, Dr.
INSPIRATION
A great man once said,
"I will show you how great I am."
That man’s electric tongue and
thunderous achievements
acted as an inspiration to all African Americans,
I am an American
For my blood helped build this country
It was this blood that grew crops and
weaved the clothes on the moon's back
The moon would be nothing
without the sun
to graze it's face
