This is Life

I maintain my innocence to fullest officer!

So let me go!

Can you prove that I’ve done something wrong?

Or am I just the ususal suspect?

Is it the color of my skin?

The way I walk?

Where I live?

How about the way I talk?

Maybe it’s the way that I dress?

 

These are the excuses that we have against the white man.

In the white society.

But what if the roles changed?

What if the black society were the higher ups?

What would happen then? Would we be that clueless?

Could you see us at the "top"?

Would we form a group against all other races?

Could we be called the kukamunga kraka killaz?

 

Could we no longer be a community that slangs and gang bangs?

Living on a nickel and dime mentality.

Always out to make a quick buck But as a high society.

Because now a days we got the white people telling us

"If you work a little bit harder you could have the fancy cars and the fancy crib."

 

My replay to that is what the f**k do you know about working hard?

As a black female I have to work 50 times as hard as any man or white women.

As a black female I have to do the job of 30 black men.

As a black woman.......well I guess you get my point.

 

There use to be this show on TV that I really can’t rememba the name But the bases was good.

It had a white family swap there life styles with the life style of a black family.

I mean either way this family was doomed.

They had no understanding of what our reality was like for us.

We always use slavery as an excuse!

Was what they said at the beginning

 

But if it wasn’t for everything that happened in the past.

We wouldn’t have our troubles now.

And that so called "white society" wouldn’t have there "fancy cars and cribs"

If it wasn’t for our four fathers and mothers

Picking cotton,

Washing draws,

Breast feeding kids,

Being punching bags,

Brutally molested, raped and murdered

Going through years of segregation, persecution, and discrimination

(All of which we are currently still going through)

 

But we still get told that these are all excuses.

Yes we have rights and yes we should do something about our futures.

But how can we do something about or futures

If we still get labeled as no good, gangsta’s, hood rats, crack heads, murderers, and b******s.

And that’s before we even make it out of elementary school.

Sure some of us have made it out the "ghetto"

But as what?

Basketball players, football players, track stars??

Ok so we’re good at sports!!

Rappers, singers, and musicians?

And yea we got soul...

 

But where are our eggheads?

Where are our baby geniuses?

It seems like if you’re not white...

Or in my city if you’re not Mexican/Hispanic

Then the only way a black person makes it on the news is if they just got shot by the police

Or busted bashing in someone’s dome,

About to do 25 to life,

Molested or raped an "innocent" white girl/boy,

Or if the got popped for slanging on block.

 

And why is it that as black people

We don’t celebrate black history month like we should?

If we don’t step up then who will?

Katrina was a good example (Not the chocolate city part)

But the fact that we are on our own.

Some of us stepped up and made a difference.

We need to become a positive instead of a negative.

We have to show these other races that we more.

More than a show, more than a movie, more than a concert, more than a game!!!!

We also have brains.

Reviews

[Hawksmoor]

You make a lot of great points with this piece. Give it a spit shine, just a quick one. You do that, and trust me; the readers won't be able to read this without a pair of sunglasses on. Yeah, it is very close to being ideal. I suggest that you take a look at a few things if you do decide to re-work this. I think you�ll get a better response from the readers by focusing more specifically on the responsibilities of blacks in America, and less on how we got this way. Yes, it is important to understand our people�s history, but that's been done to death. What I'd love to see is a sort of blueprint for a set of steps that might lead out of the Dark Age that we, as a race, have stumbled into. I'd like to see this achieved in a piece without arrogance, blame, or the like. This is motivating, and it was obviously a long time coming for you. You thought about this before and as you wrote it. That's as plain as the nose on your face. Give it a quick spit shine. Send it my way when you do. Thank you for writing this.

Hawksmoor...From The Bleed.

[Travis Lawrence]

Do you ever watch The Boondocks? There's this episode where they imagine that Dr. Martin Luther King had been in a coma for 40 years and woke up to see today's world. The speech he gives at the end is priceless, and I think you would enjoy it, based on this. "Is this what I took all those a*s whoopings for?"

I love the way you present information here, and how you have some doubts as to who's at fault for the entire situation. Where does personal responsibility set in, and how long will the culture stay oppressive? The way you open is great, too, as you present the situation as, what if blacks were the majority? Very interesting, and I bet it would make a lot of people think critically about their views on race, class, etc.

And the encouragement you offer is priceless. Keep up the fight, equality will come one day (I hope).

[d]

Man you know I'm trippin...I don't know how I missed this...ayo this is the heart and soul of all who still to to comprehend the skin color madness that destroys from within...POWERFUL IMPACT!!!...Brava sis BRAVA!!!

[Invisible Ink]

I wrote my senior thesis on Langston Hughes, I was a literature major, and many things moved me but his work moved me in a different way. I will always remember, when I went to speak to my advisor, a wonderful black woman, that I will always respect, she told me that I should add in that I was a white woman writing about this black poet, this black history, these black themes... and I did. But I hadn't considered this distiction before, I just felt... felt his poetry, his music in me and I wanted to know more, and to tell what I felt. I just want to say, I don't have the legecy of slavery in my viens, but I do feel it. Being a woman in this world. This poem is beautiful and painful and it is amazing that you have expressed things that are so difficult to find the words for. There is so much pain in this world, inequality, injustice. But I do believe that we all make a difference with what we do, what we say, who we are. Just with your words on this page you have made a small difference in my life, and I believe in everyone's who has read this. You are doing great work and your work is powerful. Thank you.

[Jeff "jazzman"..]

Amen my young sista, this is a powerful, tell it like it is piece. I love your flow and the emotion the comes from this piece....Excellent work!

"My replay to that is what the f**k do you know about working hard?
As a black female I have to work 50 times as hard as any man or white women.
As a black female I have to do the job of 30 black men.
As a black woman.......well I guess you get my point. "

Keep it real, and keep it straight from the heart!

[Theta S. T.]

much love to all that read and reviewed.. it took me 10mins to write this it's something that i've thought about many times but could not put on paper as you can tell i'm pretty scatter brained...

but anyway thanks for all the input on this piece.....i'll be re-working this and some others really soon so stay tooned more to come and all just as scatter brained as the last!!!!

thanks again


xoxox
T. S. T.

[Nik'aule]

AMen!!!!! I think this is the best one that I have read so far in this contest.. it's so real and to the point.. absolutely amazing, sister.. thank you for sharing this!!