Ask Me About My Blackness (with Jasmine Siobhan)

Let me ask you a question

When you look at my people, what do you see?

Is it an image of royalty?

Like Kings and Queens?

Or is it an image of ignorance and despair?

The kind that makes you cringe when we speak

What is your impression?

Is it a visual of a race that has been stressing

Or is it of a people that have yet to see its blessing

Or does our bipolar actions mixed with polar opposite reaction from the media leave you guessing

Or does the look on our faces as we get through our lives leave you stressing

Blank faces...

Have you had the chance to actually see the art of blackness?

It looks like you enjoy it's faceless presence.

The sports. The music.

Blackness graces those faces that are being played like the strings on the violin

Athletic and audible virtuosos being paid millions to execute playground activities and speak universal languages in order to engage our people into what THEY think...is art

meanwhile the man that signs his checks is holding the puppet strings...Geppetto

its no falsetto..that you speak fallacies of “I am not a racist but...” still exude consistent racism....until the Sambo on your favorite team scores a touchdown then you buy their jersey and remain struck so that he can see your allegiance but if he wasn’t in the limelight he would be just...another........

Freedom? What's that? None of us are free

Caged by a system that's supposed to be a democracy

That only supports the 1%

But We all want to have dialogue on how and why we're different

We are all one in the same

Different outside impressions

But the same oppressions.

Because you see...The same shackles that bind my hands and feet bind you except yours are invisible

Invisible to the eye but not the mind

Racism is holding us all down

Whether we're black, white or brown

You blank faces... You don't understand the privilege in the lack of blackness.

As the lack of melanin in your skin has a positive correlation with how YOU are perceived and treated

You see in this dog eat dog world you are holding the leashes

Enabling you to limit one’s journey with just a slight tug

As we remain obliviously obiedient in a system in which the architect did not keep us in mind &when constructing the blueprints and archetype

So if we follow it we have to work twice as hard to get half as far and one small instance can leave us back at the starting gate...meanwhile you get a head start

Where wearing jeans and a hoodie labels us as thugs but labels you casual

Where the rich steal money everyday but a small crime makes us irrational  

Where we are suspects but you will only be accused yet we are animals

Where most of started from the bottom and unsure what “now WE here” means but you started at a level we still strive to achieve and aren’t adaptable

Where in a social gathering its just a coincidence that cops are hanging on the corner and if one person acts up they call for back up because we all know we are powerful enough to shift the paradigm of the abstract into something tangible

Where any small reason gives cops the reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk

But I’m still looking for the instructions as to how this society works but you discarded the manual

So we are lost..

Lost in a cycle of generational hate

Where Everyday is a struggle

This is supposed to be America

Home of the free and brave

Opportunities' golden gates

But those said Opportunities are lost on my blackness

As my blackness unconsciously bows down

To the trials and tribulations of education, motivation and ambition

Uncontrollably falling to life's feet

Breeding the sense of entitlement for somebody else's advancement.

And all those somebody else's come to see the puppet show

Because the less you think about your oppressions

The more your tolerance grows...