A young girl I was running across the fields of an old plantation land

Wondering why the black man ain’t respected by the white man

Looking at my braids, wishing they were curls

So I can look like the beautiful ones

The blond, blue-eyed girls

With her skin so milky-white

Mine the opposite, dark as if night

She-bouncy and glowing as if radiating night

Whispering, if you looked like me it would be alright

On her head a halo laid

So I took her hand because I was not afraid

 

All grown up, things can’t be worse

Maybe it’s true, maybe we are cursed

Why these big lips?

Why this black skin?

Why these big hips

Why can’t I be thin?

Questions that seemed to have answer

I know I just did not want to get skin cancer

So I puffed on my stog

Looked in the mirror and checked out my clothes

Suck in here, tuck in there and pressed to the max

Hair dyed, curly and of course well relaxed

America has been good to me

I look nothing like the “bush bunny”

 

Yeah, I’m an “American girl”; if it can be done I can do it

With my press on nails and fatherless child to prove it

I got my kid in one hand, and my welfare check in the other

Sniffed a line and then cursed out my mother

I’m feeling real free

You just call me “miss statue of liberty”

Hate the black man, of course you do

Look what he done did to you

Hate the black man sugar

Of course I do give me the gun I will pull the trigger

Shoot that Nigger kill him dead

Who he think he is messing with my head

While I give myself to this Italian

He is now my black stallion

Black coffee to strong add a little white

And it will lessen the bite

mmmmm just right gonna make love all nite

 

Woke up in the morning finding out

I was lying next to a stranger

Suddenly feeling I was in danger

Puffed on my pipe cause I’m deep in the hype

While insisting I’m not that type

Believing in lies generated by me and society

Walking in a state of dazed hypocrisy

Everything that was real is now fake

And the man laying next to me is not longer a date

Put it this way we did not remain friends

That’s ok, I’ll make it anyway

Get me a big office overlooking the bay

Flying in jet planes, attending meetings all day

Yeah, that’s the goal and I’m gonna strive for it

Even if I didn’t conceive it

Get that house, buy that car

Getting drunk in a trendy bar

Close your eyes, do you see what I mean

Can’t you just picture the American Dream?

For me it’s crystal clear, even through the smoke and beer

 

I’ve paid my dues

Sung the blues, walked in $500 pair of shoes

But still I lose

Is this the way it’s supposed to be

Can this be the destiny?

Follow those who oppressed my ancestors and subsequently me

Weren’t they the ones who lied and made me think I was free?

Are they the ones who taught me to hate me?

So now I stand at the edge with time

And history unfolds before my eyes

And what was fake is now real what was hidden now revealed

African nations and culture once strong and mighty

Was colonized due to murder and enslavement by whitey

Taught to hate its very seed

Trained to cater to the white mans need, garbage to our children feed

Programmed to worship money and promote greed.

 

I just don’t want that to be me

So on my knees I pray to thee

Render us a speedy recovery

Let every black eye open and see

And every heart show respect for “his” creation

Eve, the original, black woman, mother of the nation

 

(more painful poetry: http://thepollitikat.com/painful-poetry/)