Angry black man
That’s what they call me
Hands up Don’t Shoot
But you still gun me down
With words we shouldn’t be using anymore
All you ever want to do is hurt me
Turning on the news to hopefully find something happy
But another brother gunned down
By That Police Officer
Or by that guy who wanted to start a race war
But yet my black identity is the “REAL THREAT”
Respectability politics don’t do anything for me
Though you neglect to tell me that
They don’t do anything for my kindred
They just shut me up once again
Sure, isn’t that what you want?
We still meet our end the same way
With a gun or a taser or whatever you want
Because you’re the one with the power
And I’m just a scary black man on my way home
Though you may see me as your lesser
I’m still going to love you as my family
As a human being
As a person whose life matters
Because all lives matter,
Or is that just the lives of your kin?
Dearest hunter, don’t you know
Even though you make me feel like I don’t deserve to be in the same world as you
And you’d rather send me to “The Big House”
Or gun me down
Or make me watch my partner die as you get away with
One murder too many
Because you would never admit that I’m a human being just like you
But yet you say we’re all human beings
And we all matter
But yet, you’re unwilling to admit the truth
that you constantly ignore our deaths
And your success is built on cries of “I can’t breathe”
And the last minute of life cries of another I’ll never see again
Is that how you get your high?
Are you having fun?
Is this what you’re getting paid to do?
Are you happy yet that the system benefits you
In ways that it oppresses me?
Are you happy
That I’ll never see my librarian again
And there’s a college boy that will never see his mother again
Because there was a man so hell bent on starting a race war
That he gunned down a church in the heart of the city
But yet he is cared for like a child
Brought fast food and given protection
Where’s the protection for us
Oppressed people killed day and night
Where is our protection
Riot cops in the streets and extra security called in
Just because white people are scared that black people have had enough
When will you have enough
How many bones do you have to break
How voices do you have to silence
And how many dead bodies must lie before you
Until you realized what you’ve done
And what the system has done
To you, to us, and to community
So, no, I as a black man cannot acknowledge your pain
When I might not see my brother again
And know that he will be just another hashtag
How many people have to die before you want to end the system
Beat the system
Tell the system that enough is enough
Because you finally see me as your brother
Not just as a scary black man
So until then
Until my life span is not overseen by a system with bullets upon bullets
To kill all of us
First us, then you
All of us
I cannot
I will not
I must not
Feel tears of sadness for the deaths of your kin
Sure, I’ll be an angry black man
Because how can I sleep at night
When I know that you
think the broken bones and midnight screams
Of another brother’s death is just a cry for attention
And some heinous overreaction
No! That’s not how this works!
