I fear raising a black child in this country.

It hurts my heart to know that just because of the amount of melanin in my skin

I  could be arrested

 killed during a police stop,

while walking in the mall,

while getting groceries

Not because we are guilty but because our skin few shades darker 

 What revolts my very being

 that some of white privileged America has the audacity 

No darling racism is still alive and well

and its unpleasant that there is not a day

We are not worried by the people said to help us 

That these will be the ones to end us. 

That our black parents

have to tell us how to handle a police stop so that we don't get shot

 Worse than that when you enunciate and articulate

you are told that you are "talking white"

because a black person in America can not be educated.

A black person in America can not be innocent.

A black person in America cannot have feelings.

A black person in America cannot LIVE without being profiled

A black person in america cannot be consolidated 

This is the land of the free

Home Of The Brave

But to a Black Person In america in 2017

We are never free only required to be brave

These are my thoughts as my mother prepares me for a job interview 

"Baby this system isn't made for you to beat so you join them"

As she put my hair in a "civilized bun"

And suited me to get a job in the system that is not made for me

I knew at that moment that this land is not free to

A Black Person in america  

 So in this white America I will be educated

In this white America I will be attentive 

In this White America I will be empowered

In this white america I will be invested

In this White America I Will be Legitimized

In this White America I will be eloquent

because as a black person in this America

We will always be faced with the presumption that we will fail

Which is why you must be empowered to succeed

because this system is not made for us

you cannot change the world

 but you can change how you view it 

In this White america I Choose to overcome

Because this Country was not built on truth

It was built on the ability to survive.

 

 

America's greatest crime against the black man was not slavery or lynching, but that he was taught to wear a mask of self-hate and self-doubt. - Malcolm X