Tightrope

I stand stuck between a rock and a hard place The rock being the mindset of Black America thats being conditioned The hard place is society doing the conditioning Now picture this I have a sold out show to do tonight with half the crowd black and the other half white Split as if Moses painted the color line himself with a paint brush tip as wide as the Red Sea's width Still a fine line in retrospect and to walk it was to handle the dilemma in the most perfect way possible My approach had to be the identical twin of the light skin child of Yin and Yang Not referring to the forces of dark and light nor Mr. Wrong and Miss Right That light skin child is a product of the hypocrisy of life The world telling me to be different but wants me to conform to a stereotype? One side telling me we can never coincide because I look like the other side So I look to the other side but they kept me out because I wasn't the same inside out My pant size being equal to my waistline was vindictive of how I carried myself; no time to slack off Dreams of being society's biggest threat; an educated black man But that hard place, I mentioned before, trying to tell me that it doesn't exist because it just won't mix Instead black and ghetto is peanut butter and jelly But daddy told me to block out what they tell me That it's just a sandwich on the system made lunch plate to keep my mind on my empty stomach So I can focus less on feeding my food for thought Seems as if I couldn't win Being knowledgeable and dark skin seemed to be a sin White kids telling me I ain't black enough So I had a choice I could perform to conform, with that colored line being my life's stage Or walk a tightrope above the crowd Above the "have to do"s and "supposed to be"s To stay balanced on that fine line in the air is my life's mission