The verb, to be

Teach our Black children to swim Take them to the ocean and show them life has no bounds Teach Black children to read and to explore more than the outside of their broken door Give them tangible hope Dreams that aren't just riddled in fables Show them they are able Give them stethoscopes and hammers and swimming pools and tennis courts and chemistry sets Let them see that we aren't finished yet Teach Black children their power That every time they take a new breath they have defeated every odd that told them they weren't meant to be Gods Give Black children the truth That they are 1 in a million descendants of the original involuntary immigrants Give them their smiles back If they ever even had them Black joy locked up in dirt roads for football fields and broken Crack rocks as crystal glass The bottom looks so beautiful when it's all you've ever had Give us our streets back We don't need novelty sock shops in the hood, we need books that aren't 15 years old and playgrounds that aren't falling a part We need trash cans on our streets and community gardens by our homes Teach Black children to swim. And let them soar with the promise of a tomorrow Teach Black children to fly