Commentary to a Black Man

This is a commentary we must all face,
of the devastation we have caused on our race.
We blame the white man for everything and all,
but on our streets we make the call.
We drive by and shoot to kill,
and sell all the drugs that make our community ill.
There’s a queue at the morgue for the blacks who are dead,
but who really cares? It’s just a crackhead.
Martin Luther’s dream is a vague shadow in a lost yesterday,
for all of his efforts this is how we repay.
Can you imagine the tears on his face,
from the devastation we have wrought on our own race?
We have brought our poor sisters down in shame,
and still we point to the white man as the blame.
But I become puzzled when I try to explain
where I saw the white man who sold her cocaine.
I’ve seen her stoop lower than low,
I’ve seen them doing things that would sicken a ho’.
For just one blast she’ll sell her ass,
in abandoned buildings on broken glass.
She sells her food stamps and leaves her kids unfed,
and when she starts geeking she sells her head.
We lower the status of our girlfriend, call ‘em hood rats or project chicks,
but this is how we get our kicks.
We subject our own soulmates to this denigrating fate,
spurred on by insecurities, arrogance and self-hate.
We have whittled our family structure down to fragments and shreds,
while we prance with bravado and swollen heads.
We are the patriarchs of this fallen tribe,
we bit the carrot, we took the bribe.
Our future’s stamped on the front page,
statistics on our youth not coming of age.
This is a commentary we must all face,
of the devastation we have caused our own race.

Read about President Barrack Obama’s response to this poem.


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