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This white guy, runs up to me after one of my shows and says man, I wanna be just like you, I asked why, he said man you speak with authority and command a rooms attention, I said thanks, He says man, you just look like the type to keep a beautiful woman by your side, I said yea that’s me, and thanks again, finally he says man, I wish I could be exactly like you, that’s when I paused and asked him do you really wanna be this, would you really be willing to give up your privilege to walk down the street in a nice neighborhood at two in the morning without a neighbor calling the police on you, just to carry this pigment in your skin, do you really wanna mark your body up with artwork that is nothing more than the last screams of dead Black men gunned down by police, criss crossing my arms and ending at my chest because they hoped that my cardiac could provide their last breath, do you really wanna walk a mile in my shoes, because Black men don’t walk, we are accustomed to running for our lives on a daily, so if you wanna know why we take gold in the olympics...do you really wanna have people coming up to you, brushing their hands across your head saying oh my god, are these waves a real thing, petting you like an animal at the zoo that is simply on display for their entertainment, do you really wanna know the answer to the riddle if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound, the answer is yes, because we’d rather see that wither on the ground because its been enough of us that hung from those branches, do you really wanna have a well sized package, maybe you do, but just know that rape can be screamed on you even with consentual sex, because karen’s biggest regret won’t be I ***ed a Black guy, its the black eye her family will give her for sleeping with “their” kind, see all this on stage is cool, the cheers are nice to hear, but realize, I still have to walk out the door, and in the streets, my best poetic piece will be if I make it home alive, because Black men not experiencing racism is an oxymoron like a crip at a hospital donating blood, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, we haven’t even dove beneath the water, cause if we did, we’d see the spirits of our ancestors swimming with the fish from when they did the hive dive off the slave ship, see they try to make Black irrelevant, but you can’t see those white stars without a Black sky, you can’t read that white page until you add Black ink, but you need to think when you say you wish you were just like me because when you Black, you’ll be an angry mother***er every day of your life….
