I am a slave
Though not to any white man's government
Not held in place with whips and chains
Jim Crow don't knock at my door at night
He don't cause sirens to wail, nor blood to be shed
No! The shackles on me were placed by no white man
I am a slave only to myself
The taunts of my creamy-faced sisters
Calling me names to shame my African beauty
Burn my soul more than any white man calling me "nigger"
And the betrayal of my brothers
Who tell lies between the sheets and brag behind my back
Wound me more than whips ever could
A slave to the pain in my soul
As I work hard only to be called a "sellout"
Sleepless nights for 4.0's spent for naught
As whites point statistics in my face
And my brothers and sisters prove them all right
I am a slave to "Black Power" and "Do The Right Thing"
As brothers sport X caps and say they never got their 40 acres and a mule
And hip hop bullshit artists cry for unity
Before selling millions of records praising violence
None of them knowing or acknowledging the true heros of the African race
The "Uncle Toms" who worked hard to get places black folk died to have
Then turned their backs on so they wouldn't be working for the white man
I am a slave to ignorant prejudice
To a society of oppressed oppressors
Who think everything that ain't black is bad
And cry racism is everywhere here and can't even spell the word
I am a slave to obligation
As I look in my daughter's eyes
The child my 1150 SAT score helped to feed
And clothe as she lives in white suburbia
As I try to teach her that being black don't mean being stupid
And to explain to her, with guilty tears
That while her sisters act like whores
And her brothers kill her brothers in the ghettos
That it's OK to want more out of life
Feeling more and more like a slave

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