Blacker Than Me

A poem based on my most hated phrase, "I'm blacker than you."

It doesn't matter who says this to me. I despise this saying.

I hope you enjoy...


"Look at me just a little bit longer

Watch as my hatred grows just a little bit stronger

See my hair

and wonder where?

Where does it grow, of what color was it sown

truly

It can't be of the obvious answer you avoid to seek

Truly

I can't be what your lying eyes lead you to deceive

Believe?

yes, believe...me...I am what I am meant to be

I was made and its what you see in me.

So before you stutter words of blasphemy

Before you grin and stutter and choke on verbs that's killing me

Know that "no" ...you are not blacker than me.

I was not given a choice when I was born the color of the rich motherland that I know nothing of

I was not given a choice when I was told who I choose to be with has nothing to do with love

Were you there when they cursed my name, out of shadows, of white skin tortures came

To tell me what I am and am not.

To tell me where I do and don't belong.

So shut your mouth, when you hear me speak.

Your lifeless words shows that your intelligence has no voice

To think for a second that TV is my only choice

to be what you think you see in me?

I'm sorry but Black is not BET

To think a young brotha raised away from the hood

would have to learn and understood

that the only sense of identity would be what people paint me out to be.

Know that "no" ...you are not blacker than me.

Is your skin the color of milky brown, or as so many love for me to see as told by clowns...

...the color of shit.

Do you suffer the joke of lacking racial integrity

Because, excuse me, I speak clearly?

No I don't wear my pants off my ass.

No I don't criss cross, pop, and break off the latest dance.

Hip Hop is not my blood

I must have missed the memo

When some otha brotha of different skin toned motha...told me it should

So when you hear me speak and can't readily identify

if you should be scared of me

Because I'm not thug enough in your eyes

Know that in my heart, I cry, for you and your stupidity

I dress how I dress, because I dress like me.

I don't act white, I act blissfully...free...complete understanding of me

Not held down by the shackles of insecurity.

Not bound by stereotypes you subconsciously set for me.

I am who I am, and I don't live to please...anyone who thinks that these ashy knees

anyone who thinks that this caramel color of my one and only mother

anyone who thinks that they can look at me

Smile and laugh, and with a sense of urgency

speak quickly to me, puffed out chest, and of rosy cheeks

STOP

Know that "no" before you say it.

Before you think it.

Shut your mouth, before I shrink it.

I carry the color of men and women bound by whip and circumstance

I carry the color of the spilled blood that you drink effortlessly

that seeps and stills runs in the ground, and lakes and seas

Of grandfathers and grandmothers hung by cedar wood trees

who lived their lives not to please

but died on broken knees

so that I could live to be like me

with my skin tone the color of freedom I sing

You may talk how you think I should

you may dress the way your masters tell you I should

but you don't wear the veil that I can't run from

are you burned forever, whether or not you please, the sweetest color of ebony and golden baked seams

You see this is all just a passing fad

mock my shoes, my hair, songs, clothes, and do rags.

Mimic me in every televised way you see

Don't worry, its the biggest form of flattery.

To think for a second that you can compete with me.

When you copy what you aren't and I can't hide from what I am.

But at the end of your days, when your minds cleared from this haze

In all insurmountable ways

you will never be

ignore what you think you see

Will you come close to be

I am more than what's on the TV

Not in jest or in joke

and if you do, I hope you choke

Know that "no" ...you are not blacker than me."

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Black
• Blacker
• than
• me
• thug
• prep
• africa
• poetry
• slam
• race
• african
• american

[KeepItOnTheDL51]

Great poem man, i totally know what you mean. If i had i dime for every time people said that "im blacker than you" i would be a rich man, a rich black man. lol Keep on Keeping on.

[icic5]

That was deep!

[Blackmilitant421]

Good words bro great job