Do You Know What It's Like?

You say you understand,
you feel the pain
have immense remorse for all the lives slain
you want to stand beside us
fight for the cause
but it could be your guilt
looking for an applause.
You say damned if you do
and damned if you dismiss
so if you speak the truth
then answer me this...
do you know what's like
to travel across seas
far from home but your not feeling the breeze
and your stomach won't hold because you don't travel like this often
trapped in a space no bigger than a coffin?
Can you feel the oxygen leaving
the pain just from breathing
to your left, a corpse
to your right a body seizing?
Scraps for food
forced to fight to live
and the only thoughts you have
are of those of your kids?
You can't understand the language
but they force you to listen
taught you're cursed because your black
but in the sun you glisten
Do you feel the pain of the whip on your back
cuts like glass
and you better not react
when they're raping your wife
while she carries your child
strange fruit on the trees
while your son screams loud
a last memory haunting you
your wife kneels down to pray
to the same force that
embedded hate in your dna
And here we are centuries passed
Do you know what it's like
to have the memories passed down
like they've stolen the lives
of those who have yet to come
a reminder like memorabilia
subjected to genocide,
mentacide and pedophilia
I want you to imagine
that you no longer remember
the sound of your native tongue
and it gets cold like December
on hay with rags to keep the baby from crying
left with scraps from the pigs
and wonder why we are dying
in numbers off the chart
they care not to jot
and no I wasn't there
but my dna never forgot
all the things my mothers
had to do to survive
imagine teaching your child
to stay dumb to survive
can't risk selling him off
to a place I can't protect him
trying to trace the blood back
so that I can connect him
to something he had
before the chains were shackled
teach him how to act
when the cops come to hassle
the same boys that wore sheets
in the streets at night
do you know what's it like
to not be able to fight
because the drugs have numbed
everyone surronding you
and it's no surprise
because they're just as brown as you?
Do you know what's it's like to
be told that you don't belong?
Just trying to make a way
but they singing the same song?
And you try to explain but
they just don't feel yah
and the face of the beast
looks so familiar
same look in the eyes
and they don't hesitate or pause
when they're shaking your hand
say they down for the cause.
Do you know what's like
to have your babies
hate their skin
hate the very mirror
they're looking in?
Taught that black is a curse
and I swear I could've died
told me it was my fault
it was ordained by God.
You know the same white man
picture hanging in my mother's home
so frightened by the face as a child
I couldn't be left alone.
And now centuries later
the souls still weep
Do you know what it's like to have
your children murdered in the streets?
For a crime no bigger than
the melanin God gave em
and He gave it not to oppress them
but gave it to save em!
Can you feel the attention
when you're downtown?
Feel the energy of those
who don't want you around? like
When your blood built the city
from rubble and dust
Can you understand why your
complexion I can't trust!
And you reap the benefits
of my grandfather's sweat
it's like you live in his house
and you're getting his check!
And do you know what it's like
to have dreams at night
nearly 500 years later
getting stopped at the light
for a tail light out ended up
in a loss of life
and a few forgotten marches
that didn't mean shit
he was cleared of the charges!
And I can't find employment
better chance of being killed
when the companies I apply for
are the ones my grandfathers built
but you reap the benefits
and say you standing with me
stolen birthrights the reason
the descendants can't be free
so if you really against
this thing called oppression
if you need a explanation
for all my aggression
and you wanna do good
you wanna come to the light
you wanna stand front line
if it comes to fight
willing to lose everything you have
just so you can make it right
Close your eyes and imagine...
Do you know what it's like?

-Hatshepsut Amun Re