Your entire career you were outspoken of the struggles faced by African Americans. Your music provided a painted picture of the hard life presented in the ghettos and deprived black communities. It never ceased. It got so many angry at the nerve you had being unapologetic of your life experience. I cannot imagine your experiences of having to sleep at shelters and deal with having your only parent addicted to narcotics. Life would seem so bleak to me. It always comes back to the art that frees one's voice. Your obsession with poetry curated rap into 3 mins of a hard packed, real message. A real testament to the boxed in hell black people live in. You came as a prophet.
"I see no changes wake up in the morning and I ask myself
Is life worth living should I blast myself?
I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black
My stomach hurts so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
Pull the trigger kill a nigga he's a hero
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares
One less hungry mouth on the welfare
First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal the brothers
Give 'em guns step back watch 'em kill each other"
-T.S. (Changes)
It is such an ugly reality that can be a thick smog that makes us not see any point to our own lives. The oppression makes us decide that we cannot win and that there is no way out. So many of us are caught in the system. We are hounded to be sent to jail and are labeled for the rest of our lives. So many kids are without their mothers and fathers, and they too are being groomed for the repeated cycle of breakage and extreme hardship.
"I see no changes all I see is racist faces
Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under I wonder what it takes to make this
One better place, let's erase the wasted
Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right
'Cause both black and white is smokin' crack tonight
And only time we chill is when we kill each other
It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uh
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact
The penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks
But some things will never change"
-T.S. (Changes)
I get so discouraged at times thinking of how to get rid of racism and its torture. The fact that this is a psychological warfare and that we can make all of the laws we want to prevent it from playing out. However, we cannot remove the toxic roots from the perpetrators' minds'. In this war we are fighting a big non-physical machine. We cannot fight it head on, we are fighting blind with our hands outstretched as we are being kicked down. All we know is that we are being kicked and that we are bleeding. No one cares, no one wants to see, and no one wants to help. We scream, yell, and try to say it in a nice voice of our pain and it falls on deaf ears as it has for the past 400 years. Every day that I wake up I know the reality that so many of our brother and sisters are in jail on a wrongful conviction, that they are dying, and that they are being targeted.
What I have learned from you is that however dark it may seem, we cannot just give up in fighting just because before us stands an armored opponent. It is up to us to speak out, to speak the truth over and over again despite people not wanting to hear it. It is up to those of us who have come into good positions to speak to the communities we came out of and pass on the torch. It is up to us to give our people positions of decision making. It is the effort that can change lives, even if it is just one life. We must be educated in our history and what is happening to us. We must read, research, listen and learn. We must become invincible, outspoken and hold those conversations of our oppression. Learning from you I will not be quiet, I will not be held down and I will make it my life mission to ultimately make life better for our sisters and brothers in this world.
Sincerely,
Kayla Mary Jane
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