How I lived, what I ate

And what I wore is not who I am.

My skin is my sin,

Which was dealt to me

Like a shantytown hustler’s sleight-of-hand win.

I ask for my freedom

But I’m told no such thing exists.

I’m told I’m not human,

I’m not worthy and I am not a man.

If I’m am not a man and you are,

Why do I slave and thrive above your soil?

Isn’t a man one who can harvest his own spoils?

Better yet, for his family’s sake to stay alive,

Doesn’t a man struggle to survive and provide?

Not coward out when the stocks drop,

Buy a gun from the hood and commit suicide.

This is not a case of Jason versus the state.

This is a case of a proletarian against capitalism,

A momentum shift to determine our own fate.

Don’t hate, participate, I just peeped your game.

You threw dust and debris in my mother’s face

And I thought she was to blame for years on end.

The torch was passed to me and I ran with it.

Before I knew it, it went out faster than I could think,

Faster than I could breathe and faster than I could blink.

Just like that, this legacy continued its wrath,

And was predisposed and rehearsed before my first bath.

I am so full of shame, full of hate, and tired of deceit,

That I can only sit back, laugh,

And remove these invisible chains from my feet,

Like a losing team’s cleats after a lopsided defeat.

It seems like every time I’m in for the score,

The ref throws the flag and the clock stops,

Clearly giving my opponents a free shot.

Even though they aren’t panting and in debt,

I give them a drink for their health

And a better way to distribute their wealth.

Principal contradiction, I look down on you,

Like you look down on your slaves.

Don’t be stupid, this is not about race.

This is a class struggle

And nobody’s safe from its

Round ‘em up and ship ‘em out

Mass incarceration haste.

I am blind to your hand to help me

But conscious to your plan to sell me,

Distribute me and bun me, like my mother’s keeper

Her true love, her desire, her features.

Jason Renard Walker, 1/13/15