Married to the System

It’s been 365 days exact…that’s 8,760 hours we can never get back. Hard to imagine the world still in tact, when mine hasn’t been the same since learning the fact that you’ve been stolen from me by street life, drug sales and steel bars. Blinded by the glamour of platinum ice, cash flow and nice cars. You traded in our love for drug sales; and in turn sold that for time in jail. Two years was the sentence. When will our dear America learn that handcuffs don’t teach lessons? Especially when you’ve been taught your whole life that you’re worth less than. YOU try and provide for your family when there’s no food and rent is due and the only one of the kids old enough to work is you. What does dear old America expect us to do when minimum wage equals less than livable too?

I hadn’t kissed you for so long that it felt wrong the first time that I saw you again. The system creates distance way longer than miles can bend. Makes criminals out of daddies and defendants out of friends, homicide victims out of loved ones and gives us our men just as lent. Cuz most know they’ll never see 18 before having their dreams ripped at the seams. To hide the holes in a life handed, never chose, they pin RIP buttons for each one as they go.

Don’t you understand? There aint no American dream! We’ve been locked up where cracked liberty bells outweigh our dreams. Our community is knocked up and poverty only breeds desperation. So our babies grow up learning that there are quicker ways to get paid than with a pay check. It’s not hard to see who got power in this country: white men with money…so that’s who we aspire to be. Cuz we grow up not having presidents who look like me. They tell us have dreams but we lack opportunity…but they aint got nothing to say for it. So we live our lives poor and have to pay for it.

Handcuffs and barbed wire
We live our lives imprisoned
And they say we have a choice but this is how we living!

Til the day I get to hold your hand, touch your face and feel your heart against mine.
We’ll remain victims to the system
Just flirting with possibilities but married to time.

Stolen

Locked up and caged
Inflicted with rage
Restricted to hate
Cuffed and detained
Prison is NOT where they’ll remain

STATISTICS
Tattooed and engraved
Our self worth has been maimed
Let down and slain,
The system warrants this pain
With the assurance it’ll happen again

NUMBERS
Ripped from families
We amount to less without them
Cuz the digits aren’t adding up
But it’s not just about them
It’s about babies that grow up parentless
And parents that lose their kids
…to the system
And we’ve lost far more than just a little bit
Caught we’re in a war with time and we’re losing it
Mostly we’re not choosing it
System imposed, we learn the ropes and stay accused of it

ACCOUNTABILITY
So tell me, who’s to blame?
When no one will claim ownership of locking young ones away
Probation and parole
Court dates and group homes
Judges and police
Why do we get our kids on loan
When others have theirs to keep?

JUSTICE
We want our babies back!
Plain and simple…
We won’t conform to a system that breaks bread off the backs of those most vulnerable
Restore and rehabilitate reentry and reiterate
Our young ones aren’t for you to take
And we’ll fight for them if it’s the last move we make
Because jail does not teach lessons
And neither does detention
Or Confinement
Or Prison
Or whatever else you wanna call the system that steals our children
From school to juvie to the state penitentiary
We’re setting limitations on our future by teaching children how not to dream

FORGOTTEN
We have not forgot them
Though they stay locked up and caged in
Inflicted with raging
Restricted to hating
Cuffed and detained in…
Prison

PRISON
…is NOT where they’ll remain

We’ll keep trying and keep fighting
And we’ll keep riding for their lives

Our kids have been STOLEN from us. They are a lot more than just STATISTICS and NUMBERS but in order to for the system to claim ACCOUNTABILITY, we must restore JUSTICE in our communities. Babies, you are not FORGOTTEN. We will never forget you to PRISON.

Black Listed

Listen
They keep us Black listed
Young, Black and Gifted
They say the good die young
Well it’s not a coincidence
This aint based on no conspiracy theory
This is based on the rates of how many young people we’ve buried
And how many we’ve lost to the system
That goggles them up and then forgets them

Listen
They got it all planned out
In order to stay up, they gotta keep us down
In order to profit there has to be loss
And in order to sell, there has to be a cost

There’s no cure to the pain caused by loss with nothing to gain

So it comes as no surprise
When we believe their lies
Internalized
We become numb to goodbyes
Cuz we’ve seen so many lives get lost to the tide

The sun don’t rise
On mother’s cries
When they watch their babies die

Listen
We’ve been Black Listed
Born into a country that sells guns to our children
System bound
Strategically, they hold us down
No work to get chosen
If you’re born with brown skin
Your chains are not broken

They’ll tokenize and affirm you
Change the face of racism to hold you
In the belief that we’ll teach to our children
That we are free and that slavery doesn’t still exist through prisons
And that Obama means the abolition of oppression

Listen close and learn your lessons
The revolution is approaching and you will be tested
Learn their language
And know how to answer every question
There is no guessing
One wrong move can mean we all lose

Listen
We’ve been Black Listed
Born into a country that sells guns to our children
System bound
Strategically, they hold us down
No work to get chosen
If you’re born with brown skin
Your chains are not broken

Listen