Death Toll (2015)
I once said before,
We hold each breath close
like Uncle Sam holds
political prisoners on death row.
He scared to let go
he fears the power
of the child of the ghetto
but this death toll
is at my threshold
and if you didn't know
this being black in America ish is stressful.
Never knowing what's gonna happen when you set forth
and you step forth from your front porch.
Maybe that's the reason
why I'm contemplating death more.
Like,
what's it gonna feel like when my flesh cold
and they put my body in that fresh hole,
and I hate being so necro
but negroes and death go
hand in hand
like young kids back in the day used to thumb wrestle,
that grim reaper be on our back like an echo
echo
echo
echo
I've seen police choke a nigga until his breath go
I seen them point that glock at his top
cock back that shot
and then let go.
Cop must've thought he had a bulletproof dome like Destro
That boy had locks with a front license plate in his glove box
so tell me what he dead for.
I seen them arrest a sister for failing to signal
while driving through a pedzone.
It should've been a citation
still they took her to jail
and 3 days later she dead though.
And they think we dumb enough to believe
that suicide is the reason why we putting flowers at her headstone
I seen them shoot a man shopping at Walmart
for an air rifle outside of Dayton metro.
Cops magically appear on the scene
with their guns out like presto.
Shots get fired while he looking at them falling price specials.
Now he at a morgue, under a white sheet
with a tag on his left toe
That's that Death Toll.
These American streets are a morbid expo
of lifeless Black bodies lying exposed.
And then they quick to be on some, "Oh no, this ain't no retro Jim Crow"
but we know this that new version
2.0
Michelle Alexander already said so.
And this right here is my manifesto
We sick and tried of dying
we putting an end to dying,
Either by our hands
or the hands of that white violence.
And I know I have some agency
over this hate in me
but I experience a little bit of latency
when I think about that white boy
and those 9 that he killed up at the AME.
You can look at my face and see
Black rage in the place to be.
What do you expect
when y'all doing this so blatantly?
My country, tis of thee
you have made me a strange and bitter fruit
which you harvest from your tree of liberty.
Roots are buried deep beneath the soil,
four hundred years of racial terrorism and turmoil.
Better be careful before this melting pot turns to boil.
You are not equipped with empathy,
you do not have the capacity to change.
You are so thoroughly programmed
that you cannot see the error of your ways.
And my people have changed.
This ain't that docile, hat in hand
Stepin Fetchit step to the side.
We the Wretched of the Earth,
with a ratchet tucked
West Side til we die.
And my people are already accustomed to dying for no reason.
And once these lines remove the poison
and blindfolds from my people's minds
whose favorite past time is killing they own kind
they gonna want to get even.
So what does this mean for America as a whole?
Keep killing our people, stealing those that we love from our homes,
and you'll leave us with no choice
but to show America the true definition of a Death Toll.