What Amerika Means

Imagine

Walking down a street

Paved by your grandfather

Thinking about your future career

Plumber, barber, physician, rapper

Feeding self and family

Serving the people

Next minute all dreams extinguished

By Pig Wilson or Pig Zimmerman

Dragged all day on TV

Momma cryin’

Daddy sayin’ burn all this shit down

DeRay and Al makin’ money moves

News all confused

“What’s wrong with these people”

Rage.

Bullets.

Tear gas.

Fire.

Lovely cleansing fire.

Imagine your grandmother leaving her home

Long before day

To catch the bus to clean up somebody else mess

Cook somebody else food

Wash somebody else clothes

For a dime here and there

And old rags

No thanksgiving no Christmas

Your momma and daddy

Go to crumbling schools

Have you at 17 and 18

Do the same damn thing

Except they go do temp labor

Maybe prison labor

Three generations of violent rage

Except instead of taking it out on the man downtown

Or the man in Ladue or the man at the bank

Or the motherfucker at the police station

They take it out

On our own

With bottle, knife, pistol and acid

Genocide.

Are we fucked up?

Is Amerika fucked up?

Can you raise golden apples on a rotten tree?

Or should you set the tree on fire?

And all who climb the tree?

And all who planted the tree?

And all who eat from the tree?

Use your head

The same head that Malcolm used

That Huey used

That Kwame used

That George used

That Harriet used

That Assata used

That Elaine used

Put your heads together

Realize — violence is what Amerika means.

There is no rest for the righteous

There is no rest for those who want to build the new

There is no debate no argument no polemic

With Satan

He is his own advocate

The only solution

To violence

Is violence

This is what Amerika taught me.