White Wannabes

Ah, to be young, gifted, and black,

scream the minds

of the white wannabes,

eyeing enviously the bruthas down the block.

To be able to string the syllables

to spit later at the open mike

without worry that they will

be seen as hangers on,

to be able to wear their pants,

crotch at the knees,

in a penal invitation, no clue

as to what it really means,

because it’s what all of the homies

are wearing.

These sons of suburbia

have no conception of what it means

to duck and cover.

They think that it has something to do

with old cautionary movies

(and they must be old....

they’re in black and white)

about H-bombs dropping, not Glocks popping,

or cops stopping

because there are more than three kids

on the corner, must be ‘bangers

couldn’t be slingers of cipher

trying to spit rhythm and words.

They drive from home

to the ‘hood with the bass bumping

to cop, then leave to swap

tales of near misses,

while the "young, gifted, and black,"

watch gunfights in the projects

light up the sky like the Fourth of July.

And, another young life is taken too early.

The daughters of debutantes

spy on the sistas, jealous of their

apparent freedom,

of mind speech and body.