THE LIONS DEN

(NICE? I AIN'T GOT TIME FOR THAT)
THE MUSIC...
Pride Instrumental (Hip Hop Beat with Dark Choirs…: http://youtu.be/GJRMvc8i_rk

What did you expect?
Me to be nice?
I ain't nice cause I didn't come from a nice place.
I was born on 5th street right round the corner from Rat Road and down the hill from the bucket of blood.
I was called a little nigger boy before I was 5 by a drunk white man.
Told I couldn't read by my teacher who didn't even want to give me a book.
Her skin black like mine but that didn't matter.
How could I be nice when all the representations of my people showed me in a negative light?
Shadows obscuring my identity.
Raised in the red clay dust that was the streets on the black side of town.
How could I be a smiling happy nigga tap dancing and shit... Singing thugged out lyrics in a rap song when I came from the projects?
When my people were called the problem?
When the solution was to be thrown in jail?
To be miseducated?
How could I be nice when I was told that the truth would see me dead.
I was not to speak of it in public.
Told to be docile or I would be viewed as hostile by people who bashed in heads.
Hated me cause I was the original progeny.
Worked to eradicate that fact.
How could I be nice when they called me a curse?
Said the bible proved that fact.
How could I be nice when they put me on child support and paid me minimum wage?
Locked me up for not making enough money and taught my children to call me a deadbeat?
Taught the queens that unless I was an ass kisser and a sellout I was less than a man.
Stripped and robbed me of my birthright.
Took my gold, took my diamonds, took my land, took my pride.
Made my queen my enemy.
Made my image into a comedy.
Telling me to forget my past while glorifying his.
You be nice and see if you don't keep arriving at the same point.
I left that highway a long time ago.
I follow the straight path that comes with realization...
It ain't nothin nice.

JERALD HAMZAHFARUQ MURPHY