OR

IN THE NEWS

In 2002 the land of the free and home

of the brave white folks celebrated the highest

incarceration rates in the world with over

2 million inmates and the numbers are climbing.

12 % of African American males

between the ages of 20-34 are behind bars.

That is 7 times the rate for white men

of the same age which is 1.6%.

60% of federal prisoners and more than 20 %

of state prisoners are in custody on drug charges

and most of them are low level street dealing ones.

Three strikes and you’re out falls most heavily

on the Black ball players who don’t realize

they were never in the game.

They still smile and continue to ape a lifestyle

that is staged in every music video as if TV

was real life.

Wearing heavy chains with silver coated crosses

only illuminate your susceptibility to

gangsta profiling.

And you who should know better don’t see

the parallel between the cross and a roped

noose thrown over an oak tree.

So your costs to be boss is counterfeit

and even now new plans are being made

by politicians who cite you as a dangerous example

when nationwide violent crimes are diminishing.

But you a gangsta, involved in a trade

you don’t control to obtain money you can’t keep,

and robbing your family and community of what you

could really become if you believed in yourself beyond

the bling, sting, and gleam from your gold and

diamond studded teeth.

What was once profitable for a few

in the jail construction industry has now become

a very expensive educational process for

turning young men who could be productive

into hardened criminals whom you or I

may have to kill.

Drug treatment and violence prevention

is not the plan.

The plan remains unchanged it is

to return you to captivity.

Break your own chains, free yourself,

before you end up in Texas.

Where execution is the State sport

and you don’t have to become

a star player.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics calculates that

28% of Black men will be sent to jail or prison

in their lifetime.

So you still want to be a playa in a

no win game where their bet is 28%.

Call the hand by taking a stand young Black man

and know when enough is enough

while your lawyers keep you out of jail

until your money runs out,

and your girl leaves town with an old man

who wants her to call him daddy.