They look at you like zoo animals, laughing and pointing,

Mocking you as if you’re some sort of weird creature.

With her skin as dark as night,

When the lights go off, “Oh, Where did she go?”

She’s different, mystical, ethnic

Her nose resembles a gorillas,

Therefore she is.

They make noises at her, Oh ooh ahh ahh

Her cries for help, silenced by their taunting

Their smooth chocolate complexion must mean they’re from Africa, right?

Such a nice country they say,

With lots of jungles and wild tigers wandering the streets.

Ignorant.

They want my culture

They want my hairstyles, shoes, jewelry, clothes

But they don’t want my history.

They don’t want the hundreds of years of suffering,

The families getting torn apart

And hours upon hours of unfair, endless work.

The misery, the agony. The pain

“Why is your hair like that?” they ask, tugging and pulling to their hearts delight

It should be as soft and soothing as silk

Not as rough as the ground we walk upon

It should be smooth and neat,

Not curly and “tangled”.

They kill my people and get away with it.

Mass murder

This is america

My country

The place I have to proudly represent.

Full of unfair justice, racism, discrimination.

I have to be proud to say,

This is the country I was born in

I have to be proud to say America is about equality and fairness

When they take every right I have away from me.

I have to be proud in the country I have no voice in.

Where it’s shushed by others with pale skin and privilege that lasts a lifetime

I’m set up for failure and unequal opportunities

In the place I was born and raised

This is America. My home