Does anyone remember when they were little,

And they loved to play pretend?

Yeah...me neither.

But it seems that,

As we grow older,

Learn the twists and cavities

Boroughed into our bodies

From hours of play and homework

And candy,

We seem to develop a taste for fantasy –

Its easy.

 

Like how we pretend to be ‘black.’

Thugging and mugging in the hallway like

“Yo, you did the homework?”

“Nah man, I ain’t do shit my nigger!”

What?!

Oh I’m sorry you must be pretending to be dumb.

Because I don’t remember Martin Luther King saying,

I have a dream, that one day my nigger will not be judged

by the color of his skin,

but by the number of ‘F’s on his report card.

Or do those stand for fastidiously failing in firmly fastening the formulas

To my jordans

 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like to feel like I’m running on air.

But it seems like black people today

Can’t swallow reality

So they huff and puff and cough up their own

and for the life of me,

I can’t seem to understand why

They’re content being strung

On white supremacy.

Like they don’t want to take advantage of their opportunities

Like its cool to get a D

But an A makes you a geek;

Like you’re pretending to be white

 when you learn how to speak –

“I’m sorry if I offend you my nigga.”

 

But I was never good at pretending.

Well you’re pretending right now.

“I’m entertaining your ignorance!

Because people love living in the mindset

that the white man’s English is the only accent,

That if it’s white it’s intelligent.

Because black people love to pretend that the struggle is too real

But blacks have fought for liberations

Separation to desegregation

Yet they can’t seem to fathom emancipation

From themselves.

 

Because the mentality

Of blacks being inferior

Is just, pretending to lose sanity.

Yes there is melanin in this tissue,

Muscles with no illness but the urge to be seen too

Blood coursing with knowledge

Because it’s not just a ‘white thing’

Its humanity.

And those who say

#the struggle

Are just pretending.