When others see my people they see unwanted babies, guns, and gangs

when i see my people i see the whips and the chains

of my enslaved people

i see the tears, hurt, and pain

i see the fears and worse to gain

i see the whip wounds under shirts

i see the sometimes present fathers

i see the tempted virgin daughters

the over worked but still working mothers

and the loving, gang banging brothers

i see the beauty in all that is black

even though there are many things we lack

i see the scars of a beaten people

i will be the star that leads my people

to freedom, to righteousness, to justice

to the holy land

i will walk with my people hand-in-hand

i love my people

but we don't love ourselves

we fight because we don't know ourselves

we kill over the only thing that truly sells

we sell ourselves short

we settle for less

we take hand outs and buy things that can we do without

we hurt, because we never had

but

i will lead my people down the road to success

i know the things we can accomplish when we're at our best

but it's up to ourselves

we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard

we have to love ourselves like there is no slander

we have to be better, 

if we knew better, we'd do better

my people, we have to change like the weather

we have to change for the better

we have to come together

as one black face, under one black race

that is the only way to win this unfair, adiverse race

we have to work together

we have to be better

we are not what they created

but we are what we make us

and

we don't want to be known solely as niggas,

we are more than that, 

these invisible marks on my back prove that