ProudOne

My Education My education was gotten in despite of the white man’s intention of detention. The first step of modern slavery know as Youth Detention The system and the guards had their lessons but the slaves had their own The system taught me not to be trapped in it The slaves teach strengh in unity, trust only brothers and how to use the system The guards lessons were hard ones The guards lessons were hard to accept at first but would influence me more than any In the dark of the night the C.O.s would find one of us They would find us and use us for their desire and pleasure of young boys Alone in the dark a plan to control the C.O.s is born Give them what they want and use it to control them and get what I need to survive To survive I had to swallow more than my pride I became the best, the most wanted and the most rewarded and I thrived In the end the C.O.s desire was their downfall And I was set free

I found this forum some time ago and I recently remembered this poetry section. For a long time I’ve been needing to express feelings that I’ve long kept buried. Most of my brothers express themselves writing lyrics but that’s just not for me I like to see the words on a page (or screen).I’m not educated and I’m just pulling what’s inside me out for the world to see and I hope it’s good enough for your fine forum. I want this to be a snapshot of the black experience in the uskkk, my journey through life and my lessons about what love really is. Here’s the first installment. My Neighborhood Through the boy’s young eyes the neighborhood seems vast and nearly endless. But of course it was only a few square blocks of typical inner-city Mamma raised four boys the best she could while dealing with her problems the pipe was her forever demon What Mamma couldn’t or wouldn’t teach us the neighborhood would. The neighborhood was full of opportunities and dangers and the boy pushed his limits Soon the boy learned that certain people wanted to contain him They wanted to hold him down, they wanted to suppress his ambition and his success If the boy wanted to survive he couldn’t live by the white man’s law The boy would take what he wanted, learning to survive and before long he would thrive Of course the white man would try to hold the boy down Eventually the white man and his system put the boy in a cage like they’ve done for centuries But they could not break the boy and he used their system against them By the time the boy left the white mans system he was full of rage and ready to tear down that system He was ready to take the freedom he was owed and the respect he was entitled He was about to become a man, a Black Man