1. Beyond Race

Beyond race there are other hard battles
Gender, income, religion, all our differences
The solution will remain simple
Watering the brown grass on both sides

Eliminates the need for fences

2. Harmony

The truth is race is just easy
People use easy methods to justify hate
To satisfy ignorance and laziness
I've accepted my condemnation to educate

Motivation is your half of the harmony

3. Love

Can you see
How little room is left for love
After so much furnished hurt
Still I love you, sometimes more than myself

Do you ever feel the same

4. Spice

In just my lifetime
We completely took it over
They might not want our circumstances but

For our culture they crossed those tracks

Better our spice than our spices this time

5. Privilege

I have the privilege
Of being able to love diversity
More than I fear it
In a world where media spends billions

Making fear easy and love hard

6. Necessary

You made a villain
Of all our heros
Now you've come for our only resolution
No, we'll hang on to our antihero

By whatever means necessary

7. Tradition

If I were to bring you home
My parents would just not understand
Followed by
I want to raise my children how I was raised

Racism is a seed planted in fear watered by tradition

8. Slave Trade

I honestly wonder sometimes if

It feels worse to be constantly punished

For the crimes of your ancestors

Than to be constantly punished by them

But we both know you ain't trading places

9. Dark Room

Mass-shootings, lynching, police, prison
Workplace discrimination, micro-aggressions
Congress, senate, CEO, boss, school board
Wall Street, oil, IMF, Fox, NRA, diamond trade

These negatives came out white on black

10. Maga

Take a moment

Define peaceful country

In your own words

Go get a map

And stack rank based on your new beliefs

11. Collateral Beauty

I sometimes forget
Art is always open to interpretation
And misinterpretation
Since race surely is not science

Was conflict always its intended beauty

12. Daughters

As I entered my condo elevator after work
You moved her behind your legs protecting her
Like a hungry man's sandwich
Without understanding your native tongue

I knew you just told her to fear me for a lifetime

13. Scale

And to think
With all you've heard so far
I am light-skinned and hence clothed
In immeasurable privilege and fortune

So can you scale your empathy a bit further

14. Can I Help You

I actually get a kick out of it
Whenever I intend to drop a lot of cash
I intentionally shop in a hoodie
When I'm just browsing I dress nicely

To avoid that added attention from sales

15. Mistrial

If your dad forbade you marry a doctor
Because yours was a family of lawyers
Wouldn't you object to this absurdity
On the grounds of equality

Yet for my blackness you have no defence

16. Fear

Is there a country in Africa
You want to visit where there are
No socialized caveats, no blanket claims
Of crime, corruption, disease, murder

Has Europe rendered in you the fear it exports

17. Curriculum is Capital

By twelve I knew every capital city
In Europe and The Americas, but only
Five in Asia and maybe three in Africa
You may feel this was my own negligence 

So will you help me change the curriculum 

18. My land

If I may interject
On top of being born here
I paid more federal taxes this year
Than your entire family

I'll decide which refugees enter my land

19. Tired

A lot of you are tired of talking and hearing

About race

Understand, your fatigue does not outweigh 

That of those who bear the burden of race

And your ignorance of it

20. Protect and Serve

99 Problems is more than dope lyrics
I was stopped doing sixty one in a sixty
In Scarborough of course
Gifted me my forty dollar ticket, no points

With the audacity to tell me happy birthday

21. Under One Sun

A few things came between us
All of which were to do with the sun
Otherwise we remained brothers
Divided only by time we spent

Hiding from the light that unites us

22. Did You Ever Experience Racism

To answer a burning question
I was eight when I was first called nigger
It wasn't by you of course, I wouldn't
Make you accountable for your entire race

I'd appreciate the same respect

23. Thanks

Of the nearly fifty times I've heard
Not really black
None were meant as a compliment
To my race

Should I thank you for dividing us yet again

24. Adult Accompany

If my father didn't have stern words for the
Theater manager who thought I was too
Young to watch Malcolm X I would never
Have understood my mother's stern words for

The counsellor who said I'd be better off in the trades

25. Literally

Timbuktu is not
A synonym for nowhere
Buried deep within the soils of
Mali, by the way, are volumes

Of African history before it was rewritten

26. One

Growing up we spent one month
Learning there was exactly
One black male hero and one female too
Among the sea of slaves and villains we were

Made to believe we were the other eleven

27. Colour

Race was never black and white
Frankly I've been denied
Access, agency and even love more often
By coloured folk who can't or won't see

With less power comes more responsibility

28. Deliverance

I'm as much at home
Here as I would be in Africa
So don't furnish my space with
Unfamiliar stereotypes of crime and mischief

I never signed for your delivery