Is it because I scoff at most of the Hip and Hop and Rap
And don’t watch BET
Or is it because I am not amazed by everything Tyler Perry
You think I’m not Black Enough
Is it because I want to speak the proper way
Because I’m not wearing Cornrows today
You think I’m not black enough
Is it my white friends?
My love of rock, My obsession with MTV’s a shock
Because you think
I’m not black Enough
I like pop music
I like to have fun
I like R&B but in limited profusion
So you see, that makes me not black enough
I’m not black enough to you
Because I’m chasing a dream
The dream of Dr. King
I mean , the right for me not to have to find
A friend that goes with my color line
Just because most of my acquaintances
Aren’t black and I have a Britney Spears
Attack, you think that as a person
I am whack , and I’m not black enough
I can’t control that it’s hard to find
A black like me who yet gets the rhyme
The puzzle that refuses to be defined by the token word
It’s black this and black that
And people yet attack
When boos and jeers I deflect
I question what is it? … To act black
Don’t gimme’ an excuse or tired line
That someone stole
And bought time to be the primer of the hidden track
No one can steal what God helped make
And sometimes color can be such a mistake
When all this influence is a transparent tape
When I’m not black enough
Sometimes it’s bad to separate and take sides
Because we work to replicate
That hate that long ago should’ve died
We can twist up our words and prejudice
And yet we still have yet to decide
Just how much pride is TOO much Pride?
When I’m just
Not black enough

12/17/2007

Author's Note: Who says that an ethnicity has to follow a standard?

Posted on 12/17/2007
Copyright © 2024 Harold Millican