Think Outside 'da Block

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Think Outside ‘da Block

I was just another Negro , born in ‘55 when a ‘sista’ went to jail trying to take a bus ride.

She had worked all day and was on her way home, she took herself a seat, and they wouldn’t leave her alone.

Things in those days were really, really whack. She disobeyed the law ‘All Negroes in the back’ a hundred years since Emancipation and the Negro’s freedom was still imagination.

Why all the fuss, just for a chair, they said ‘Negro girl git up from there’

The sister was mad. The sister was hot! Trouble was brewing , she had to think outside ‘da block.

Why I got to get up, I’m tired of this game. When we got on this bus, we all paid the same.

I’m proud of Rosa and the freedom she gave to me bucking a system I call Legislavery.

America was trying to turn back the clock but the empowered Negro man, he thinks outside ‘da block.

Jim Crow and his boys tried to ramp up the tyranny , based on the lies of racial superiority, people got fed up and took to the streets and America’s terrorist, they put on sheets.

Oppression and violence and unchecked brutality, T.V. showed the black man’s reality.

They told the world that we wanted to fight. It wasn’t true. We only wanted our rights.

Demonstrations in the street were met with hoses,

We asked for our freedom, we got bloody noses. We tried to get ahead and they put up fences. It wasn’t easy but we stopped the lynching .

We had to think: Outside da block.

(We) moved to Chicago in 1959, momma tried to tell me everything would be fine. She sent me to school to get educated, forgot to tell me that school was segregated.

(I) never saw a black man or a woman too much white women were the teachers (‘Don’t look. Don’t touch’)

Every day in class I though about ‘Till’ and when the teacher called my name, man I got a chill.

I have to hunker down and fight this trauma. I’m only five years old I don’t do drama. I have to see what schooling could do for me. I prayed to God that people weren’t fooling me.

Being a poor child meant no college, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t get knowledge, so I studied hard with no special mentions and when the teacher spoke, I paid attention.

(I) didn’t waste my time shooting for high grades. I was happy with the progress that I had made. I never needed to be on top. That aint my style. I think outside da block.

All hell broke loose in 1968 when they chose the wrong man to assassinate. The murder of Martin was more than a tragedy. Blacks and Africans chose the wrong strategy. Stealing , shooting, robbing and looting. I never saw the logic in that solution. For weeks and weeks we lived in danger and now we’re just victims of misplaced anger.

One bullet one man and everything changed. All the punks thugs and loser’s, they joined the gangs.

On April the fourth this poor boy cried, ‘cause that was the day the Negro died.

Twenty years later and the only work was ‘’Rock’ and those who got caught up didn’t think outside da block.

A few short years after passing legislation a white boy cried reverse discrimination. The foolish and the wicked engaged his agitation, just one more chance to destroy this great nation.

War was declared on affirmative action. The brothers did nothing not even class action. To build on the freedom and hard earned liberty. And now they’re just black men , repeating history.

The jobs that weren’t there started to disappear. The factories closed. We lost the steel mills.

So I went back to college because I could, (but) the rules had changed my credits no good. Life changed again with double minorities, brothers on the bus stop once a majority.

I go to work playing the working game and all the fellows on the corners they’re still the same. Too smart to learn, too lazy to try or living off of women and still can’t get by. They can’t do better so they follow the flock, just wretched little boys who don’t think outside da block.

They kill in the streets, some with laughter, they’re a new kind of slave with a new kind of master.

This kind of chump can’t stand on his own. He’s afraid of life and scared to be alone.

Like his father he don’t stand a chance, ‘cause he’ll never rise above his circumstance.

(There) Aint no code of silence in the neighborhood, just a bunch of cowards up to no good.

With no glory in life and no honor in death if you’re still gang banging you should shoot yourself.