A Brother's Plea

A Brother’s Plea

I am sitting here in this cell, afraid and alone,
Can't play my music or talk on my cell phone

I wonder how I got here, my personhood assaulted

Smart in school, now my possibilities halted

My life will never be the same

In some ways it is over because of this prison game

I cry to myself so the fellas won’t hear

Too many years ahead of me in this place without care

My life has not been easy, no crystal stair

When all I ever wanted was a chance to be someone to live anywhere

It was the accident of birth they say

I had no control over my DNA

My mother tried hard and worked every day

My dad paid the bills and with her he stayed

My nightmare happened in school you see

I had a young blond teacher who was afraid of me

I studied hard and turned in my work

But she was afraid of me and when I moved, she jerked

My friends told me to be careful in high school

The cops were always ready and waiting to load you in that van pool

Off to juvey or the business man's prison cell

To a world that was worse than our Northside hell

Being poor isn't a crime

Being a black kid shouldn’t mean jail time

But here I sit, just seventeen years old

In this cell so bitter, so cold

Wore the uniform of the streets to defy their image

Knowing nothing I do would give me a living and a wage

One day, just tired of it all

My friends and I smoked a joint in the bathroom stall

We were arrested and charged as drug lords
Man we thought we were ok in our segregated ward

It was my first offense and first time in court
Only my mother and father there for my support

The lawyer, some young dude in a suit, had never met me

His hands full of folders, not enough time he said, just cop a plea

My life ended at that very moment for coping meant I was never free

Never over paying my debt to society.

One year for every joint they gave

Told me it was for my own good since the law I disobeyed

Never mind my white friend who bought the weed

He had a rich father who fixed his wrongful deed

I am one in three in this War on Drugs

Man, would I give anything for my mother’s hugs

Sitting in this cell, alone and wishing I was free

But knowing even then, no school or job will ever consider me

Dudes here never held a gun or wielded a knife

But because they had a drug problem, are locked away for life

The murderer down the block is already free

His sentence not part of the mandatory three

What am I to hope when it is worse than Jim Crow?

Seems all they want is for us to die, never grow
Worse now then when we marched for the vote
They still hate us and our existence they revoke

Where can we go in this land of the free?

When everywhere I look, they are still scared of me?

I dedicate this to all the sons of son who are perishing in the nation's privatized prisons and juvenile detention centers.  I dedicate this to them, most non-violent first time offenders, younger than my son in college today.  I dedicate this to them there all alone, far away from their cities, in a rural cell now their home.  I dedicate this to them to be their voice for Harry Belafonte said tonight that the artist is the gatekeeper of truth. I am speaking your truth, young brothers, we are hearing you and know you have been waiting for us to take up your cause and change the system.  I dedicate this to you.