Perfect Negro

Perfect Negro

Got to be a Perfect Negro

Not to get shot

What did you do

to get got?

Because you have…

Perfect credit
Perfect ethics
Perfect schooling
Never no fooling
Perfect record
Star athlete
Perfect teammate
Never got beat
Perfect roommate
Always got a
good night’s sleep
Coach’s pet
Never fret
No cursing
No yelling
Never lost your temper
Slink away with nary a whimper
No saggin’
No rappin’ no smokin’ the yay
The highest mark in citizenship
paired with a 
perfect 4.0 + G.P.A.
A good actin’ happy to be seen and not heard
mouth always sayin’ Yes Sir
A smiling shuffling head down to earth
Perfect Negro

No drinking
No tickets 
Only good clean living
Happily charity giving
Church going
Always knowing everything
Above all your place.

Would do damn near anything
Just to save face.

No monetary blemishes or unemployment scars
Never turned the music volume up
in any of your cars
Just super extra clean 
sporting not a speck of dirt
Remember Nik-Nik, Augie, and Roland shirts?
Never been hurt
Never been scared
Never wanted to be anything magnificent
Satisfied just to be there
Where?
A place you don’t stand out
Comfortable like the referee
in the bout while not being hit never been “IT”
You survive “living by your wits”
Never saying really anything
Smack-dab in the middle of everything
Like being married and
not believing in the ring
A Perfect Negro

Negro is Spanish for “Black”
Since Africa existed way before Spain
What monikers existed for Abel and Cain? 
We know the melanin didn’t lack
The US Census has called you
Slave, Negro, Mulatto, Colored, African-American, and Black
For being 13% of the population
The spotlight on us seems
seriously out of whack

One day you were
walking down the street
approaching a cop
You reached in your pocket
and were fatally shot
The cop says he thought you
were reaching for a weapon
You were scratching an itch 
Now you’re lying on the ground
bleeding people screaming 
Oh please Lord Please don’t take him
Not Him oh no
But your blood runs out
staining the pavement
Your last thoughts are
I know which way I’ll go
Because to the end
I am still the
Perfect Negro