THE FOURTH OF YOU-LIE (2024)
By Kevin ”Rashid” Johnson
You call it independence day
Oh my how you lie
Cuz Black folks were still your slaves
On that day in July
If taxation without representation
Was just cause for outrage
How about being enslaved
From cradle to grave
To enrich people with our labor
Who refused themselves to work
Babies sold off at a whim
Sleeping in crude shanties lying on dirt
No security no creature comforts
The most precarious lifestyle
White men enter your abode
Take liberties with your wife or child
Our only respite cast our eyes
To the sky
We cry we die
That was our fourth of July
This day you cherish
Elate celebrate
We hate because it was our bondage
That it commemorates
Destroyed families
Bullwhips packs of negro hounds
To ensure we remained in bondage
Trained to run us down
If we even entertained the idea
Of going free
We were stripped and whipped
Bound fast to a tree
And dare we fight back
In an urge to protect
Our families ourselves
We’d be hanged by the neck
In misery unfree
We lived and died
That’s the meaning to Black people
Of your fourth of July
But you gloss over this history
Celebrating our tragedy every year
Like memorializing the Nazis
The analogy so clear
A federal holiday
Fireworks blasts of light
Like the gunfire across the brows
Of slaves daring to take flight
Murder and mayhem being chased
Into the night
For pursuing the independence you now celebrate
That your fathers took as their right
A day to parade about freedom
Oh how you lie
Slavery then cellblocks now
The hypocrisy of your fourth of July
REGIME CHANGE (2024)
By Kevin ”Rashid” Johnson
Invade and topple governments you dislike
-regime change
But you’d never accept
the same done to you
-how strange
Then you ask
Why do they hate us?
well…you just bombed their lands
Killed their kids
razed their towns
but you don’t understand?
Do you know what imperialism is?
white supremacy
thinking you’re better
Entitled to dominate others
to determine whether
They should live or die
how they should live their lives
While you broadcast lies
slaughter their
kids and wives
Skin color is still the litmus test
for who you think is best
Now instead of saying ”us white folks”
you just say ”the West”
Or ”the civilized world”
who the fuck gave you the right
To police the entire planet
decide other’s quality of life
A bully
world domination
through nuclear blackmail
While the lives of Black males
are spent in jail cells
Who the hell can tell
what’s real from what’s
pretend
We BEEN trying to mend
our communities
since way back when
You had must like cattle
plantation slaves
On land stolen from millions
of Natives you put in graves
Then segregated us
while lying to the world
Claimed this was a melting pot
where every little boy and girl
Could live equal in spite of color
yet another lie
Which is the reason why
Malcolm X had to die
He showed the wool you was pulling
over the whole world’s eyes
And refused to compromise
in exposing your lies
Just like today
ain’t shit changed
You hold a quarter of the world’s entire
prison population
-ain’t that strange
For a place that trumpets
Freedom
Democracy
And all the tripe
Grandiose lies
smoke and mirrors hypocrisy
industry hype
But to return to the matter
of the world’s
basic rights
Especially those
whose skin ain’t white
All you gotta do
is claim their rulers ain’t right
and pick opponents too weak to fight
A regime you can overthrow
overnight
But in evey case
your motives are revealed
It’s their resources you want to steal
for which you’re willing to kill
But overthrowing their governments
won’t secure your hold
On their lands
this demands population control
And this is where
your schemes fall flat
The peoples of the lands you invade
ain’t going for that
So you end up with a resistance
on your hands
Opposition to your imperialist position
from every child woman and man
To protect what’s theirs
they take up the gun
The end result in every case
you turn tail and run
But you boast the world’s greatest military
now that really seems strange
Can’t defend the puppets you put in power
what’s the point of regime change
You did it in Vietnam Haiti Somalia
Afghanistan Iraq
Why not places like Cuba and North Korea?
cuz they can fight back
But keeping puppets at the helm
that’s your tool
Of robbing and exploiting other peoples
-neocolonial rule
So how do we create a peaceful word?
you don’t care nor have a clue
Well I do
cuz
Amerika
The regime that needs changing is you