August 19, 2014
How many more youth?
Hands up don’t shoot
The media hides the truth
Hands up don’t shoot!
What is at the root?
Hands up don’t shoot!
Black people still strange fruit
Hands up don’t shoot!
They tell us don’t wear a hoodie like Trayvon
Or your life will soon be gone
They told Jordan Davis turn the music down
Or you’ll be shot with stand your ground
Don’t cross the street like Ersula Ore or you’ll be slammed against the door
Don’t take the subway Oscar Grant, shot with hands behind his back
Amadou Diallo reached into his pocket. 41 times they shot him
Don’t forget Renisha McBride she just tried to go inside
So what are we supposed to do
When they say Black life just has no value
And what are parents supposed to do
But end up crying on the news
And let’s bring this back closer to home
Remember they spied on Rocky Jones
And they bulldozed Africville
A whole community they killed
And ask Kirk Johnson how it feels to be stopped behind the wheel
Take it up with RDS if they profile and arrest
And Fredy Vilenueva being in Canada won’t save ya
Because it’s not just in the States
For 400 years it’s been our fate
And now they executed Michael Brown
But it goes down in every town
So they say black folk can’t be alive
Can’t walk on the street, wear clothes or drive
And the media smears your name, calls you a thug
Says you’re criminal, on drugs
Takes rap lyrics from your profile
Implies that you deserved to die
If they allege you took cigars without payment
They leave your body 4 hours on the pavement
And when the community protests the shooting
They say we’re rioting and looting
Send in snipers on top of tanks
Who were trained in the West Bank
Surplus weapons from Iraq
Black community under attack!
How many more youth?
Hands up don’t shoot
The media hides the truth
Hands up don’t shoot!
What is at the root?
Hands up don’t shoot!
Black people still strange fruit
Hands up don’t shoot!
Didn’t believe us with Ice Cube
Now every day it’s uploaded to youtube
On average two shootings a week committed
But all the officers acquitted
Think it doesn’t happen here?
Then why does Truro march each year
And ask the pastor’s son in Digby
What happened when the undercovers got drunk in his city
That’s why we got to pay attention
It goes down from Yarmouth to the Prestons
And Black people are stopped 7 more times
Even though white people commit more crimes
Connect the violence by the state
To our increased drop out rates
And the violence and shootings within
When we’re taught to hate our skin
Poverty, school to prison pipeline, criminalization
Leading to disproportionate incarceration
And it just repeats the cycle
That’s why we’re in solidarity for Michael
But it goes deeper is the thing
Because you know they shot Martin Luther King
Lumumba, Biko, Malcolm and Cabral
They assassinate them all
Whenever Black folk start to rise
They gun us right back down to size
So we have to organize
Powerful when we’re unified
From Halifax to Ferguson
Organization is our weapon.
How many more youth?
Hands up don’t shoot
The media hides the truth
Hands up don’t shoot!
What is at the root?
Hands up don’t shoot!
Black people still strange fruit
Hands up don’t shoot!
El Jones is Halifax's Poet Laureate Live from the Afrikan Resistance! is her first collection of spoken word poetry.
