When we see our role models on T.V.,
they don’t be acting
or playing an AMERICAN sport.
They be in a police station,
covering their face, or going to court
trying to get out of a tough situation.
Either they are a murder victim or a suspect,
or we didn’t mind ending up like that.

I can never forget this:
how he used to keep his pick with the BLACK FIST
sticking out of his hair.
If you looked into his eyes,
you would see him starin’ at the world.
with his eyes closed like he just didn’t care
Just standing there waitin’ to kill or be killed.
WE thought he would never die,
for some reason, to us,
he seemed bullet-proof.
Until he got shot in the head
by a sniper on top of one of the building roofs.

When he died we overheard our parents
and other grown folks talking about how
when you do wrong those are the consequences
that you got to face.
But they didn’t know those are the dreams
their kids are trying to chase.

When the time came,
we didn’t just gangbang, we dope and coke slang.
We didn’t just destroy the neighborhood body,
but also the brain.
Speaking nothing but slang,
with chevy cars, jordan gym shoes,
and the gold rope chains.

Our ghetto role-models was pimps and became killers.
Now that we are grown, we are the role-models
and we are the drug dealers.
When will this cycle of lawless role-models end?
When will the cycle of honest role-models begin?
Because the jails and cemeteries are full;
too many of our black peoples have been
sentenced and killed.

So, remember you is being watched, imitated, and followed.
Please try your best to be a positive ghetto role-model.

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