Are we forgotten,
or have we become transparent?
Because it’s apparent.
when our problems are addressed,
the peoples who supposed to have the solution
become incompetent or incoherent.
We are a lost people
hidden in plain view.
Our habitation is not overseas,
but right down the street from you.
We’ve put forth our best efforts,
and many attempts to get your attention,
it really hurts to be ignored—this I must mention.
Some of us is startin’ to believe
that we are transparent and voiceless.

But I know we have a voice,
Because I can hear the cries of pain,
the holler and screams of help,
and when a frustrated soul complain.
But all of this has been fallin’ on deaf ears
for many years.
Our existence seems not to exist,
our presence is like an absence
because we go unnoticed,
and don’t seem to be missed.

We have been a lost people
hidden in plain view for centuries.
Living in plain view locations,
such as the penitentiaries, projects, and plantations.
We are not only lost physically,
because our presence has been ignored,
But we are lost mentally as well,
because our names, cultures, and language have been destroyed
and forgotten.
So now, when we raise our kids,
we teach them English Religion, and Holidays
of the peoples who is obviously visionable.
But when our children grow up and realize
that they are going unnoticed and are invisible,
some of them will create attention,
but the majority will fall victim and be miserable.
I don’t know how long we will be a lost people
hidden in plain view.

What I do know is that my people is not transparent,
because we are the first children of the earth-parent.
They could continue to ignore our physical form,
but they can’t ignore our five universal elements
and our spiritual rain and lightning so they feel and
hear us in the form of a storm.

They take notice of us
and give us recognition,
when we are being falsely accused
and when the record reflect
that we are wanted suspects.
But no one notice when we are victims,
and stuck in a system that’s created to victimize.
So our complaints will continue to fall on deaf ears,
and our conditions will continue to be seen by blind eyes.
So they don’t see the hate-crimes, racial profiling, and
the Ku Klux Klan disguise.
nor do they see the cruel and unusual punishment,
over-sentencing and over-crowded penitentiaries nationwide.

For, my brother and sisters that are hidden in plain view,
they are playing a psychological game with me and you.
Because if we are not transparent and invisible during the elections,
I’m damn sure we can be heard and seen in the ghettos
and the house of corrections.

How long are we going to allow them
to treat us like the peoples living under the steps,
before we decide to walk those steps together,
to make our living conditions here better?
We can’t continue to act like we are lost
when we know our way.
We can’t continue to let them pretend that we are hidden
when they see us everyday.
I don’t know how they think they are greater than us—
we all was created the same,
we all came from clay.
So we all think, learn, cry, pain, and pray the same,
but in our own way.
If we were transparent they wouldn’t call us colored peoples,
If we couldn’t be heard—our music, they would’ve never stolen it or used it.

So we are living in a magic trick,
they put us in a box and gave the American audience
the illusion that we had disappeared, but we are still here:
Hidden behind the trap door
of the ghettos and prisons, but we don’t want to be lost
or hidden no more,
and our collective decision is:
if we got to be here, we want to be a part of the
AMERICAN VISION.

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