Run It
by Lorenzo Simpson

That’s some nice white privilege you got there. Let me get that off you.

You’ve had that complexion for protection for too long, it’s time you gave it up.

I want that gaze, too. You know, the one employers give when they know they have nothing to fear with this one, go head and throw it in the bag!

Run yo culture colonizing, eurocentric beauty standards, rip them out the page of every magazine and place them on the ground real slow like. My daughters and son eyes will not fall victim to your whiplash photography.

Run to your junk drawer, throw out the ketchup and soy sauce packets, and let me see that Homestead Act you’ve been hiding behind.

Open your mouth up wiiiiide, rip that Riff Raff brand of ebonics off your tongue, your people haven’t cried out in pain long enough to speak it.

I want your shade of egotism, so I can criticize the government without being followed. I want your magnetism, so whenever I walk down the street, people don’t immediately switch poles.

I want your leading role in almost every TV show and movie, how come the only white butler I see on the screen works for Batman?

Matter of fact, man gimme your superpowers, too. I wanna be invisible when I walk into any gas station. I want the ability to take any conversation about a marginalized people and transform it into a self pity party. Hand over that Aryan alchemy, black magic doesn’t seem to be working as quickly.

There’s nothing you can do when I run up in your social construct, guns blazing, I’m taking everything! In this cold world, you always fell softly as unique snowflakes, but the rest of us were collected in the gutter and labeled black ice. It’s time we changed that it’s time-

 

*click clack*

 

That’s some nice melanin you got there, boy. Let me get that off you.

Shave those nasty kinks off your scalp, place em on the ground and slide em over, they look better on me anyway.

That’s a nice soul song you got there. Bleed on this contract right quick. Do it now, or your family starves. How’s that song go?

You’re not knocking me off the top.

Your rights in the backseat of my brand new foreign car, don’t act like you forgot.

Hand over that rich history, you don’t need those pesky images of black bodies draped in gold poisoning your mind. These diamonds and this gold were never yours and forever ours.

Instead, keep that black on black crime myth lodged deep in your subconscious. People with your skin are more prone to cannibalism. Remember that now.

Keep your hands in the air, and don’t you dare make a fist.

You got a little ammo in your gun, but we own the shop.

Keep your head down, eyes to the ground. Don’t look at my face, you already know who I am.

Now lie there, naked. And don’t you ever try pulling that shit again. This construct isn’t coming down in your lifetime.