All Over The World

My students can be real pains in the ass on most days that I work with them. They are refugee, asylee and immigrant from Liberia. They were tripping to day because they found out my not so distant relative was the fifth president of their country. They think it's funny that i'm so yellow and he was so black....ugh! I took them to the meez.com site so they could create a avatar of themselves. I won't even begin to tell you about the color of skin and body types the girls picked for themselves. It was a real hurt-piece.

Don’t know your self worth
and from the way you act
It must hurt
Pressure to be less of a success
And It gets worse
Reason is tryna give birth
To common sense
Being uneducated
Is no defense
For what’s coming.
Your not old enough to
Be discussing mating
Or creating someone who will
Depend on you.
You can barely read or write
What type a bed time story
You plan on reading at night
Tales of a hard headed huss
Or “Girl, I love you, trust me”
Decide now, cause you do not
Have the rest of your life
Are you tryna be a hooker
or a tryna be a housewife

They think that "man business", boyfriend-girlfriend foolishness is really all that matters. Deddeh said, "Ms. T tomorrow may not come so you have to live your life today, O." She was serious too. Growing up in a civil war can't be something that builds hope for tomorrow. So I understand, but I don't agree. And the fact is I don't know. I do now them huzzies can't read. I do know my the boys don't take their education seriously. They respect my digging into their business.....they hate my digging into their business. But there is so much more.

Who are you anyway?
You can’t see
The reality of this situation
You left one country and landed
In the face of a much more covert,
Hostile nation.
They don’t like US
And YOU an original
Indigenous spreading like
Wildfire your destruction
Is imminent, but you can change it.

The black kids born and raised here are the devil when it comes to my students. The comments, the "African Booty Scratcher" bullshit. A month ago, an african american boy touched the butt of a west african muslim girl at an area high school.....needless to say all hell broke loose. You ain't never see black on black until you come to philly and check out our high schools......for real. the building was on lock down all day....no classess...the african kids confined to one area in the building for fear someone would hurt them. It's crazy and it's bullshit. My students have more to fear from us than white folks.

And you
Wanna be a baller
looking like
A smaller version
Of the punks we already encountering
Let me counter by saying
Some of you still count on your fingers.
And mounting to nothing more
Than street trash
Jeans hanging off your sweet ass
Not knowing your advertising for
A different kind of up rising.
Irritated by your imitating
Fallin deeper into self hatred
Walking round, ego inflated
The real deals know you
fakin it
For the junior behind prison wallers
You will be reduced to
“I want my mama” callers
in small boxes where your manhood
will be stolen in the most violent
of sexual moments. Why you playin?

My boys want to be gangstas. Not doubt about it. Even my most intelligent, college bound knuckleheads believe fighting each other is the only way to prove their manhood. Came to this country without their pops and most without their mom. Some are not sure where their families are. The fact that I have some small solidiers...who remain unidentified by their caregivers....leads me to believe that the american kids really don't know who they are messing with. Knowing that, they still don't fit. Home they are respectful and mannered. In the street, unless they open their mouths, they are our children circa 2008.

Will you be reduced to fodder
for the system
or loving husband and father
giving wisdom
to your children
a man who makes the world
safer for his family
an example for every man to see
how it’s supposed to be done.

Three of the girls have or are having babies. One by a boy born here in the US. Now, i'm not trying to be funny, but that's going to be a mess. One by a man who is 35 years old. Now, i'm not being funny at all...that is definitely a hot mess. My boys don't have any babies though. That's good, but i'm holding my breath.

Set your self up to win
Dig down in your self worth
Let it spill let it burst
from the pressure on your brain
Reason is tryna give birth
Let failure be your past tense
Walk forward and collect your
common sense
Be strength
And get ready for what’s coming.

Queeta got into Penn State, with a full ride for nursing. Sowa is attending community college. he wants to be a teacher...go figure. Annette is still farting around, but she'll be somewhere in the fall. I'll keep my foot on their backs...i promised them that if nothing else. All this is volunteer work. I must be crazy!