"Hate" by Jamila Lyiscott

What do these young black people hate about themselves so much?
It shouldn’t be what…it should be, why do they hate themselves?
Why do we foster this ignorant state?
Why do we proudly enslave ourselves in civil battles with self-induced hate?
Why do we depreciate ourselves with the inappreciation of fallen kings that lie in enslaven graves?
As the footprints of our forefathers collect dust on the roads they’ve paved
Little black girls don’t have fathers to call them beautiful
So now they fall for lies
Seeking beauty between their thighs
Found fulfillment of that paternal void in some loser’s eyes
Because he looks just like their daddy
Little black girls are getting with their daddies and being discarded
And it’s this metaphysical incest that has us functionally retarded
So the fall of the Black kingdom is simply being disregarded
As we hate

But this Hate
It did not originate in the bellies of our docking ships
This Hate
Was an electrical transcendence through the master’s mocking whips
It’s not the black plague, it’s the black Hate that resonates throughout my Hood
Fighting good
Saying these baby daddies would be these baby’s daddies if they weren’t baby daddies
But if they were Fathers
Its like this Hate is fighting harder
It has the Hood possessed
Lord save us! We’re lost in concrete woods and sending sparks up in distress
Red and blue S.O.S

And where is happiness?
It dangles off the fingertips of God in the form of crowns for Kings and Queens
But we don’t want that
We’d rather be self-inflicting fools harnessing anger like Hate fiends
So we Hate in this life without the thoughts to appreciate the One that reigns above it
We Hate
And Willie Lynch got us thinking that we love it
And even though I come from Bed Stuy
I’m here to tell you that I’m in this world, but I’m not of it
I’m here for change