Dear Young Man of Color - Fong Tran
I want to say that I’m sorry
I’m sorry because statistically speaking….
you will become a statistic
that numbers about you and your kind
like the dates, names, numbers, and descriptions
19 times more likely to be murdered than White counterparts
2.1 million inmates in prison
41.1% of them are African Americans
39.6% of Southeast Asian Males drop out of high school
You will be America’s most wanted
because you will be America’s most hated stereotype
murderer, criminal, hoodlum, Ex-con, Etc.
you will be every policemen’s profile description
They will use everything about you, against you
first it was the eugenics and they said it was in your genes
then they blamed the hip-hop culture and not the crack dope fiends
but the music, it was to liberate us
Then they took control of it
now all it does is break our trust
man, we used to believe in it
then Miley Cyrus appropriated everything
and just started twerking on it
And you’re probably thinking
What does this Asian guy know
Why is this model minority
telling us about oppression
there has been nothing model about my life
Aside from the section 8 housing that family was put in,
Welfare checks and food stamps
Became my family’s helicopter-dropped foreign aid
that there is nothing more gangsta
than having parents that hustle loaves of bread
in destitute Filipino refugee camps
Funny enough poverty doesn’t discriminate
But they still try to pit us against each other
They force us to play this oppression Olympics
but this stuff, this stuff is more like the hunger games
and people are looking to assassinate you
that even though you bear the historical scars of slavery
and messed up immigrant policy
they will be coming in packs
and you struggle with minimum wage rags just to hold back the bleeding
they will be coming like the angry villagers
and you will be their needle in their haystacks
And the prison industrial complex is the testament
Of how they will burn the whole house just to get to you
I wish the school to prison pipeline was just a scary metaphor
But unfortunately it is our reality
Our sanction, deportation
But you are destined beyond the statistics that bind you down
It is all a machine made to hide your greatness
You, we will be resilient
And even though everything will be against us
We are exactly what this world needs
'Cause you see, they put us behind bars
just so we wouldn’t raise it
That we started from the bottom
But we weren’t given bootstraps
So we’re coming up on our own here
you must be the unexpected
Shake statistical status quo,
deconstruct the powers that be
And even though we’ve had way too many innocent fallen soldiers
like Trayvon Martin, Fong Le, Andy Lopez, Mike Brown
You will follow the blood lines and legacy of
Cesar Chavez, Richard Aoki, and Nelson Mandela
And just like them, you will be a champion,
You will not let this world change you
You will change this world
Brother from another Mother
