To be black in a white world

The price of being black In a white world Is the cost some of us can't afford A currency we don't own Not because we don't have affluence But because they stole the wealth that inhabits our land The price of being black In a white world Is the unreachable expectation of measuring up to something we will never be - white It's our vulnerability, our moments of calm Where you leap from the shadows And take advantage Where you silence our screams Whilst we beg and plead It's being neither heard nor seen The price of being black In a white world Is being gaslit until we choke On the invisibility of not being understood Of trying to cloak our blackness Through erasure of our history By trying to scrub away our identity Whilst silencing our ancestry Trying to remove any evidence of our being With centuries of prolonged genocide The price of being black In a white world Is having no control over people perceptions of you Facing judgment as soon as you enter a room Used to being stared at like we're alien Being followed without good reason Treated as if we are scum Being black In a white world Is to always feel like you don't belong The price of being black In a white world Is to be friends with sorrow To not know the outcome of tomorrow To always be on the phone With the ones you love the most Not knowing if this is your last conversation Fearing the possibility of a life alone The fear of another funeral To be black in a white world Is to treasure every moment not knowing if this is the last one To be black in a white world Is to have a strength most don't Is to have a heart of gold In a world that has treated us so very cold To be black in a white world Is to live in a world that has stole hope