This ballad lamentation prayer is for the generation lost to the non for profit nightmare
The professional activist
Stuck between their pay check
Grant outcomes
And the real needs of the people
Our movement has been co opted by donors and funders
Bleeding heart hipsters
And self loathing gate keeping POC
Fuck you 501c3 your a joke to me
How was I ever dumb enough to think
Something you register through the government
Could be where I challenge this government
And actually contribute to the movement
Maybe I’m just another burnt out dreamer
That naive dude who just wanted to be a warrior for justice
In the shadows of the King drum major
I just wanted to be a warrior activist poet educator liberator
A teacher of tomorrow’s
World changers
Starting to feel like maybe
I’m to sensitive for the fight
Sometimes it just feels like to much
Waking to visions of the blue devils stoping and frisking the boys on my block on my way to boring meetings about how we just don’t have enough funds
The fearful stares of my neighbors my beloved elders cower or mean mug as I walk by.
Is just weighting me down.
The daily grind. The sum of my choices where the pursuit of professional
Activistism has led me
Face to face with limitations of the system
And the failures of those who opened the door for us
The same ones who compelled us to fight
Down a road of struggle and neglect in the belly of the beast
On the front lines in the chi city
I just wanted to be a race man
A person who lived for his community
Who dedicated his creative intellectual physical energy
To the fight
More than just another Moe trying to get a piece of the pie
Naive enough to think he could change the flavor
To make an impact for my people for all people
in the movement the struggle to make this a loving world
Those words are starting to lose their bite
I’m crumbling under the pressure of trauma mastery
Caught in the same crosshairs as my advocates
Who do I run to when I need support?
When I feel my candle Burning at both ends
Dirty Art Boi 