Sango - You Got a Problem? Well, Now You Do lyrics

Trayvon Martin had it coming
Or so we will soon be led to
Believe the surely unattractive details of
His short life as a black man
In America will tumble forward his
Troubles in school, the weed baggie
That got him suspended
The altercation in which police and
George Zimmerman claim he was
The aggressor he
Was a maladjusted, Negro man child
So ferocious he could kill an armed man with
His bare hands he had to die

Yesterday, local law enforcement offered a
Preview of this old
Familiar narrative when someone leaked
Zimmerman’s account of the night to the
Orlando Sentinel according to the Sentinel
Zimmerman had given up his hunt of Martin and
Was returning to his SUV
When the 17-year-old caught
Him by surprise do you have a problem
Martin is said to have asked, before
Answering for himself, "Well
You do now" He reportedly
Began pummelling Zimmerman
Leading the armed man to shoot and kill

Sadly, it’s necessary to point
Out that there isn’t
An imaginable scenario in which an armed
Man can shoot an unarmed child to death
And it be okay but set
That obvious fact to the side trayvon Martin
Did in fact have it coming he
Was born black and male in the United
States and was thus marked for
Death the cruelness of our economy and of
Our criminal justice system
Isn’t reserved for
Men or for black people but there is
A particularly gendered and
Particularly racist
Way in which black men are
Set upon in this country
Most acutely those who
Don’t have the resources to push back
And it has a very long
Still relevant history

For the entirety of American history from the
First African captured and enslaved to the
Moment Geraldo Rivera opened his mouth to
Pimp Martin’s death for ratings black
Men have been relentlessly
Caricatured as menaces
To society we were dangerous, so chattel
Slavery was necessary, and a nation’s wealth
Was born we are still dangerous
So a police state is necessary
In black neighborhoods all over this country
And the wealth of a prison-industrial complex
Flourishes this is what Trayvon Martin’s
Murder is about it’s not about
His high school suspension it’s
Not about his hoodie it’s not even
About Florida’s Kill at Will law, at least
Not at root it’s about the enduring, dark
Fantasies to which America still clings
In order to justify a society in
Which more black men are locked
Up or on parole today than
Were enslaved in 1850 to
Pick just one of many indicators of
The scale at which black
Men are battered but we’re menaces
We’ve got it coming

As black men
We’ve all got our strategies for dealing
With the resulting morass of fear
And loathing that we must navigate every day
Few of those tricks are healthy
Unfortunately some work themselves to
An early death in
A vain effort to disprove the fantasy
Of their sloth and ignorance see
Under, John Henry, Harold Washington
My father some fight and fight and
Fight until they can’t take
It, then get the hell out
See under, DuBois, Baldwin, ture
Most of us just duck and
Dodge the emotional bullets
Try not to let the inevitable
Wounds fester into self
Hate and do our best to keep it moving

The strategies aren’t always heroic
Either some black men go mad in pursuit
Of the self-reliance and individual will
That’s supposed to save them, and end
Up like a bleary eyed
Permanently angry Clarence Thomas a
Troubling many just
Give up and become the Baby Boy
That too many black mothers
Sisters and lovers
Spend their lives propping up
And excusing some say
Screw it and go all Bigger Thomas
Doing their best to pantomime the
Monster that haunts America’s twisted
Fantasies i’m more of a Langston Hughes
Than Richard Wright guy myself, but after
Hearing the cops’ leaked bile yesterday I
Found myself re-reading "Native Son
" and relating trayvon Martin was just 17
And maybe he hadn’t yet put together his
Own strategy for dealing with life
As the object of America’s
Nightmares so when he
Found himself being stalked down
A dark street
Having just been suspended for
A crime that his
Middle class white peers laugh about
Perhaps he improvised he doubled
Back on white supremacy
And tried to catch it off guard
With a mixture of Nat Turner
And NWA you got a
Problem? Well, now you do that
Got him killed but
You know what Trayvon? I feel you at least
You came at the problem head on

If Zimmerman and the cops are to be believed
Martin did what so many of us know we
Can’t like when someone asks if it’s safe in
Your neighborhood, and you want
To reply, sure, expect for the white women
We keep as sex slaves or
When the school counselor says
Your kid has an anger
Problem and special needs
Or when the cop tells you
To quit loitering on
Your own damn block you got a problem? Well
Now you do

That was Trayvon Martin’s approach hey he
Was just a kid he hadn’t
Learned the subtle art of disarming
The racism that can come
Flying at you when you’re walking home
From the store the fact
That the racism in this instance
Came flying from a Latino
Man isn’t relevant martin’s
Killer could’ve been
Black and it wouldn’t change
The circumstances all of us live
In a country in which
Black men are defined as pariahs all
Of us consume that message
In ways both overt and implicit
And, on some level
Far too many of us use it to excuse
The brutality we can see all around us

Like I said
Trayvon Martin was marked for death
Already, statistically at least as
A black infant
He was more than twice as likely to die
As his white peers in his teens
He was at least one and a half times
As likely to meet an early death as
His white peers homicide is the leading cause
Of death for black men his age
And comes at a rate many
Times every other racial
Or ethnic group if he had reached his 20s
He had a 1 in 8 chance of going to prison
Because that empty bag of marijuana he had at
School would have meant something
Very different for him than it does for the
Middle class white kids
Who use drugs at higher rates he’d have gone
On to live in a country in which nearly
4 in 10 black children live in poverty
In which 1 in 4 black
Households lack food security

The fact is the US often seems
Like it’s built to kill
Black people this is not to
Say racism is equally lethal
Today as it was even a single
Generation ago but it is
To say that the same set
Of deeply ingrained ideas
About what black people have coming to
Us justified the brutality of
Yesterday and today alike and one
Particular manifestation of those
Ideas routinely leads to the early
Death of men like Amadou
Diallo and Sean Bell and Oscar
Grant and Trayvon Martin

Of course, this violent manifestation of
White supremacy is
Not visited upon black male
Bodies alone indeed
As Tea Party candidates like
Nevada’s Sharron Angle
Reminded us in the past election cycle
We must very much begin to
See Latinos in the same
Way lurking, dangerous
Illegal fear and loathe them if
You encounter them on a
Dark street be ready to go to arms and so
Latino men have a lengthening
Gruesome roll call, too

Surely all these people have done something
To bring the murder, the poverty
The brutality down upon themselves!
That’s America’s unique twist on
Systemic oppression we cage
People, then call them animals
We starve people
Then jibe them for being malnourished
We write laws that allow people to gun down
Unarmed children and then
Make the child the aggressor and
So now Trayvon Martin will
Be all manner of sinner a pothead, a dropout
A ne’er do-well with a temper problem
Who had it coming but what he
Will indisputably be is dead, like too
Many before him and surely many after
Him he had it coming
As a black man in America