Philly's Spoken Word Scene

As an 11th grade African American History teacher-researcher at Bodine High School, Antoine Stroman worked with student-researchers to uncover histories within Philly's spoken word scene. Student-researchers created poems centered around the socioeconomic environment or culture in Philadelphia, the role of black-owned businesses, and how they contributed to the underground spoken word scene.

American Dream
Nahzeem Gateward

Oh the American Dream To pledge myself to the ideal of equal opportunity, Equity and The concept of

no matter what my background may be being able to get that white picket fence and grass as far I can see

Give my body to the land of the free but to me this dream turned nightmare the way it's haunting me and taunting me

My allegiance turned allegory, how I'm not seen past the statistics
This black boy turned growth chart
As I grow so does my sentence for existing in this country built against me

THIS IS NOT MY PARADISE
you can't have me look up to the eagles and neglect the shackles on my ankles
Like tying a weight to me in a river and trying to convince me if I buy your oxygen I'll eventually breathe

In the land of the confined
a mix of red white and blue small weary minds
like Nat Turner I fear the highest I'll get is when my head is on pike,
Be it as it may
If I have to die to be heard may my blood be the seed to fertile soils my ancestors worked on

A supposed country of Liberation and yet
We have women forced to harbor “life” even if it takes their own

Land of the “free” but in this country we have to throw our away 2 points
opposing the USA , a country where I cant even go to the basketball court in fear
of rounds and having my blood paint the floor

I want to break free, skin pressed against the concrete as hard as they made me
Face to the ground hands up head down as i refuse to make a sound in fear of
hearing
his dash cam turn off
Or his walkie talkie go mute
Or him drawing his gun the click of him cocking back before the imminent boom
of me being put in the cement
Or because of hearing his constant reminders
anything I do or say will be used against me in a courtroom

Oh how I wished I had stayed in my bedroom
Oh how I wished The officer was the same color as me
Oh how I wished I took a different route to avoid the pigs pursuit of a description I supposedly fit

It's crazy how I need to know my rights by heart to avoid Being made into the
pavement, like the crack i walk on as it was lowered into my communities

Whats crazy is the dehumanization of my people
Seen as dangerous beast and if I were to die I'd be another black boy dead in the
headlines, like a dog put down in a pound
I shouldn't be accustomed to seeing my people made into ground It's funny how
we made this country and we're made into it as well

Capital
Nahzeem Gateward

Why must we replace rounds of basketball for rounds of ammo like the eraser
cutting my story short

Why must we replace ink in pen or lead in pencils for the lead casings that lead to me being pinned on a pole surrounded by dirty plushies, burned out candles and long dead flowers

I don't wanna be remember by what had happened to me
These horrifying bangs knocking me off my feet so low to the ground and yet I still look up to pray I get home safe

Is it selfish to not wanna end up as shoes on a powering line, their meaning so
sweet and yet their insinuation so grim

We're so caught up in color, and a war for blocks to preserve food for our own
We never take a moment to look out and see where our resources are going
Like an ant hill, rummaging for scraps

While anyone who does see who's dropping them is supposedly a magnified issue
Like a beam leaving us to char as black as our skin and the panthers The CIA also
deemed a threat for feeding communities

Is existing in this plane a different color a root to all sin
Using sex to pacify the violence that causes the internal screams of our mothers

tearless eyes

Gathering for the queen with 9 to 5s and restless nights
We don't fight because we're as umintelligent as you make us seem but for our rights
Leaving the 14th 15th and 16th buried with captions of fly high
Social media leaving our young to get high and idolize serial killers like hive minds
Leaving it to us to lay rest to anyone with open eyes

Rest in peace LGPQua