Young, Black and Gay


Young, Black and Gay by Dean Atta

 

My people are many and few

Subdivisions of me and you

Substantial people sometimes called subhuman

Negroes, faggots and all the youts dem

Don’t think your rights came overnight

So many people had to fight

To gain anything like equality

We ain’t there yet but we’re gonna be

 

Institutions instigate internal indignation

We, brought up and betrayed by this nation

Isms and schisms of my Babylon home

Have held this king back from his throne

But you can fight the system from within

Yes you can befriend sinners and still not sin

 

See me, I went to university

Not even the first in my family

I’m from a long line of scholars

Trace me back to Greece and Africa

Through Cyprus and Jamaica

I don’t write to be pretentious

But my vocab and vision leave you defenceless

Trying hard to avoid the clichés

But everything worth saying’s been said these days

 

I’m ironic and yet I’m so on it

So if you wanna test me, let me hear your phonics

I’m not a battle emcee; I’m a community defender

Young, black and gay, you best remember.

 

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