Poetry is like numbers

"Too white to be black"

In some places we as blacks are told we're not allowed to act a certain way
I'm being told that I'm too "wild" when I'm myself or I need to be "proper"
But when I act proper in your eyes I'm no longer black.

I was never told that my life mattered but I was always told that too white to be black.
That I'm too proper for the next "brotha in line" that I above and beyond to the point where most people forget who I am
They say the hood gone rob you and leave you bare but since I'm too white to be black I'm not sure they really care

Black Power or White privilege? You tell me I have both but I feel like I have neither
The part of me that I expressed as a kid got all the "blacks" attention but when I learned to show respect to the whites they told me I was a fool
If I'm a fool then clowning is my hobby cause that makeup they throw on me must look so real because in the eyes of the "black" I'm nothing but a ghost, invisible

But see America says that white privilege is white privilege and that the way I act doesn't change a thing
The cops will still shoot me walking down the street if I have my hood on
Or say I reached for a gun when I was pulling out my driver's license
They'll always think I deserve to be locked up in a jail cell because the color of my skin is a "danger to society" and it must be controlled

But I'm still too white to be black
The doctors don't look at my behavior when I'm sitting in the office they look at the color of my skin and give me pills that "stimulate my mind" and send me back with depression, anxiety and so much more

Funeral chapels preparing my funeral decide to use a picture of my father, to give him a good look at himself a reflection of his mistakes
He's lost his young man
They couldn't find my picture because I was so white that my pictures couldn't be seen by the "black eye". So they gave him a taste of his own medicine

I had a whole life ahead of me
But I guess the "white privilege" got to me
Yet another good one gone