Taken from “Why White Folks Can’t Call Me N*gg*” by Tenesha The Wordsmith. Full lyrics here.
“Why White Folks Can’t Call Me N*gg*
Because you ain’t my comrade
you have not felt the rage of seeing your people
beaten
raped
hung
your outrage shouted down by oppressors claiming
victimhood
and having no recourse except silence”
…
“My n*gg*s understand a part of me that rose up from the ashes of the Antebellum South
but still feel the rawness of chains
My n*gg*s understand that racism is a white man’s madness
because the south lost the war
because of the Jena 6
Nia Wilson
Mike Brown
Trayvon Martin
Gentrification
The achievement gap
Mass incarceration
Police brutality
because the branches of our government bear strange fruit
because…Fuck you!
White people can’t call me n*gg*
because they don’t know who they are
To be a n*gg* or not be a n*gg*
That is the question
It’s a conversation that white folks are simply not invited to”
Taken from “Why White Folks Can’t Call Me N*gg*”^ by Tenesha The Wordsmith. Full lyrics here.
Multiple layers underpin and reverberate from the deeply ingrained and institutionalised racism that continues to inflict harm and injustice upon African Americans in the United States. And multiple layers underpin Anglo America’s unwillingness to even acknowledge let alone begin to atone for its omnipresent responsibility as the creators, producers, underwriters and beneficiaries of that racism.
Unwilling to admit it, Anglo America is solely responsible for the systemic inequality of opportunity and the physical and psychological violence its institutions continue to inflict upon African Americans. Unwilling to admit it, Anglo America is solely responsible for the ongoing attempt to appropriate and misappropriate African American identities, histories and experiences and subsequently control, disempower and silence African American voices of resistance. The unwillingness to fess up and atone, unwillingness to acknowledge and address its privilege and unwillingness to recognise that African American pain is real and ongoing simply exacerbates that suffering.
These are the subjects tackled head on by intellectually defiant and withering deconstructive new future bass heavy and jazz inflected single “Why White Folks Can’t Call Me N*gg*”. from Oakland based spoken word artist Tenesha The Wordsmith with production by Khaleb. It’s taken from her forthcoming debut album The Collection: Peacocks & Other Strange Beasts out through On the Corner on August 30. Pre-order on all formats here.
You can also hear this track along with 29 other tracks of an experimental, left field or electronic bent in our New Experimental & Electronic Playlist on Spotify here.
Why White Folks Can’t Call Me N*gg*
Tenesha The Wordsmith (USA)
From the forthcoming album, ‘The Collection: Peacocks & Other Strange Beasts’, On The Corner. Out on Aug 30.
Audio Stream
