A Poem For Mr. President

The year was 2003 and playing on MTV one day was the blues

Not the blues as in the music, but the blues as in the news

That we was gonna bomb a hole in Iraq

Politicians even appealed to the hearts

of a brother of mine whose whole family was blown apart

(Crushed like a petal under the force of heavy metal)

But in reality 9 11 was a whole world apart

From some little baby boy who was born in Tehran

Even though he wasn’t even from Iraq but he was from Iran

(and you know this baby boy that his arms

was blown apart from his body)

Even though I heard that no civilians were seriously harmed?!

Now you got tha’ Mexicans an’ you got the Indians and the Africans

All about to go to the same doctor as your Waico mom

Does that make you sad?

Does it make you mad you lost millions of dollars on those hedge funds

That all turned out to be pretty bad

While I was getting rich making records that y’all wish you had?

Does it make you wish you had

Never done what did my son?

I hope it does cause you ain’t gonna rule the way you ruled before

Not in our lifetime now that Allah and God and Buddah or whoever

Has Ruled that as an end to your era

That you got given a U.S. President called Barack “Hussein” Obama

And how it does it feel now the tables have turned on you brother?

My grandpa told me to beware of the government

‘Cause of Joe McCarthy, and how he caused all that First Amendment anarchy

But my girl tells me just at the moment she tried to get-rid-a-it

That you lied to her cause you’re afraid of what you call that liberal-S@1T

So tell me, when can I ever trust you again Mr. President?

Cause you’re the prime precedent for all our descendents

In fact, you were the Commander-in-chief of my brothers

Who you sent to die like all ‘a the others

‘Cause you said we had ‘a win some crazy war on terror

So How Can I Ever Trust You Again Mr. President?

But all of a sudden just as all of us was saying

"Yes we can!"

Gov’t went and bailed out Goldman Sachs

And then we was on the line for billions of dollars

And that all the money they was getting was all comin’ from tax

Tell me Barack: “What kind of democracy is that?”

I never bought a CDO, didn’t even know

what a common stock was you know?

That’s not the reason that I voted for you!

And I’m sorry to say that it is to my great regret that

In spite of all the debt

That you ran up that I feel like your hoe

‘Specially when the NYPD broke into my crib, you know?

And they threw me outta bed

And put the cuffs on my wrists

Still me and my friends here really believe in all that shit

That you was saying about all things changing

Even tho' now I'm downtown back in central booking again

Wonderin’ if the government is ever gonna be my friend

Cause it still seems to me that the fourth Amendment

Comes second to the one that says you can wear the gun

That went off one day and killed my best friend's son.

So show me, when can I ever trust you again Mr. President?

Cause you’re the prime precedent for all our descendents

In fact, you’re the Commander-in-chief of my lil’ brother

Who you’re sending to die like all ‘a the others

‘Cause you say we got a win some ridiculous war on terror

I really want to Mr. President, I really do wanna believe in you forever:

But How Can I Ever Trust You Again Mr. President?

What’s the worst of all, and what hurts most of all

is that I got the networks telling me: “Watch your back,

He just got to be President as a result of writing a book and being black,

And cause he had an appealing campaign on the internet –”

I wanna believe that things have changed

I really do.

But what the fuck was that shit in my State

That went down with a little thing called Proposition 8?

What was that I heard you say

About fighting again in Afghanistan?

I thought that you won the Nobel Peace Prize or something?

You really think I voted for someone again

Who was gonna repeat the mistakes from 08 in two-thousand-and-ten?

How Can I trust you?

‘Except I had do

Cause I really loved you

Thought you was the had-to

Of politics in this day and age

But please don’t send my brother –

(hell, he’s not just my brother, he’s your bother too! –)

to his grave!

(Mr. P, he’s not even of age!)

I really want to Mr. President, I really do wanna believe in you forever:

So Show me How Can I Ever Trust You Again Mr. President?

And I’m finishing this letter

With a little personal message:

Please do the right thing Mr. President

And give our kids an America they can really believe in Forever.