"The Teacher"


In '66, we had a possibility, didn't we?
I was twelve, the Panthers played me, but couldn't get rid of me
So they looked past the kid in me and fitted me in a black leather jacket
By seventeen, I had a shotgun to match it
Up in the action, in the mix, I could never forget
When I was younger, poor, and sick,
They would hook me up with some grits
I knew that food for thought
Wasn't what Hoover bought
It was what Huey taught at breakfast
Now, he's lying in the sewer shot...

The grief felt when my people lose a leader lasts for generations
Violent like a crucifixion
Brutalizing degradation
Movements of society diminished when defined by the greatness and charisma of a few good men
And Huey knew that even way back when
That a man can be taken out
But the soul of a living revolution can find him a way back in

Comrades and friends I tell you we don't need a leader
We just need a conscience
And every now and then,
Teachers who can see through nonsense
If Karl Marx was not a Marxist
Christ was not Christian
A man is not an ideology
Act with your own conviction
Not on loaned permission
Of surrogate intelligence
Must we be killed before our ideas rise to prevalence?
Love, hate, self-defense
Seldom do all of the above make a wealth of sense
When blood shapes relevance

Have you ever heard a violent man propose a plan of peace?
Did you know a thousand people who'd die for him in the street?
Did they know of twenty people who'd rot for him in a box without a key?
If you got him out of a box, could you yourself emerge as free?
Could you stare evil in the eye and be the change you wanted to see?
Or will the sun go down on you as it is always done to me?
I've seen a kid yawn, bored as my life's recanted
Found a generation prior and after me disenchanted Disengaged and therefore at a disadvantage
A shovel in the struggle won't budge when it's not romantic
Life's work told by shriveling, fading, and failing flesh
The image assigned to your success and your spirit may never mesh
A man who worshiped you resents you
A broken, discouraged mess
And every now and then, a youth will listen more and ask for less
And they'll be tested when their faith in a human is forced to break
By the means of an addiction or death by the hand of State
So if you teach me how to play guitar, I'll try to make the sun rise
Teach me how to raise a star, I'll try to make your son wise
Your name, your age, your sex, your dress, your race is not you comprised
They're just supplies for you to devise
your grassroots and its size
And in that anonymity is a base
The work of the body's a multitude and not just the face
A death via revolución is not just a waste
It's a passing of the torch I've embraced
with all of my passion.