DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Educational

Rhetoric

 

 

 

      Photo by Xiongxiao Dai

 

 

Youre thinking what youre thinking but in retrospect
its what they want you to think
because your education system is watered down
like bottles at a bar
and the educators are truly subpar,
because they either dont know better
or they choose not to do better
with a syllabus that doesnt invoke original thought
given a class never meant to surpass the farms
and for the teachers that know better but cant do better
are morally corrupted
because of the debt they incurred to give you instruction
plays a factor into the summation of the salutation from their peers and superiors
and with their bills in arrears
and kids who dont know that the level in which they are learning
isn’t on the level of which they are graded at
your kids may have passed but but they’re being left back
with their minds being wasted they do what we do naturally and fight back
but they know not how to fight with words
so they throw fists and come to blows at the word go
and you wonder why the violence in the schools are in comparison to jail
but the justice system has a hand in this too
with the privatization of jails
rewarding the inmates with jobs at an unfair wage
so the blind lead the blind and deaf
helen keller was considered stupid till she learned to speak
and if her family didnt have money
would she really have been so unique
so teach your kids
because the NAACP wont give them a scholarship
if their minds already wasted
and entrusting the schools to teach is like
trusting the child molester with your childs innocence in his home
its more than homework
its turning off the playstation 3 and xbox 360
and going over formulas so that they are committed to memory
because knowing your ABC’s and counting 123’s
isnt enough education to hand over the the world to your kid
and expect them to be the next president,
astrophysicist and modern day dreamer,
its explaining jonas a salk and the theory behind multiple intelligences
its correcting them to be grammatically correct
and to speak every word with meaning
not just to lift every voice and sing
the injustice of miseducating our children
to love sosa and respect weezy
and letting them twerk because we think its cute,
but whats even more so is to pick up a book
and make them read to you the contents before they shut their eyes
to the world filled with lies and contempt
for a people who never immigrated
but never left
because on our shoulders
we built this country
with our fingers
we designed the noose
and in parting with our education
we lynched ourselves
begging and pleading for our lives
for we dont know why
bitches and niggas are common terms of endearment
and we value the swag of the pauper wearing his money
laced around his feet
six hundred dollars and
sagging his jeans three hundred dollars
and the shirt brand name not very unique two hundred fifty
and the tracking device that has your brain scrambled
six hundred dollars
in his pockets zero
in his mind the nba live 2k and the playoffs looking at the championship rings
ring the bells for the knowledge that man holds to be self-evident
is useless and mundane
inane because he doesn’t sling rocks
he flips burgers and drops fries
and aspires to be a rapper but with his education and lack thereof
he is just another strange fruit hanging from the tree
with blood on the leaves.
 

 S H A W N   S T E R R E T T

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.