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lyrics

Answers to your questions …
You look at me like you’re lettin me know
they were the wrong ones.
What’s with the aggression? I haven’t begun to be done.

Now, you brought it up -- and I’m just talking truth.
Being black in Italy…
Well no way to put it wittily,
there’s an awful lot of, bigotry.

Of course, that’s not everyone --
an’ it exists every place,
but why pretend that here is a safe space?

I’m not trying to offend you …
these things happen all the time.
Passive -- racism -- counts,
just sayin’…
while you may have been indoctrinated,
that doesn’t mean that I am obligated
to pretend your ignorance is nonexistent --
it’s not like I’m goin’ ballistic.

Wherever I go, I need bring patience with me …
Teach and not sigh, rolling my eyes to the sky.
The fact that you dare, poke your fingers in my hair,
reach out and touch my skin --
That’s wrong on so many levels
I don’t even know where to begin.

If I were to say that to your face, I admit
I’d be disgracefully ignoring your non-complicity,
you really – don’t – know.
So, every time, I try to explain with a smile
how the twists in my hair are born;
watch you torn as to what to ask next,
and I am locked in dread cause I know
there’s gonna be a long conversation ahead.

I can’t stand on the street for a second I reckon,
without someone asking how much do I want.
Strangely enough, my white, Italian female friends
don’t endure this same taunt.

When people throw bananas at
the first elected black minister in parliament,
you gotta think things are a bit turbulent.
Now Cecile, she got appeal, and a whole lot of style,
she didn’t spit any bile –
just stood there, and what made me smile
was her astute reply:
“What a waste of that fruit when people are hungry.
Shame on you, thinkin’ you’re cute.”

She’s workin’ hard to change the law
and allow immigrants’ children citizenship.
Now not to be bourgeois -- a freedom
that to an American like me seems natural;
you know, to be recognized as coming from
the country you were actually born in,
raised in – often the only place you ever been.
What? Don’t you deserve to be a citizen?

Oh, yes, that’s right, cuz you value roots --
when you asked, I said, “I am an American”.
Your response was, “Yeah, but where are you really from?”
I said, “Boulder, Colorado, what of it then?”
You insisted and said, “But, where’d your people
get off the boat from?”
Or if not, you’re convinced that I come from
whatever country you have visited
that has principally black villages --
“You look so much like the Kenyans, the Cubans.
Are you from Tunisia originally?”
Not noticing me staring at you dismally.
“See ‘cause I was there, or maybe it’s Rhodesia?”

When I insist I’m as American as they come,
you get mad like you think I think you’re dumb --
see cuz America’s so young and Italy’s so old.
I wanna know, if you can trace back your ancestry
more than 400 years; most of ya’ll can’t,
so stop with that fantasy.
Black slaves have been there
since somewhere around 1619.
You think you’re the first to ask me?
No, that’s number umpteen.

(It seem to me like you carryin’ a chip,
you wanna get a grip --
we are colorblind, we got peace of mind.)

Then, I’m the one whose shoulders got a chip --
“Uppity black, negro bitch,
oughta be happy with what you got.
Don’t deride this country,” you chide.
“You don’t understand – those are just our ways,
and this is definitely our land.”

credits

from NoteSpeak (Amori e Tragedie In Musica), released March 13, 2020

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Lisa Marie Simmons Italy

"Musically & vocally, NoteSpeak consistently changes, shifting from style to style – acoustic jazz solos into hip-hop beats into harmonized gospel vocals into electronic jazz and fusion into free verse rhyming – and yet seems to constantly groove... " All About Jazz Chris M. Slawecki ... more

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