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Collin Edmonds, performing at IWPS 2019 in San Diego, CA.
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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)
0:02
I wish that gentrification worked under the rules, regulations
0:05
and procedures of the hood.
0:07
Imagine for every child saying, “Oh my god! I just got here from Boston!”
0:12
there was a nigga to say, “I don’t give a fuck where you from,
0:15
you can still run them hands.”
0:17
Imagine a hipster in the hood.
0:20
No, the real hood,
0:22
where niggas dogfight at 10 a.m. on a muthafuckin’ Sunday.
0:26
Imagine this dumbass walking home on a Friday night.
0:29
You know they say hood niggas can smell a mark from a mile away,
0:32
and his body is still rank with the smell of IPAs
0:35
and expensive hair gel.
0:36
I bet he thinks he holds the world in his hands,
0:39
at least until he gets robbed.
0:41
Handmade leather shoes thrown upon a telephone wire
0:44
to remind you that this is still our neighborhood.
0:46
We have to rock our kids to sleep to the sounds of bullets and gunfire
0:50
and your dumbass want to walk your dog at 2 a.m.
0:52
Quick question,
0:54
do you want to die, Becky?
0:57
Once your blood’s spilt on the very same streets
0:59
as those niggas, my niggas.
1:01
How can you walk so carelessly through a graveyard,
1:04
like you want to step on a dead body,
1:06
take it home and tell your family you’re just cleaning up the neighborhood.
1:09
Sometimes I wish my city was just as dangerous
1:12
as every black movie in the ’90s makes it out to be.
1:15
And maybe my block would still look like me.
1:18
My home look less like a ghost.
1:19
It feels like we’re being redlined out of a neighborhood
1:22
we were redlined into in the first place.
1:23
I mean, my childhood home is now in a neighborhood
1:26
that’s too rich for black people to live there.
1:28
So yes, I wish it was still dirty, still grimy,
1:31
still have blood caked to the sidewalks.
1:34
I wish my city had flesh caught between its teeth,
1:36
blood dripping from a snarling mouth as a message, a reminder,
1:40
hell, a warning,
1:42
to stay the hell out.
1:45
(cheers and applause)
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
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