Sesh columnist Ionatana Iese wrote this poem for National Poetry Month, which responds to the tragic death of South Central LA activist and rapper Nipsey Hussle. After finding success in music, Hussle purchased real estate in Crenshaw, opening a retail boutique, an affordable coworking space, and a STEM center for black youth. It expounds on Iese’s fears that Hussle’s death will be interpreted as a warning to those who grow up in the ‘hood that, instead of returning and investing in improving conditions there, as Hussle did, they should leave and never come back.
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Young minds were once molded
By hands being held
As fathers not wanting their children
To follow in their footsteps
Begin to bid their babies long farewells
In hopes that time doesn’t tell
Whether his decision though made with good intentions
Didn’t somehow pave the road to hell
Yet upon his departure
The heavens had seemed to part
And the moon and sun had then soon fell
Upon a city of lost kings and queens
Where these young cats, slang pipe dreams to crack fiends
Who breathe in deep breaths of slow death
Yet they too are from a lineage
Known to raise gardens from concrete
Back when wearing baggy jeans weren’t for fashion
But rather for, facts of life like rocking gear
Given by those who wore them before me
Now that’s back when we were down for each other as a community
Confined to certain sections of the city
I believe Jews could define this description as ghetto
Banks often call them redline districts
Back when the foreigners use to just visit
When at dusk the hood became a tourist attraction
For when white folks conscious became curious
That’s why on televisions
Buffoons continually play the parts they are given
Perpetuating the cycle
While their boss makes a killing off our living
If this system is under capital control
Then that means its motives are economically driven
And its victims are often people of color as if they
Chose that on purpose in order to carry on with tradition
Our children have become their prey
Being force fed violent over-sexualized images every day
Through all forms of media from phones to television
So much to the point that murder
Has now become a desensitized decision
Removing from the equation
The importance of life within the human condition
—In Loving Memory of Theodore “Ted” Wheeler III