Malala

Be a little more Mandela
Be a little bit more Malala
Be a bit more Dali Lama
Do you follow?

When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
Cause the change is in you and me

Dark cloud over the cradle in the vein of Cain and Abel
And of fables like Aesop rockin the Labor Days label
Definitely juxed indefinitely under the bus
Peasantry is on the run from drones above and golden guns
Patrolmen’s buzz
Soldier’s lament
Colin Powell’s scowl
Nixon’s legacy Obama’s failures in his hour
Illegal aliens in barracks or they say refugees in shackles
What kind of nation calls itself the greatest then goes backward on acting
As a shelter a harbor a homeland for the derelict
The displaced the oppressed open shores all American
Everything we claim to be native borne of genocide
Get a 10 at crime on a scale of 1 to never mind
I’d defer to the body count the on-the-ground accounts
The counting down the crowns the never-ending warring roundabout
The war on citizens the war on innocent the war on women and children
The war on the young black and gifted magnificent

Be a little more Mandela
Be a little bit more Malala
Be a bit more Dali Lama
Do you follow?

When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
Cause the change is in you and me

In the shadows of war memorials
The echoes of oratorials
Clamor against the names of warriors engraved in stone
They say war is primordial
By nature we territorial
But I know hatred’s learned and we are instilled with love
I think about these survivors
Who walked through bullets and fire
Wielding weapons of reckoning more powerful than artillery
Recognize who I align with
Guide my strength to the spineless
Deal in methods that organize and educate auxiliaries
Swarm akin to killerbees borne on Robin Island
And on Pakistani buses and in schools for every child
In the face of vitriol violence in place of spiteful alliance
There is spiritual highness that can transcend foes and faux
Phantasmagoria grows as stories of rifts proliferate
I dream in every color sister brother lift and liberate
Civil rights in city-states for every life And living saints
Who sacrificed so we can take their life force and regenerate

Be a little more Mandela
Be a little bit more Malala
Be a bit more Dali Lama
Do you follow?

When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
Cause the change is in you and me

It looks like
Student teachers struggling to reach the future leaders
In a school system designed to keep the status quo intact
It looks like
Human collateral for opposing the practices of racist policing
With tactics that rely on blows to backs
It looks like
Parisian citizens candlelit in remembrance assembled on the streets
With the message that fear won’t hold us back
It looks like
Hard conversations that can feel like confrontation with people that you love
But a mindset that’s stuck in the past
It looks like
Iraq war veterans making beats and writing lessons saying peace while fighting post-traumatic stresses and debt
It looks like
Anti-racist and anti-fascist and anti-classist and Black Lives Matter
It looks like
Manny Faces and Caits and Mikal and Maddy
Folks who make it their work to make it work with a passion
It looks like
Whatever you envision the mind truly a prism
Just gotta mine the wisdom and step outside the prison

Be a little more Mandela
Be a little bit more Malala
Be a bit more Dali Lama
Do you follow?

When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
When you ready take the lead
Cause the change is in you and me