Black girl pain

My mama said life would be so hard
Growin up days as a black girl scarred
In so many ways though we've come so far
They just know the name they don't know the pain
So please hold your heads up high
Don't be ashamed of yourself know I
Will carry it forth til the day I die
They just know the name they don't know the pain black girl

[Jean Grae]
This is for Beatrice Bertha Benjamin who gave birth to
Tsidi Azeeda for Lavender Hill for Kyalisha
ALTHLONE, Mitchells Plain, Swazi girls I'm reppin for thee
Mannesburg, Guguletu where you'd just be blessed to get thru
For beauty shinin thru like the sun at the highest noon
From the top of the cable car at Table Mountain; I am you
Girls with the skyest blue of eyes and the darkest skin
For Cape Colored allied for realizing we're African
For all my cousins back home, the strength of mommy's backbone
The length of which she went for raising, sacrificing her own
The pain of not reflecting the range of our complexions
For rubber pellet scars on Auntie Elna's back I march
Fist raised caramel shinin in all our glory
For Mauritius, St, Helena; my blood is a million stories
Winnie for Joan and for Edie, for Norma, Leslie, Ndidi
For Auntie Betty, for Melanie; all the same family
Fiona, Jo Burg, complex of mixed girls
For surviving thru every lie they put into us now
The world is yours and I swear I will stand focused
Black girls, raise up your hands; the world should clap for us