Breaking the Invisible Chains of Society

[Music]

good people good people good people

what’s happening

prayer view a m university i’m at home

this place is woven into the fabric of

my very

identity so a lot of what i’m gonna say

today

happened here on this yard

i’m gonna ask y’all a question do you

remember when you were a kid

and you just had this sense of wonder

that was not restricted

you just asked all kind of questions

based in just

innocent curiosity you nagging your

parents your aunts your uncles your

aunties your cousins

why is this like this why is this like

this how is this like this

how does this work who are you what are

you doing why do we have to do it like

this

and then it was a sense of freedom you

weren’t bounded

and even when kids you see their freedom

when they’re able to dress themselves

they’ll wear a pair a pair of combat

boots with

with some with some swimming trunks a

turtleneck sweater

and a fireman’s hat because they freed

they haven’t been in society enough for

society to tell them

that they ain’t matching or that’s not

how they’re supposed to dress

and remember when you were a kid and

somebody would ask you

what do you want to be when you grow up

man a kid has like five or six things i

know i did i want to be a veterinarian

i want to be a race car driver i want to

be a professional chef i want to fly

airplanes i want to be a professional

bowler

and you said it as a kid with such

confidence and conviction

because you didn’t think it was

impossible

you were a free thinker but then

society comes along and gets a hold of

you

and society tells you they start to just

sap that that curiosity that imagination

they begin to slice and dice you up

to where that freedom that you had it no

longer exists because they telling you

who you supposed to be how you’re

supposed to be it what you’re supposed

to be

i’m gonna tell you a little secret about

me

not that you asked but i don’t like

people telling me what to do

especially if it don’t make sense now if

it makes sense

we ain’t got a problem but if you

telling me to do something and you

telling me it’s only one or two ways to

do it

and it don’t make sense to me my skin

starts to itch

i start to feel restricted i feel the

walls closing in on me

because you’re restricting my freedom

you’re not allowing me

to come up with options that make sense

for me

and i think i was like this to be honest

since i was like five or six years old

because i remember saturday morning i

done my homework for the week

i grab me a fresh cold bowl of cereal

plop down in front of the tv

watch my saturday morning cartoons and

of course with impeccable timing

my parents want to decide in that moment

that i need to take the trash out now to

myself

i say now i know y’all just saw me sit

down

with this cereal to watch my cartoons

and we know you got about three to five

minutes before them froot loops

go limp and get soggy so i’m thinking to

myself

it’s got to be another option so let me

present another option to my parents i

said

do you think it’s possible that i can

wait until the commercial break

to take this trash out boy you heard yo

mama

take that trash out now

now you didn’t put me in a box now i

don’t think this was wise of me

but then my reply was well

what’s going to happen to the trash

between now and the commercial break

that would necessitate me taking it out

right now

or if you don’t take that trash out if

you grew up in a black household you

know you won’t be asking questions like

that

even though my parents taught me to be

critical thinkers

it was only outside of their presence

and not in moments like this

and it was this disposition and this

critical thinking of mine

that slowly but surely led me to

recognize

as an adult i don’t make a good employee

so i had to figure this thing out on my

own i had to forge my own path

and figure out how to work for myself

but

society ain’t really conducive to you

doing that because when you come in here

they tell you

in so many ways how you’re supposed to

be and what you’re supposed to be

and that brings me to prayerview a m

university so follow me on this

cautionary tale

if you will my freshman year at pv

i was a straight-up class clown because

that’s the only way i could get girls to

pay attention to me

i was a scrawny little joker you know

and i wasn’t smooth at being smooth so i

couldn’t be the swab cat

so well when i talk to girls and i get

them the giggling

you know and i’m jaw-jacking they

cack-a-lackin and ha-ha

and they hit my knee a little slightly

and they say boy you so crazy you’re so

funny when they say that i’m like boom

gotcha

and then i recognize at least in that

moment

my value in this world the thing that

makes me feel significant

is being a class clown so i just played

it up

i was involved in extracurricular

activities it helped in but when it came

to my grades my academic performance was

lackluster at best

but i would use this comedic charm to

charm my way with professors from a c

minus to a b from a b to an a

but there was one professor who it did

not work on

and he could read straight through me

the late and great dr amari obadelli

i would try to charm my way out doctor

oh what’s good man how you doing he just

look at me what you doing son

what you doing young man mr slade what

are you doing

i see you properly on campus i see you

know a lot of people you good with

people

i see you funny ain’t nothing wrong with

being funny but you silly funny

you got more to offer than that you know

you watch them cartoons and

you can see the cartoon character come

in there with a chest out then they get

chin checked and all of a sudden

that was me and in that moment i was

like man

i don’t want to be the court jester no

more i don’t want to be the village

clown i don’t want to be silly funny

if i’m funny still let me be smart funny

and i remember my roommate his

pops was afrocentric and used to send

him all sorts of books to read that he

never read

and i said man i need to develop my

intellect so i was like yo bro let me

get one of these books on the shelf

i didn’t know one book from the other i

just grabbed one randomly

and it happened to be dr carter g

woodson’s the miseducation of the negro

i didn’t know who he was i didn’t know i

never heard of the book

but in the book he says something he

says

if you control a man’s thinking you

control his

actions and i was like oh man hold up

man hold up

don’t nobody control me i think for

myself i’m my own man then i continue to

read the book

maybe not my oh god dawg

i start reading more books and these

books are telling me you need to get to

know yourself

talk shows tell you you need to look in

the mirror you need to get to know who

you are

the the self-help book everything you

need to know is within just get to know

yourself but they don’t tell you how to

do it

be yourself i got to know myself before

i can be myself you need to keep it real

i need to get real before i can keep it

there

how do you do it so i just started

asking myself some very simple questions

but they was hard to answer also why do

you think the way that you think

why do you hang out with the people you

hang out with why did you praise the

fraternity that you pledged

why do you believe what you believe why

do you wear the clothes that you wear

why do you laugh at what you laugh at

and i had to square up with them answers

because not all of them was pretty

and in in that moment what i was doing

was i was learning about myself

removing shackles that i didn’t even

know that i had on me

and when you start to get to know

yourself

it’s a lonely game because as you

removing shackles you’re able to see

shackles on other people

right i started to recognize that i’m

spending money that i don’t have

on clothes that someone has convinced me

that are fashionable

to impress people that i don’t know and

those that i do

don’t care my pops told me son

if if a woman likes you for the clothes

that you’re wearing you’re with the

wrong woman

i question why i believe what i believe

i was brought up in the church

strong christian beliefs i asked my pops

who i respect

a lot who’s a pastor pops what’s up with

this jesus thing some of this stuff is

confusing

he said son if you believe what you

believe cause we told you to believe it

that ain’t true faith

the god that i serve can handle any

questions you got so go forth as long as

you ask them within the right spirit

and that’s intellectual and spiritual

growth so i was off

but then i tell you it’s a lonely

journey i’m on the campus of prayerview

now i’m the cat rocking the dashiki and

the black fist around my neck

my frat brother’s looking at me like i’m

crazy they come up to me and they like

you wearing a dashiki boy you don’t

speak no african you ain’t african

i say you wearing greek letters speak

some greek then i was going on a journey

of self-discovery

but the society that we live in is not

conducive to that

so you have to go at it by yourself to

begin this journey of freedom

so then i said yo i graduated

and i’m still in this in this flow of

what society wants me to be i graduate

i get a good job good paying job the vp

of the company

takes me underneath his wing and wants

to groom me to take over his position

i buy a house at 22 years old i got a

new car

and according to the world according to

society all i need to do is abc123

i had a wife and a kid and i got the

american dream

i’m sitting in my house i ain’t bought

it but for six months

i’m sitting in it and i’m starting to

itch i’m like this don’t feel right i

feel like the wall is closing in on me

i need to learn some more i need to grow

some more

so then i decide i’m going to apply to

graduate school

for a philosophy degree boys you crazy

ain’t nobody hire no philosophers

but i needed it for freedom

at this point learning was of primary

importance to me

when i learn i feel closest to god

learning is what made me feel free

because i’m learning about myself and by

learning about myself

and god is within i’m learning more

about god and god is also i’m learning

about all people i’m learning about the

universe

so this is the thing that is making me

feel free

because to me freedom was more important

than money so i knew

that i couldn’t compete with the people

on paper

who were applying to this program as

well so i scheduled an appointment with

the

director of the graduate philosophy

program at the school i wanted to go to

and when it was my time to meet this

fella i didn’t know what he looked like

i just assumed he was a middle-aged

white man

i see this middle-aged white man coming

towards me and before i can say

something

this man says oh i’m so glad you’re here

let me show you to the janitor’s closet

so you can get the vacuum cleaner

and get to work

law have mercy hold up man

you know i wanted to slap the fire out

this man

but i had to do a cost-benefit analysis

also what are you there for

and thank god i have been doing the work

on myself to understand why i was

feeling that way

right because

the work that i was doing on myself

allowed me to see

that this dude had been conditioned by

society he had been

conditioned to the extent that it was

impossible for him to see me

as anything other than to help so those

were the shackles that he was

wearing so i’m not going to allow his

shackles to shackle me

because that’s what would have happened

if i slap the fire out of him like i

wanted to

i proceeded to my objective had the

appointment

got into the graduate school and every

day since then i’ve used critical

thinking

and philosophy to become more and more

free

you see when we are born we’re born into

a society that already exists

a society that tells you who you’re

supposed to be and how you’re supposed

to be it

a society that tells you the reason that

we do this

is because it’s always been done words

like tradition

custom convention no bruh

no i don’t subscribe to that because if

you

if everyone subscribed to the idea that

it’s supposed to be done this way

because it’s always been done this way

there would have been no civil rights

movement there would be no technological

advancements there would be no medical

advancements because lord knows white

folks would have been like yeah

i mean slavery that’s going to end at

some point but right now it’s always

been done this way so this we’re going

to continue to do it like this

no bro now if you swallow this brochure

that society gives you to tell you who

you’re supposed to be and how you’re

supposed to be it

you’re killing yourself because this

kind of conditioning

creates creates blockage to your

existential arteries

that prevents the free flow of

creativity that leads you to

self-discovery

to let you know that you can be free

so why would you accept anything other

than

when when you’re learning

you’re growing so if you’re not learning

you’re not growing if you’re not growing

you’re not living and you’re not living

you’re dead and how many dead people do

you know walking around here trying to

impress people

because society tells them that’s what

they’re supposed to be

people on instagram has swallowed a

brochure the problem with society is how

sneaky it is

when you when you subscribe to society

telling you to

do what you’re supposed to do in the way

that they want you to do it

you feel good you get accolade

satisfaction

that’s supported by people giving you

praise giving you likes on instagram

giving you likes on facebook but deep

down inside you have this burning fire

of curiosity that existed when you were

young

but you can’t fuel it because society is

not conducive to you

thinking for yourself because there’s so

many people in line

ready to think for you but you will

never be free in that way

don’t let society tell you who you’re

supposed to be and how you’re supposed

to be it

wear your combat boots wear your

fireman’s hat wear your swimming trunks

and your

your turtleneck sweater if you want

because we were born free

and then society taught us how to be a

slave

and now it’s up to you to determine

whether or not

you feel confident in teaching yourself

how to be free again

appreciate y’all

you