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