Testi Perfect, Dark - Sammus

Perfect, Dark

While Dora exploring
They was importing from Gorée
And now four hunded years later
They cut us all out the story
And when they couldn’t ignore us
They gave us Bishop and Barret
But where the women with origins
From a black colored parent?
We got Ororo Monroe
She kinda fly like a fairy
But really storm ain’t enough
I ain’t look like Halle Berry
They got they characters tailored
To Farrah Fawcett’s appearance
Even when they brunettes
They favor Tifa or Aeris
I ain’t a nigga in Paris
I’m just a brown girl in upstate
Where blacks is a rare thing
From Monday til Sunday
Cheetara I loved her
But she ain’t look like my mother
So when I had to see color
I went to view «Gullah Gullah»
We got Sailor Moon, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars
And not one of them burgundy colored at all
It’s that kinda thing hurting me when I was small
I thought I had got third degree burns all along
Black girls wanna have a hero too
All kids tryna get a mirror view
Cartoons gotta represent my hue
It got our daughters sick they want that theraflu x2
Do any other black kid think it’s all wrong?
That Super Saiyan status make ‘em all blond
Blue-eyed it odd yeah something like an oblong
Shit got me lost like I’m gone w/out my Tomtom — ha!
You prolly think I’m reaching
But when I started sketching
The first thing I could think of
Was drawing yellow tresses
Over pink-skinned faces
Red cheeks, and painting
Big tits in lace, and I’m envious of her race
You got a black girl sketchin' out Aryans
Based on her experience
With various variants
Of comic books and animes
The shit was getting serious
Took a step back like professors that’s Emeritus — yeah
I finally get a smile all the bad thoughts abandoned me
Momma taught me how to be proud like the family
Had to wait until I saw that I’m a work of art
I love the game but I’m the realest kind of «perfect dark»
Black girls wanna have a hero too