In honor of International Women’s Day, I rummaged through my writings this morning for something to represent my social, economic, cultural, and political achievements. I decided to share my lame attempt at rap.

You Don’t Know Me

You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. I barely know myself. Hell, I just recently found out that I’m a Syrian Jew. A Jew from my father’s side, a swarthy Syrian man I never knew. Because according to my mom, he was a hitman and gangster bad, so bad he couldn’t be a good dad, but not that long ago, I met his other kids, and they turned out fine, unlike me, who got screwed over by that pedophile stepdad of mine.

You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. You don’t know one thing about me. I come from the projects you see. Yet all you see is bright white, so you see easy, but my life has never been easy or bright. I get you, but you don’t get me because you’re too busy making your assumptions about what white is supposed to be.

I’m not even white; remember, I’m a Syrian Jew. I’m brown like you, but you don’t see brown at all; all you see is a Jew. And FYI, plenty of Jews aren’t white, but you don’t see that either. You’re as bad as those KKK whities who think every Jew is a tighty colonial miser.

And I don’t live in Israel, okay? I’m a hard-working, tax-paying citizen of the U.S. of A.

You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but you think I hate you because you hate me even though we come from the same kind of barely-surviving family. But all you see is that I dress so pretty and speak so nice; you don’t know that the snapping of the traps kept me up all night, breaking the necks of the rats and the mice.

I speak so nice because that mother of mine was afraid that if her rich boyfriend found out that we were poor, he’d slam our faces flat against the wrong side of the money door. So, she sent me—her persuasive carrot—to charm school to learn diction at night. So, yeah, I learned to speak nice, alright, but don’t F with me because the projects, the rats, and the mice will seep right out of me, and I’ll give you one stark-crazy hell of a fight.

Growing up, my little body lacked food, and it was full of worms, but I’m not telling you this to make you squirm. I’m just trying to help you to see that you don’t know anything about me. All you see is white; you don’t see my trials, my tribulations, and my messed-up strife. I’ve been jumping through hoops to prove myself to white people my whole miserable life.

I get you, but you don’t get me; you’ve got no clue. You think I’m fancy pants, but oh no, I’m not, not with the crazy shit that I’ve been through. So, take another look because sometimes what you see isn’t what you get, and what you think you get about white isn’t always true.

So, take another look. Do you still see white? Oh yeah, I see you looking at me with a new eye. Don’t worry. Don’t be shy. I’m not judging you. It’s alright.

Because I think you’re finally getting it—I’m not that white. Now that I’ve told you just a little bit about the hell that I’ve been through, I can see that I’ve got you thinking that I might be more like you than you.