Dear Karen Bass
Century Blvd marks the 100th from 1st.
I can count on my fingers ten times
how many hundred-spoke Daytons
I saw spinning on lowriders cruising down Century.
Even finding a $100 bill
on the corner of Manchester and Vermont
can’t subtract the cost of living here.
The Westside handles business,
the East enforces code —
but no matter what side,
we live on the same streets,
just opposite sides of this love triangle we call home.
To the north, we get rich.
To the south, we grow knowledge.
Eventually, we bring them together —
one harmonious group of fools,
fighting each other over pieces of land
we don’t even own.
I get it
this is how it was set up.
The condition Central Ave is in right now
is a mirror of the treatment my people
have faced for decades.
And don’t mistake it for accident
they plot on the East,
while we burn the North,
and the businessmen of malice
draw plans to tear my world down.
Forget that.
I’m spinning until Wilshire
Looks like MLK Blvd at 3 a.m., Year-Round MF
Keep pushing us
*
(Featured image by formulanone – Inglewood Aerial – La Brea Avenue and Manchester Boulevard, CC BY-SA 2.0)