lotion, or potion can condemn: The 1920s were the beginning of consumer items. On the line of products for black people, were skin lightening creams and hair straightening formulas. This condemned black people, because the beauty products targeted physical features promising to "fix" that which was considered “ugly." These items are still on the market today 

Phenotype of monkeys: Scientific racism in the 18th to 19th century justified racism against every race outside of European. Physical anthropologists linked black inferiority to their phenotype or genotype to monkeys.

Climb my trees: global trade starting in the 13th century, connected Europeans with Africa.

Steal my leaves: Trade that helped Europe get out of the “Dark Ages." West Africa had gold, iron, and were more literate than Europeans because of the spread of Islam

Dry ground beget famine: Millions of Africans died during the slave trade.

New Seeds!: America! Land of the free, brave and racist

Buried deceit. Fertilized hate. Watered denial. I grow: Black people were born and raised on racism

Fall and crunch: Africans decline in social hierarchy when they become slaves. Could also mean that when the slaves had children, the black children were also treated poorly and dragged down as a result of being a slave's child

Fall and crunch Crunch Disinterested crunch No uniqueness in my leaves: The leaves crunching refers to the people that stepped on blacks. The people who committed the most violent and dehumanizing acts against them. These people can also be blacks themselves with gang violence and self-hatred. They internally beat themselves up

Chop down my unyielding trees: this could mean so many things. The easier ones to explain would be police shootings and prisons. Prisons hold SOME innocent black people for crimes they did not commit. Black people could live and die in a prison because of racial profiling. Black people are sometimes seen as a menace to society because of the drugs and gang violence, so they get "chopped down." But why is there drug abuse and violence? Could it be that poor black men sold drugs to support their families when black people had become the poorest race in America? Could it also be that black people abused drugs because of the major depression and shame they felt for being black?

My: It seems futile to use the word "my" or "me" in this poem, considering that some of these issues I never experienced first hand. So, why carry the burden? Why rehash something that's a hundred years old? I can't speak for the slaves and blacks who were segregated against, and I can only assume how something like that would feel. The surprise that lights someone's face when they see a black person succeed means something. It means that they expected that black person to fail because we're so marginalized as to what we can do or what people expect us to do. Black people are not fully united or equal. That's a fact, if you're a witness to what happens in urban communities like me, you'd agree. But, we're so close with just a couple thousand people who have a slight racist bone in their body. I use "my" and "me" to speak for "my" sisters and "my" brothers who are products of those slaves and segregated black parents. "My" brothers and sisters who are losing hope in a fight that's ALMOST over

Old. Stolen. Brown. Money in pockets: Old: "Blacks have been integrated into society and racism is old news," says those who are tired of black people trying to rise and fight for complete and total equality. Take the "Black Lives Matter" campaign. There is opposition for the campaign because people find it unnecessary
Stolen brown: Culture appropriation and not just black or African culture. I mean any culture that Americans have decided to embody without taking the time to know the people or story behind the culture. It takes a certain level of disrespect to take bits and pieces from a culture you have no genuine interest in but merely borrow from because it improves your social status
Money in pockets:The leaves that people stole became money. White people made money off of the black people desperate to be accepted (consumer items, segregated communities, etc.) They also made money off of athletes, artists, singers, prostitutes, slaves, everything black was used as entertainment for white people. Africans were even put into human zoos. This could also mean that black people were once wealthy with their access to gold and riches in Africa, but they were taken as slaves and became impoverished and hated people compred to the whites that surrounded them