| Let me tell you who I am
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| I’m not dead, yet
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| So, the sum total has not yet been added up
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| So let me tell you who I think I am
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| I’m one of the ones of color who got over
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| I’m one of the ones your bullet missed
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| I didn’t graduate high school; |
| not to boast about, but to puzzle over
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| After all, I’ve been awarded thirty-four PhD’s
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| Honorary, they are called, because I defied the rules
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| I’m a dropout
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| Not by choice, but by fate’s sense of humor
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| By nature’s design
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| I’m dyslexic
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| I’m the son of immigrants of color
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| The island of slaves were dropouts also
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| They found their way to America’s Harlem ghetto
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| They found no work inside the law, but with cunning they survived outside the
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| law
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| They made the rules, and endured
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| I’m one of the ones of color who got over |