Perfect, Dark - Sammus

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