For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide....

For all the men and boys out there who are sulking because they don't like the way black men are portrayed in the new film "For Colored Girls," -- relax. There's something out there for you too. It's a play by Keith Antar Mason, based on Ntozake Shange's powerhouse drama "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf," and it's called "For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When the Streets Were Too Much."

It's raw, poetic, and speaks to you like you probably want it to. I've directed excerpts from the play and I've seen black men respond to it viscerally. I took some actors to perform the excerpts in places like a prison (in Wilmington, Del.), a reform school for boys (in Wilmington, Del.), and a college campus in Philadelphia. One guy, a fellow African-American directing student, said to me after seeing the performance: "Now that's what I'm talkin' about family!" I took that as a compliment. Two other young men from my old neighborhood just simply nodded their heads up and down, said "yes" and "We wanna see more!"

So, hang your heads no more gentleman. Find a copy of Mason's play and bask in the understanding. Here's a partial monologue from the drama to tide you over:

i must be mistaken
some monster
i know
i can tell by the way you look
at me
you tighten up
and never smile
like aggression can only
be symbolized
by me
like the male gender
and colored black means
death carrier
potent poison
lethal
like the only mind i
have is between
my legs
and all it does is piss
the sewage out
the raw unadulterated
mean-ness
and i know
somehow i know
i want to live
a long time but
i am gonna die
some obscene
joke
cuz' you clutch
yourself around me
hold back
all the good things
even precious smiles
from me
somehow i know
i wuz' born to die
to die too soon
and i don't understand

and that's the confusion you see
that's the fear
you feel
i am no more than
the stacked up
cemented aggression
black tornado
come back from
oz no hell
born to die
and i mus' be
a zombie
walkin' the streets
the livin' dead