《Before They Called You White》歌词

[00:00:00] Before They Called You White - Brother Ali

[00:00:04] At what point did poor European people that used to rebel

[00:00:08] Against the ones that forced them to work land

[00:00:11] They didn't own and die with nothing of their own

[00:00:16] What was it that turned their hearts

[00:00:17] So that they start to identify with power

[00:00:19] Even though they're powerless

[00:00:20] Identify with wealth even though they're broke

[00:00:24] It's the invention of whiteness

[00:00:27] They call you white by white standards

[00:00:29] Damn what they're talking 'bout human first

[00:00:31] Stand and curse the dirty hand that first crafted the plan

[00:00:35] Spread it through the land and shattered the damn earth

[00:00:37] This is sickest system that ever existed

[00:00:40] Since this earth's beginning commenced it's twisting

[00:00:43] How you convince man with red blood to bleed

[00:00:46] Completely devalue what a human being means

[00:00:49] Nobody called themselves white several centuries ago

[00:00:53] They were living off the land with the trees

[00:00:55] They were Dutch they were Irish they were German

[00:00:57] They were Greek with culture families tradition and beliefs

[00:01:01] And rich blood suckers saw new soil to seize

[00:01:04] And they ain't 'bout to get their hands dirty cracker please

[00:01:07] Swindled you to trade in your identity

[00:01:09] Showed you pie in the sky and promised you a piece

[00:01:13] With symbolic image in the scripture that you're reading

[00:01:16] White holy angels and black evil demons

[00:01:19] You were so starving that you started to believe it

[00:01:21] Now you'll die colonizing for somebody else's greed

[00:01:24] Don't you see the overseers are still in the field

[00:01:27] Every breath a warden breathe is still in the jail

[00:01:30] You will never own that farm or the prison for real

[00:01:33] Terrified of the time when your victims rebel

[00:01:36] Listen you don't fear them you fear the blood on your hand

[00:01:39] All the ugly you done to that man

[00:01:41] That woman that child that land

[00:01:43] That sea that sky that they'd look you in the eye

[00:01:46] And demand that you tell them why

[00:01:48] All them years whipping and lying and killing

[00:01:50] Generations of poison and bombing and drilling

[00:01:53] All designed to turn the hearts of your children to stone

[00:01:56] Got post traumatic slave master syndrome

[00:02:00] How the hell are y'all going to heal be made whole

[00:02:02] You identifying with the people in control

[00:02:05] You can't throw a human in the bottom of a boat

[00:02:08] Unless somebody got a damn chain around your soul

[00:02:11] In that middle passage asking who got stole

[00:02:14] A hot auction block where your blood ran cold

[00:02:17] Every day a cop let them shots explode

[00:02:20] You're gon' have to find a way to regain your soul

[00:02:23] I said the eye can't see itself

[00:02:25] It can't sit back critique itself and peep itself

[00:02:28] It needs help

[00:02:29] Take the sword for example

[00:02:31] No matter how hard it can't carve its own handle

[00:02:34] I said the eye can't see itself

[00:02:37] It can't sit back critique itself and peep itself

[00:02:40] It needs help

[00:02:41] Take the sword for example

[00:02:43] No matter how hard it can't carve its own handle

[00:02:48] The inner city of our cities is like another country

[00:02:51] The rules are different

[00:02:52] It's almost like you need a passport there

[00:02:54] The police treat people differently

[00:02:56] When I lived out in the suburbs

[00:02:58] If my car broke down on the highway

[00:03:00] And a state trooper pulled up behind me

[00:03:02] I wouldn't have been scared

[00:03:03] I'd have been glad

[00:03:04] But young man after young man

[00:03:06] After young man had been beaten by the police

[00:03:09] And the only way you know

[00:03:11] You've got to be with the people

[00:03:12] And we live separated

[00:03:14] We go in air conditioned cars

[00:03:15] And we stick on your interstates

[00:03:17] And hang out with people just like us

[00:03:19] Well by god's grace

[00:03:20] I was brought into this

[00:03:23] And seeing how race plays a part

[00:03:25] And how poverty plays a part

[00:03:27] And my job is to go out to the American people