Gil Scott-Heron, Artists United Against Apartheid - Let Me See Your I.D. lyrics

South Africa

Everybody uses black and white
To try to draw the line
Between wrong and right
But if you use your eyes to really see
You know we don't see realistically

Because skin that's white is really pink
So either you can't see or I can't think
Because skin that's black is really brown
But that don't make the world go round
Now to put a color on skin to me is a sin
That's why apartheid must never win
We must put an end to this my friend
And should never be allowed to happen again

It's time to wake up and do some good
To try to see each other the way we should
Because looking at the people
I sometimes find
That Sun City is in the mind

I was just watching the TV the other night
The should appear but you know
Walter Cronkite said the Blues
And it came to me how much of our vocabulary
We seem to get TV now a days
Calling things whatever they call 'em
Even if they collect
First thing that came to me was
Like third world you know?
Like, if you ask someone from here like
Where is the third world
They might say "Oh yah man, I know I know
It's the disco
You go about three blocks then take a left"
Or they might tell you the third world
Is a new health food restaurant
I know the first time I heard there
Was trouble in the Middle East
I thought they was talking about Pittsburg

Let me see your ID let me see your ID
Let's get down to the real nitty gritty
Talk about the crimes in Sun City
Let's get down to the real nitty gritty
And talk about the crimes in Sun City

A city of diamond, a city of gold
A city of sorrows with horrors untold
But even the should be able to tell
Sun City, a charade for hell

It’s a death called genocide
People dying to a called apartheid

South Africa, starvation right here
Politicians and leaders living in fear
South Africa, from coast to coast
Colored people got the least
White people got the most

The way casualties comes up a lot
And then South Africa
They seem to make it feel like theres a
Battle against - between isms going on
Between one good ism an done bad ism
But what they’re talking about is nightly
South Africans die, casualties
There were eight more casualties
In South Africa nothing casual about dying
Nothing casual about standing for freedom
My grandmother used to say
"if you don’t stand something
You will go for anything"
We stand against apartheid
Stand against apartheid let me see your ID
Let me see your ID

Well we’re sick and tired of what we heard
The apartheid is quite absurd
Prejudice is the reason people have died
Yes, prejudice stands for apartheid

So we all get together to lend a hand
To bring people to peace all across the land
We gots that running
And all this has got to stop

I had never met anyone from Southern Africa
’til I started going to school
I was going to Lincoln
University down in Pennsylvania
There was South African refugee students
There who uh uh
Many of them were athletes who
Started to compare experiences
And they were telling me that when
You walk around in South Africa
You gotta carry this little
Black book with you
Tells everyone whether you’re supposed to be
In a given area or not
Damn thats about like my life ‘cause I got
To do that when I go Philly

Let me see your ID

Yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah
We are waiting for the day
That how we feel today

Some people say that’s a race
Some people say that’s a race
Some people say that’s a negro race

We don’t believe in a race
All we know is the human race
We all say (We all say) remember them today

There will be a time
When apartheid’s a crime
And the color factor won’t bother the mind
When majority rules against the fools
And all those who oppose will become uncool

I’m talkin’ ‘bout a place they call Sun City
The Vegas in the desert
In a town without pity south Africa
Yes the motherland
There are no human rights for the Africans
‘Cause Sun City’s bright lights
Mow down their rights
And ain’t nothing else to do
But stand up and fight (fight)
If I ruled the world and
Was king on the throne
I’d stop this mess and

Just need to think about it
I ain’t going to Sun City
If-if somehow by the South African government
Sun City is described as
Though it’s somewhere else
Not connected to South Africa or apartheid
Like someone in Manhattan trying
To describe the
Bronx to you as another country
As though it is no longer
Connected to New York

Let me see your ID

That it’s all in your conscious
It’s all in your minds let’s all lend a hand
To fight against apartheid
South Africa must be free

Quality of justice the peoples’ liberty
So for no money i will never play Sun City

USA we won’t pay

Other than that i was watching TV again
And I seen this that’d
Been a representative of
The American people over there
In South Africa
Over there taking a from some body
Somebody in here said
"Hey what about the separation
Between church and state" i said
"Especially this church and that state"
We stand against apartheid
Stand against apartheid

Let me see your ID let me see your ID

Yeah
Politicians think they by shaking your hand
And then their hold your back
As much as they can
They try to keep you weak from getting strong
Because they know if they’re strong
You’re gonna change what’s wrong

Ban my voice ban it now
Like Stevie Wonder ima speak out loud
‘Cause where you live is where you stand
And you shouldn’t get chased by any man
Even if they got a stick in their hand
It still don’t mean they in command

We’re the Three Fat Boys
And we’re here to sing
We’re gonna stop apartheid in our own way

South Africa south Africa