Brother Ali - Before They Called You White lyrics

At what point did poor European
People that used to rebel
Against the ones that forced them
To work land they
Didn't own and die with nothing of their own
What was it that turned their
Hearts so that they'd
Start to identify with power
Even though they're powerless?
Identify with wealth even
Though they're broke?
It's the invention of whiteness

They call you white by white standards
Damn what they're talking 'bout
You man first stand and curse the dirty hand
That first crafted the plan
Spread it through the land and
Shattered the damn Earth
This is sickest system that ever existed
Since this Earth's beginning commenced


It's twisted
How you convince man with red blood to bleed?
Completely devalue what a human being means
Nobody called themselves white
Several centuries ago
They were living off the land with the trees
They were Dutch, they were Irish
They were German
They were Greek with culture, families
Tradition and beliefs
And rich blood suckers saw new soil to seize
And they ain't 'bout to get
Their hands dirty, cracker please
Swindled you to trade in your identity
Showed you pie in the sky
And promised you a piece
With symbolic image in the
Scripture that you're readin'
White holy angels and black evil demons
You were so starving that you
Started to believe it
Now you'll die colonizing for
Somebody else's greed
Don't you see the overseers are
Still in the field?
Every breath a warden breathe is
Still in the jail
You will never own that farm
Or the prison for real
Terrified of the time when your victims rebel
Listen you don't fear them
You fear the blood on your hand
All the ugly you done to that man
That woman, that child, that land
That sea, that sky
That they'd look you in the eye
And demand that you tell them why
All them years whipping, and lying
And killing
Generations of poison, and bombing
And drilling all designed to turn the hearts
Of your children to stone
Got post traumatic slave master syndrome
How the hell are y'all going to heal
Be made whole?
You identifying with the people in control
You can't throw a human in
The bottom of a boat
Unless somebody got a damn
Chain around your soul
In that middle passage asking who got stole?
A hot auction block where your blood ran cold
Every day a cop let them shots explode
You gon' have to find a
Way to regain your soul

I said the eye can't see it'self
It can't sit back, critique it'self
And peep it'self it need help
Take the sword for example
No matter how hard
It can't carve it's own handle
Said the eye can't see it'self
It can't sit back, critique it'self
And peep it'self it needs help
Take the sword for example
No matter how hard
It can't carve it's own handle

The inner city of our cities is like another
Country the rules are different it's almost
Like you need a passport there the police
Treat people differently when I lived out
In the suburbs, if my car broke down on the
Highway and a state trooper
Pulled up behind me, I wouldn't have been
Scared i'd have been glad but
Young man after young man after young
Man had been beaten by the police
And the only way you know
You've got to be with the
People and we live separated
We go in air conditioned cars and we stick on
Your interstates and hang out
With people just
Like us well, by God's grace, i was brought
Into this, and seeing how race plays a
Part and how poverty plays a part
And my job is to go
Out to the American people