Brother Ali - Dear Black Son lyrics

Dear Black Son
There's people you've never met
Who fear and hate you for
Something that you never did
And these people are so self-convinced
Sometimes they pull the trigger
Call that self-defense
And in that sad insanity
Their fear is realer to
Them than your humanity
But that's their problem, it's not yours
Listen to your pop for a second
These are the confessions of
A father broken hearted
Who don't know how to pull his
Only son out of a target
They lied when they said it was
The bottom where you started
You were a king long
Before them ships departed
You are not defined by anybody else's crimes
You don't need to answer for
What happens in their minds
You are not confined by their imaginary lines
You don't need permission to
Exist with the divine in fact
You don't need permission from
No one including me
You need not do anything but be, just breathe
Whatever you dream let it mean you're free
Tears on your cheek never made nobody weak
Sometimes we got to grieve let it burn
Let it bleed then let yourself heal
Pray to God that it will
You've got a spirit that a bullet can't kill
That doesn't make it any less real

They say it takes a man to raise a man
You're slipping through my hands
Like grains of sand and here I stand
Tryna wrestle with the hourglass
Maybe see how long I can make an hour last
Raising a man
Who's slipping through my hands
Like grains of sand and here I stand
Tryna wrestle with the hourglass
Maybe see how long I can make an hour last
Dear Black Son

Dear Black Son
I can't protect you like I want to
I never judge you, all I can do is love you
And that's all anyone can ever do is love you
All I can do is wonder how
Can anyone not love you?
They recognize divine in you
So they try to find
Themselves by defining you
They're living in a myth that
They don't want to lose
And now they're too terrified to
Face your kind of truth
But every single time you
Shine it's proof that
They might've threw a chain around your body
Never conquered you
They don't always honor you but
They love your culture
Let me show you how to move
When the laws approach you
It's best to keep your hands
Where they can see them
And try to understand that you're
Not even what they're peeping
They don't see a sweet kid
That loves his little sister
Their mind is seeing five
Hundred years of pictures
In fact, they don't visualize a kid
They see grown man imagery
Mythic masculinity
But, you are not their fetishes or fears
Nor my ambition and tears
Nothing can interfere
We've got to trust our seeds once we sow them
We hold them when they're growing
But we never really own them
We love up on them, play with 'em
Pray for them
And cling very closely to them moments

They say it takes a man to raise a man
You're slipping through my hands
Like grains of sand and here I stand
Tryna wrestle with the hourglass
Maybe see how long I can make an hour last
Raising a man
Who's slipping through my hands
Like grains of sand and her I stand
Tryna wrestle with the hourglass
Maybe see how long I can make an hour last

Dear black son