Gil Scott-Heron - Brother lyrics

There are a lot of comments
About who's blacker than
You are, and who's blacker than she is
Blacker than thou
In other words, it's a sort of trend
And, in looking on various
Street corners in Harlem
I'm sure you seen it yourself
Standing on a soapbox on the corner
Is an alleged brother
Dressed in blue and black dashikis or green
Red and black dashikis
And spouting the news that the revolution is
Coming and you'd better get ready
Sorta-like the end of the world is coming
I saw recent commercials that said:
"Unfortunately, the world is just going
To drag on and on" and we have a poem
That we've written particularly
For the brothers on the street corners
And it's called just that, "Brother"
We deal in too many externals, brother
Always afros, handshakes, and dashikis

Never can a man build a
Working structure for black capitalism
Always does the man read Mao or Fanon

I think I know you would-be
Black revolutionaries too well
Standing on a box on a corner
Talking about blowing the white boy away
That's not where it's at, yet, brother

Calling this man an Uncle Tom
And telling this woman to get an afro
But you won't speak to her if
She looks like hell, will you, brother?

Some of us been checking you
Act out kinda close
And by now it's looking kinda shaky
The way you been rushing people
With your super-black bag
Jumping down on some black men with both
Feet because they are after their BA
But you're never around when your
BA is in danger i mean your black ass

I think it was a little too easy for you
To forget that you were
A negro before Malcolm
You drove your white girl through
The village every Friday night
While the grass roots stared in
Envy and drank wine do you remember?

You need get your memory banks organized
Brother show that man you call an Uncle
Tom just where he is wrong
Show that woman that you are
A sincere black man all we need to do is see
You shut up and be black help that woman
Help that man
That's what brothers are for, brother