I’m colored, black more specifically
And this world. It’s made my skin more interesting.
“I can’t breathe” “It wasn’t me” “I’m supposed to be free”
“When can I leave.” This is wrong, but you don’t see that it’s affecting me.
You just look at me, because supposedly I act differently.
Yeah, that’s right, you think that my skin is the thing that defines me.
You don’t have to say it, the world said it for you. Nice and Loud.
And we all get it, you don’t want the “outsider” joining your crowd.
But what makes me different? Because my skin is a different pigment.
Or because of my descent, because we were “savages” says all your “facts” given
No, that doesn’t work, because I don’t pull you over when you blush.
Or when you get angry and walk away, I don’t pull out a gun.
I don’t accuse you because you look like someone else
And I don’t have to prove to you that I am being myself
I don’t want your validation on anything at all.
And I certainly don’t wanna be on the street, running from you, risking it all.
I’m 13, man, I don’t need this.
This type of life, I was born into a world that thinks I’m committing treason
Because somehow my skin hurts the world, or at least that’s your reason
Martin Luther King Jr., he had a dream that assassinated him, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee
Harriet Tubman, saved many, years later when she passed, she still saved me
Malcolm X, minister and advocate, died in 1965 but his work lives free.
So what about me?
What will my legacy be
Will I have one, or will the world take over me
Will I teach people so they have a chance to be free
Or will I be taken by those who despise and are afraid of who I can be
Of who we can become, who we can be right now
Will the world take away all the things they found
People I mean, not things, were human beings
Or will they think that were winning and run us out of town
Either way, I’m here to see and I’m alive living it
Whether you like it or not, I’m the one feeling it
I don’t show but I feel like I have to hide though I didn’t do it
Guilty ones feel like this a little, but imagine all the innocents
It’s scarier, because we don’t say this out loud to the cameras
We hide and get by, so we can try to live with the glamorous
But we can’t, cause of a gene, a place, but we try
Because there’s people in this nation that want it, so they rise
And I rise too, with my people, with my crew
When I have an army behind me, we shouldn’t lose
But don’t stand and be rude or too loud, then you’ll lack
But let’s be honest, this is a lot to take in
But imagine how it feels when you’re the one who’s truly black.
