Before They Called You White Lyrics - Brother Ali

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 start to Identify with power even though they're powerless 

Identify with wealth even though they're broke? 

It's the invention of whiteness 

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They call you white by white standards 

Damn what they're talking 'bout human 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 twisting 

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 reading 

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're gon' have to find a way to regain your soul 

Photos 

I said the eye can't see itself 

It can't sit back, critique itself, and peep itself 

It needs help 

Take the sword for example 

No matter how hard, it can't carve its own handle 

I said the eye can't see itself 

It can't sit back, critique itself, and peep itself 

It needs help 

Take the sword for example 

No matter how hard, it can't carve its 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