Lyrics For Tea and Autonomy - 137

For Tea and Autonomy

Where were you when we saw a black body
Dying upon the floor
Seems that you have more sympathy
For that TV lifted from the store
Put in chains for the sake of textiles
Living in a homegrown exile
What do you think existence
Of centuries of division
Has done to a culture’s intent
Conformity and no dissent
Waged war for the sake of tea and autonomy
Telling me this is different
Profiled from my own first birthday
Told me what to say and told me what to wear
Even when I went to the church to pray
Saw a white man on the cross, no truth there
Pulled over for the sake of a quota
'Cause they feel we won’t fight the order
Getting strikes on minor infractions
Then they’ll use that to justify actions
«See, he had a record
Man, all you blacks sound like a broken record»
You want for us to accept a system
Rejecting us for centuries
Man, it seems that even epistemologically
You want us all on our knees
Don’t you find it funny
Many telling us oppression isn’t real are profiting
Off grandpa’s bloody money
Imagine rejecting idea that you killed the colony
While hands are still sticky from siphoning the golden honey
Starting from the protests
To the hierarchies that we invest
Manifest in all the doll tests
Lots to contest
In this chum fest
Brace for the sharks in a nice vest
Culpability’s a heavy crown
Power never seeks to wear it
You’ll wear the frown if they have to bear it
I don’t think it’s easy to pick yourself up by bootstraps
When all of your enemies are bragging 'bout their new straps
Or the barneys in the paddy-wagons looking at you different 'cause your food
stamps
Dark alley because of broke' lamps
Not tryna be another Killmonger
Or fearmonger
Just tryna live longer
And find answer
For the bulk of race violence
And all violence
And I’m finding one thing
It’s not silence
Hard to believe that you’re fighting for my liberty
When you do put a knee to the neck of your citizenry
Having the mange and the fleas
So you redefined the pedigree
Live in anonymity
We’re dead with no lividity
Iceberg’s tip
Here’s a Q-Tip
To clear out ears
And how years of whips and tears
Won’t merely fade away like all your new frontiers
History’s the slaver
Complacency’s the chains
Teaching kids 'bout tyranny
Whilst tying their bits to conformity’s reins
Irony seeded so deep in their brains
But I’m insane