| Huh
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| And I watched them covet our style, our confidence, natural rhythm
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| Our terms of endearment, but not our struggle
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| And them products of the ghetto, what poverty can produce
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| And oddly enough, we giggled when you mimicked us, sweet revenge
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| Homies not stupid can tell the difference between
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| Admiration and mockery, please
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| So we protected our music because truthfully
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| We thought it was all we had
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| And watched y’all make a killing off it, hip hop to jazz
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| Elvis, to Fats Domino, Patra to Gwen Stefani
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| And the fact them names are foreign that’s just what I’m pointing to
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| You imitated Jamaicans, attempted to grow dreads and
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| Commodified reggae, that’s Marley’s face on everything
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| Your children uses faith as an excuse to smoke weed
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| So we grew angry unaware of God’s plan for rescue
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| But we ain’t know better, got a flawed version of personhood
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| Identifying only by being victims of oppression
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| A true story
|
| And I watched them covet your camaraderie, your sense of family
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| Your food and work ethic, but not your struggle
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| And we were jealous you had a homeland, a native tongue
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| And your parents spoke in it, we were just the offspring of the broken
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| Hopeless, so we all learn Swahili as if we knew we were from that region
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| Silly, we know, but what you supposed to do when all you know
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| Your closest cultural customs are similar to your captors?
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| Huh, pastor?
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| Easier to blame them economic woes on
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| Filth filtering through our borders
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| Immigrant job hoarders
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| We should all just deport them all on one bus
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| It’s stupid us, broad brush
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| We thought you were all Mexican, it’s dumb, I know
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| I’m sorry, it’s embarrassing, forgive us, we were jealous
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| We ain’t know better, selfish, angry, prideful
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| Willie lynching, fighting over the same piece of mud pie
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| Cómo se dice? |
| Lo siento mucho. |
| Por favor
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| We all need grace much more
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| That’s a true story
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| And we coveted your privilege, your generational wealth
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| Your unquestioned personhood, but not your struggle
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| And we felt it wasn’t fair, we wanted your options
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| Your grasp on proper doctrines and literature, it’s silly huh?
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| Your American dream, apple pie, worked for you
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| So we worked for you
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| You made it seem so easy — grit your teeth, you could succeed too
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| We ain’t know your story, shoot we thought white was white
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| Not Irish or Celtic, or the Bolshevik plight
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| Or the pain of bearing stains inherited
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| You said you wasn’t there, it ain’t fair
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| You wouldn’t dare, but we ain’t care
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| But we ain’t know better, you told us you struggle too —
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| Rednecks and trailer parks, me and you are cool
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| I hurt like you
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| But that was fire for the fuel that boiled into them riots
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| Y’all was so confused and truthfully so were we
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| But now we understand we suffered the same stain
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| We gain from a shared ancestor, we all descend from Adam’s sin
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| Riddles every inch of us, but now we see clearly
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| That Crimson Cord is one rope made from many strands
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| And each its own color, but now it clearly stands
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| Dyed the color red from our Savior’s blood shed
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| And a rope finds its strength from multiple lines wrapped
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| Around each other until they’re all perfectly intertwined
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| So let’s just call it even and walk through life knowing
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| That a Three Cord Bond is not easily broken |