Not In My America
It doesn’t do any good to mind your own business,
if you’re black, you’re going to get knocked down.
Makes no difference if a hundred people beg them,
they’re going to keep you pinned to the ground.
A child is ripped away, stolen from his mother’s arms,
and gets forgotten in a cage somewhere.
Lost and alone the young child begins to cry and beg,
but there’s nobody who will even care.
Chorus:
Surely. This is not happening in my America,
all this news just has to be fake.
This does not happen here in my America,
there must be some kind of mistake.
It’s the land of the free in my America,
you can be anything that you want to be.
It’s full of milk and honey in my America,
where everyone has a right to be free.
The white, the black, the red, and brown,
each say they know what equality means.
But each will hold a knife at the throat of the other,
and we can’t agree on a Goddamned thing.
Every person works hard for the money we make,
but it’s not enough to even get by.
The rich folks tell the government puppets what to think,
and we will keep on believing their lies.
Repeat Chorus:
We keep on burning, looting, and pillaging our friends,
while they are busy building street blockades.
People turn their backs toward our American flag,
and take a knee when our anthem is played.
Removing our statues, our memorials, and graves,
if we erase our past, we’re doomed to do it again.
How will we ever figure out where we are headed,
if we don’t even know where we have been.
Repeat Chorus:
Do you remember that American dream,
that we had way back a long time ago?
When fathers still told their children,
work hard to get to where you want to go.
We can’t even come together long enough,
to perform this one single task.
Believing in ourselves and our future,
how can that be too much to ask?
Repeat Chorus:
So go ahead men, women, and children,
keep on looking for that free pass.
If we are not willing to do the hard work,
then our nation will end up in the trash.
(Repeat Chorus and Fade)
Copyright ©
Jerry Brotherton
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