Black America Again - Common

[Verse 1: Common]
Here we go, here, here we go again
Trayvon'll never get to be an older man
Black children, they childhood stole from them
Robbed of our names and our language, stole again
Who stole the soul from black folk?
Same man that stole the land from Chief Black Smoke
And made the whip crackle on our back slow
And made us go through the back door
And raffle black bodies on the slave blocks
Now we slave to the blocks, on 'em we spray shots
Leaving our own to lay in a box
Black mother's stomachs stay in a knot
We kill each other, it's part of the plot
I wish the hating will stop (war)
And the battle with us
I know that Black lives matter and they matter to us
These are the things we gotta discuss
The new plantation, mass incarceration
Instead of educate, they'd rather convict the kids
As dirty as the water in Flint, the system is
Is it a felony or a misdemeanor?
Maria Sharapova making more than Serena
It took Viola Davis to say this
The roles of the help and the gangsters is really all they gave us
We need Avas, Ta-Nehisis, and Cory Bookers
The salt of the Earth to get us off of sugar
And greasy foods
I don't believe the news or radio, stereotypes we refuse
Brainwashed in the cycle to spin
We write our own story, black America again

[Sample: James Brown]
You know... One way of solving a lot of problems that we've got is lettin' a person feel that they're important and a man can't get himself together until he knows who he is and be proud of what and who he is, and where he come from, and where he come from