I’m climbing over these broken down walls

I’m watchin as new roads

Are being built to new prisons

Schools doors are closing

Cells are opening

You’re standing there with a long blank stare

Wonderin why

We’re fightin for tomorrow

And livin for today

Why we’re standing here

Fightin for change

We need YOU

My soldiers of the revolution

Don’t be discouraged

We’re not fightin for nothing

Its nation wide change

Everyday,

I wake up to the same old story

Holdin my books,

Walkin to school

Metal detectors

Awaiting me to do my run through

“Put the bag down”

“Place it through the scanner”

“Now take a step forward”

Yep

This is the

Downgrading

Juvenile

Incriminating

Story of my life

3 green, 1 red

Uh-oh, uh-oh

Time to get scanned

Damn,

I got the cops in schools

Cops in the streets

When will I ever get peace

See,

I remember the days

When we walked the halls without fear

With out fear if

Today was the day that an SSA

Would slap on the cuffs

And permanently keep me in the police scene

The men in blue

The biggest gang in this city

Is the NYPD

Lockin us up left and right

Sentences that last until the end of time

While half the time

Punishments don’t fit the crime

We’re beaten with batons

We’re shot at with guns

And I can’t express my right to bare arms

So I have to fight with bare palms

Forced to take the load

Forced to take the blows

If po’po don’t make their quote of the day

We’re turned around

Kicked in the ass

And told to have a nice day

We’re forced to be protected by the ones we hate

Forced to be inferior like dogs in a cage

If you open up your eyes

And take a good look

Soon you’ll come to see

That we’re prisoners and fugitives of the state

As if it ain’t enough

That we livin in a world that hates,

That belittles,

In a world that

Separates race from race

Now we gotta think about

Losin our hood,

The block,

Our culture

To these gringos who can afford more

We suffer with high rent as it is

Only to deal with

Rats, roaches, and other infestations

And now that everythings chanin

We’re booted out

Cause we don’t meet their expectations

You say the neighborhoods are comin up

They’re getting betta

But do you understand

The man’s great master plan

How many of us our middle class

How many of us will grovel

Become beggers in the street

Because the rent goes up and,

Mommy and daddy can’t make ends meet

Did you actually think

That we were here to stay?

That we would be given a chance

To my fallen revolutionaries

To my revolutionary

Brothers and sisters in this room

This is why we fight,

This is why we’re standin here

Breakin our backs for change

It’s time to take a stand and say

“No longer will the black,

The brown,

The oppressed

Continue to take the blame

Every time a kid goes postal in the suburbs”

“No longer will we pay the price

For their past mistakes”

“No longer will we allow

To a means of entertainment”

“No longer will we allow

This epidemic to continue,

It’s over,

It end here,

It ends now”