Prince Ea - I Am NOT Black, You are NOT White. lyrics

I am not Black I mean, that's what the world calls me, but it's not... me I didn't come out of my mother's womb saying, “Hey everybody, I'm... Black.” No, I was taught to be black And you were taught to call me that Along with whatever you call yourself It's just a.... label See, from birth the world force feeds us these.... labels And eventually we all swallow them We digest and accept the labels, never ever doubting them But there's one problem: Labels are not you and labels are not me Labels are just ...labels But who we truly are is not... skin... deep See, when I drive my car, no one would ever confuse the car for.... me Well, when I drive my ....body, why do you confuse me for my... body? It's.... my ....body....get it? Not me Let me break it down See, our bodies are just cars that we operate and drive around The dealership will call society decided to label mine the "black edition," Yours the "Irish" or "White edition" And with no money down, 0% APR, and no test drive We were forced to own these cars for the rest of our lives Forgive me, but I fail to see the logic or pride In defining myself or judging another by the cars we drive Because who we truly are is found inside Listen, I'm not here to tell you how science has concluded that genetically we're all mixed And race in the human species doesn't exist Or how every historian knows that race was invented in the 15th century To divide people from each other and it has worked perfectly... No.... I'm not here to lecture I just want to ask one question Who would you be if the world never gave you a label? Never gave you a box to check Would you be White? Black? Mexican? Asian? Native American? Middle Eastern? Indian? No. We would be one; we would be together No longer living in the error Of calling human beings Black people or White people These labels that will forever blind us from seeing a person for who they are But instead seeing them through the judgmental, prejudicial, artificial filters of who we THINK they are And when you let an artificial label define yourself Then, my friend, you have chosen smallness over greatness and minimized your.... self Confined and divided your .....self from others And it is an undeniable fact that When there is division, there will be conflict And conflict starts wars There-fore every war has started over labels It's always us... versus them So the answer to war, racism, s**ism, and every other -ism Is so simple that every politician has missed it It's the labels... We must rip them off Isn't it funny how no baby is born racist Yet, every baby cries when they hear the cries of another No matter the gender, culture or color Proving that deep down, we were meant to connect and care for each other That is our mission, and that it's not my opinion That is the truth in a world that has sold us fiction Please listen, labels only distort our vision Which is why half of those watching this will dismiss it Or feel resistance and conflicted But, just remember... So did the cater-pillar Before it broke through its shell and became the magnificent bu*terfly Well, these labels are our shells and we must do the same thing So we can finally spread our wings Human beings were not meant to be slapped with labels like groceries at supermarkets DNA cannot be regulated by the FDA We were meant to be free And only until you remove them all And stop living and thinking so small Will we be free to see ourselves and each other for who we....TRULY.... are