"Another Michael"-The Trees
Channel: The Trees
Date: 2014-12-05

"Another Michael" by The Trees

https://soundcloud.com/the-trees-1/another-michael

(((LYRICS)))
Everything talking about a boy named Michael Brown
Trying not to worry about a city burning down
Did he punch that cop? Did he grab his gun? Were his hands up when he died?
A martyr’s life co-opted by the privileged left behind

Hands up/Don’t Shoot

Just last week I’m talking to another big black kid
A ten year old mini version with hands balled into fists
Telling me he’s gonna win the battle with this one
Who yells at him in lunch and line and gets under his skin
He punches walls and shouts right back and tells her what it is
He don’t have much to act upon but this rage is truly his

Hands up/Don’t Shoot

Looked at him right in the eye and he kept staring back
Authority he gave to me, respect he let me keep
In front of me a big dumb kid, in front of him the same
There’s nothing I can say to him that’s going to help or change
The things that he’s already seen and what he’ll surely know
If he don’t die in the next ten years does that mean there’s cause for hope

Hands up/Don’t Shoot

Thought back to some months ago the first time that we met
We talked about how mad he was and what to do with it
He’d heard about these old black dudes, Malcolm X and Dr. King
And what it meant to march for peace and to kill a living thing
And is it wrong to beat a man who spits right in your face
And is it wrong to kill someone for taking up your space
Because he saw this kid Trayvon was killed out in the rain
And Ferguson they killed a dude again and again and again

Hands up/Don’t Shoot

So let me be the quiet one, distant and ever fair?
Or should I be his great white hope, maybe say a worthless prayer?
I told him, Michael, I don’t know, but I cannot lie to you
He told me how he trusted me and what else could he do
Cause when he gets to middle school he’ll be the evil one
And I was scared at his self aware and how it weighed a ton
I blurted out some words that came from fear and honesty
And told him point blank, callously, but he just nodded back at me
“You act this way out in the street they might just gun you down”
And I thought about what I just said and how it made me sound

Hands up/Don’t Shoot

When you said you saw a monster or a demon run you down
You probably didn't stop to think he saw it the other way around
Cause even Hitler was no monster he was just a little man
Who was given all his power by those too blind to understand

And when you are big and you are black how your anger it resounds
Within the fear-soaked trigger fingers stuck in every town
You have to try ten times as hard, with a target on your back,
To show the world your better side when young and big and black