South Africa

Everybody uses black and white
To try to draw the line between wrong and right
But if you use your eyes to really see
You know we don't see realistically

Because skin that's white is really pink
So either you can't see or I can't think
Because skin that's black is really brown
But that don't make the world go round

Now to put a color on skin to me is a sin
That's why apartheid must never win
We must put an end to this my friend
And should never be allowed to happen again

It's time to wake up and do some good
To try to see each other the way we should
Because looking at the people I sometimes find
That Sun City is in the mind

[Gil Scott Heron]
I was just watching the TV the other night
The [?] should appear but you know
Walter Cronkite said the Blues
And it came to me how much of our vocabulary we seem to get TV now a days
Calling things whatever they call 'em even if they collect
First thing that came to me was like *third world* you know?
Like, if you ask someone from here like, where is the *third world*
They might say "Oh yah man, I know I know, it's the disco
You go about three blocks then take a left"
Or they might tell you the *third world* is a new health food restaurant
I know the first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East
I thought they was talking about Pittsburg
Let me see your I.D
Let me see your I.D

Let's get down to the real nitty gritty
Talk about the crimes in Sun City
Let's get down to the real nitty gritty
And talk about the crimes in Sun City

A city of diamond, a city of gold
A city of sorrows with horrors untold
But even the should be able to tell
Sun City, a charade for hell

It’s a death
Called genocide
People dying to a [?]
Called apartheid

South Africa, starvation right here
Politicians and leaders living in fear
South Africa, from coast to coast
Colored people got the least, white people got the most

[Gil Scott Heron]
The way *casualties* comes up a lot
And then South Africa
They seem to make it feel like theres a battle against - between isms going on
Between one good ism an done bad ism
But what they’re talking about is nightly
South Africans die, *casualties*
There were eight more *casualties* in South Africa
Nothing *casual* about dying
Nothing *casual* about standing for freedom
My grandmother used to say
“if you don’t stand something, you will go for anything”
We stand against apartheid
Stand against apartheid
Let me see your I.D
Let me see your I.D

Well we’re sick and tired of what we heard
The apartheid is quite absurd
Prejudice is the reason people have died
Yes, prejudice stands for apartheid

So we all get together to lend a hand
To bring people to peace all across the land
We gots that running [?]
And all this [?] has got to stop

[Gil Scott Heron]
I had never met anyone from Southern Africa ’til I started going to school
I was going to Lincoln University down in Pennsylvania
There was South African refugee students there who uh uh
Many of them were athletes who started to compare experiences
And they were telling me that when you walk around in South Africa
You gotta carry this little black book with you
Tells everyone whether you’re supposed to be in a given area or not
Damn thats about like my life ‘cause I got to do that when I go Philly

Let me see your I.D

Yah-yah-yah-yah-yah
Yah-yah-yah-yah-yah
We are waiting for the day
That how we feel today
Some people say
That’s a [?] race
Some people say
That’s a [?] race
Some people say
That’s a negro race

We don’t believe
In a [?] race
All we know
Is the human race
We all say (We all say)
Remember them today

There will be a time
When apartheid’s a crime
And the color factor won’t bother the mind
When majority rules against the fools
And all those who oppose will become uncool

I’m talkin’ ‘bout a place they call Sun City
The Vegas in the desert
In a town without pity
South Africa
Yes the motherland
There are no human rights for the Africans
‘Cause Sun City’s bright lights
Mow down their rights
And ain’t nothing else to do but stand up and fight (fight)
If I ruled the world and was king on the throne
I’d stop this mess and [?]

[Gil Scott Heron]
Just need to think about it
I ain’t going to Sun City
If-if somehow by the South African government
Sun City is described as though it’s somewhere else
Not connected to South Africa or apartheid
Like someone in Manhattan trying to describe the Bronx to you as another country
As though it is no longer connected to New York

Let me see your I.D

That it’s all in your conscious
It’s all in your minds
Let’s all lend a hand
To fight against apartheid
South Africa must be free

Quality of justice
The peoples’ liberty
So for no money
I will never play Sun City

USA
We won’t pay

[Gold Scott Heron]
Other than that
I was watching TV again
And I seen this [?] that’d been a representative of the American people over there in South Africa
Over there taking a [?] from some body
Somebody in here said, “Hey what about the separation between church and state”
I said, “Especially *this* church and *that* state”
We stand against apartheid
Stand against apartheid

Let me see your I.D
Let me see your I.D

Yeah
Politicians think they [?] by shaking your hand
And then their hold your back as much as they can
They try to keep you weak from getting strong
Because they know if they’re strong you’re gonna change what’s wrong

Ban my voice
Ban it now
Like Stevie Wonder ima speak out loud
‘Cause where you live is where you stand
And you shouldn’t get chased by any man
Even if they got a stick in their hand
It still don’t mean they in command

We’re the Three Fat Boys
And we’re here to sing
We’re gonna stop apartheid
In our own way

[Scat]

South Africa
South Africa