You won’t get it until it happens to you.
Shake your head at the perp being led
from the cop car in cuffs.
Just shrug off the one shot dead.
After all, he deserved it.
Validate the stereotypes of your set.
Identify with your race, your income, your politics.
You won’t get it until it happens to you.
Michael Brown was a thief and a bully,
the video reveals it fully.
Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed
that bully in the middle of the street,
but there’s doubt still
because the bully was unarmed
with his arms raised,
and this was a lethal threat?
Can the police commit murder?
Is it a crime if a cop pulls the trigger?
You won’t get it until it happens to you.

It was cold that night back in ’99,
2AM when the police pulled us over,
four friends ironically
on the way back from a donut run.
Why? I asked the officer.
“You were changing lanes and making u-turns.”
Never got a ticket because
I did nothing illegal.
the cops were rude and I was mad,
then it got bad.
All I said was,“You’ll see me in court.”
They made sure of it.
Made me get out of my car,
searched me like a criminal and sat me,
in the back of a police car.
The big cop gave me a long talk.
“We can pull over anybody we want,
whenever we want.”
I stayed quiet, but it was too late.
They turned the street into a stage that night.
Pulled me from their car,
marched me out but not far.
The younger cop cuffs me in front of my friends,
as the veteran who gave the speech pretends
to find something in his own car.
“Your youth minister’s a doper!”
That’s what he said as he waved his charred baggy
at the young men in my car.
They made two passengers walk home in the cold,
and took me to jail.
For what?
Possession of what
he already had in his possession.
If I that was mine officer,
why didn’t you find it when you searched me?
My life changed after that night:
even though I was innocent,
even though my first ever drug screen was clean,
even though I passed a police polygraph,
even though the DA dismissed the case.
For some people the arrest is enough.
Innocent until proven guilty?
A reputation can be ruined by an accusation.
You won’t get it until it happens to you.
So don’t jump so fast
to your conclusions about Michael Brown,
or Darren Wilson.
Sometimes the “guilty” are not.
Sometimes the good guys are not.
But you won’t get it until it happens to you.
So long as cops get away with murder,
it’s more likely that it’s gonna happen again.
I hope it’s not me.
I hope it’s not to you.
Dirty cops and injustice
don’t justify lawlessness,
or even disrespect for police.
When the crime happens to you,
you know who you’re going to call.
Pray for peace, and justice
in Ferguson, in America.