It takes a Gentleman to deal with the NYPD
And if you’re Black you better have your Hands bound back

We’ve always had problems with the police, cops, bobbies,
Boys in blue, crime fighters, night watchmen, Gulliani soldiers
What was it that makes a man with a gun in his hand off at a boy
Was it the color of his skin, was it the damage within

In his own mind, a world of racism, power and control
On patrol, walking the beat, answering a call
Come a coming, come a come a knocking

In neighborhoods with the drugs, the scrubs
Eye on you, eye on me, eye on everything they see

But this is who we be:
We be brown, black, tall, short, wise, wounded, apprehensive
Proportioned with potential, juvenile delinquent, Afrocentric

We be black businesses, oppressed for centuries
We be Jamaican, Rastafari
We be Bronx, Brooklyn
We be U. S. of A.

It takes a gentleman to deal with the NYPD and if you’re black
You better have your hands behind your back

Police officers doing police duty, every morning, noon and night
They are called upon to save a life, protect a husband from a wife
Charging at him with a knife, is it her life they’ll take, a black woman
A black life, what can’t a policeman with a gun control even if a knife

A black man attempts to kill himself, cops are called to his door
They are met by his family at first, apprehended and brought outside
He is wild and wooly, lectured, handcuffed, put in the back of a patrol car
Tonight he’ll sleep in Bellevue mental ward, locked up for as much as a week

Two men in transitional housing, arguing and threatening each other
One man goes to the police station and reports on his roommate
He is confronted by the cops, before him they stand, a band of blue
Casual gentlemen giving orders, making him obey, closing the door behind

It takes a gentleman to deal with the NYPD and if you’re black
You better have your hands behind your back

We be chic, we be abracadabra, we come from Afrika Bambaataa
We own this, this is the mind under drugs, this is the mind getting off drugs
This is the mind getting off drugs and getting an education

We make use of grade school grammar, mathematics and social studies
We’ll never set foot in your colleges, we’ll marry into institutions

For some of us we law abiding citizens, been through the schools and education
For some of us we have come to America for a better life, a future wife and child

Where are the men with stones, gold chains and freedom, we need them now
We need them now and why do they hide behind the magazines and camera lights
We need them to take a bullet for us, we need them to walk on water for us

It takes a gentleman to deal with the NYPD and if you’re black
You better have your hands behind your back

Did I have to have gone to school when the cops came knocking on my door
‘Cause I had been a fool, took a knife to the air in front of a friend
Did I have to have gone to church when the cops handcuffed me
‘Cause I had gone off my pills and I’d been cussing at my mother
Did I have to have read James Baldwin when the cops questioned me
‘Cause my roommate said I was in on the plan to rob our apartment

Police officers doing police duty, every morning, noon and night
What is it that makes a man with a gun in his hand off at a boy
What is it the color of his skin, was it the damage within

In his own mind, a world of racism, power and control
Please don’t come a coming, don’t come a come a knocking