A polaroid of an academy graduate gets back to my sons
In case I'm killed on the job by people on crack with guns
An old portrait of a young, fresh face in a black uniform gets hung
So my wife won't forget who I was
And that's justice
They leave that part out of "nigger loving" training, or whatever it's called...
"Integrity..." "Implicit bias..." "Complaining..."
They send you into the jungle with a protocol constraining
But they don't care how you get the job done on the years they're not campaigning
They don't care what a cop does
A man defending his country's killed in Afghanistan
And the average man won't even care who the shot was
The shit is a joke
Townsfolk won't care if I croak and they won't care if I take the money of a nigger with coke
I've got to cover my ass in the heat of the smoke
I've got to make a couple moves to make sure I don't go broke
While I clean up their messes
Their stresses in their addresses
So they can shoot the messenger of what the law here expresses
I've done a thousand tours of duty here in the ghettos of Texas
It's hard to rest
At home, I'm on my guard without an armored vest
'Cause when I'm undressed or after arrests, I'm feeling repressed
And that the world's unimpressed with me giving my maximum best
The amount of change I see won't match the amount of heart I invest
Arson and theft, larceny, sex, armed assault with more far-spread effects...
I argue, "What's next?"
No one gets it but a man on my left
Who reads the same streets with a badge on his chest
The street says its on our side from nightfall to dawn while soft-lit
The shield tells the street a good cop protects a cop on and off it...
DID THAT MOTHERFUCKER JUST LAUGH AT ME?