I Can't Breathe

H.E.R.

Heard in

Lyrics

2 credits

Heard in the following movies & tv shows

Black Lightning • s4e6

2018

318

Kung Fu • s1e5

2021

Lyrics

Nah Starting a war, screaming, "Peace" at the same time All the corruption, injustice, the same crimes Always a problem if we do or don't fight And we die, we don't have the same right What is a gun to a man that surrenders? What's it gonna take for someone to defend her? If we all agree that we're equal as people Then why can't we see what is evil? I can't breathe You're taking my life from me I can't breathe Will anyone fight for me? How do we cope when we don't love each other? Where is the hope and the empathy? (Yeah) How do we judge off the color? The structure was made to make us the enemy (yeah) Prayin' for change 'cause the pain makes you tender All of the names you refuse to remember Was somebody's brother, friend Or a son to a mother that's crying, singing I can't breathe You're taking my life from me I can't breathe Will anyone fight for me? (Yeah) Will anyone fight for me? Trying times all the time Destruction of minds, bodies, and human rights Stripped of bloodlines, whipped and confined This is the American pride It's justifying a genocide Romanticizing the theft and bloodshed That made America the land of the free To take a black life, land of the free To bring a gun to a peaceful fight for civil rights You are desensitized to pulling triggers on innocent lives Because that's how we got here in the first place These wounds sink deeper than the bullet Your entitled hands could ever reach Generations and generations of pain, fear, and anxiety Equality is walking without intuition Saying the protector and the killer is wearing the same uniform The revolution is not televised Media perception is forced down the throats of closed minds So it's lies in the headlines And generations of supremacy resulting in your ignorant, privileged eyes We breathe the same and we bleed the same But still, we don't see the same Be thankful we are God-fearing Because we do not seek revenge We seek justice, we are past fear We are fed up eating your shit Because you think your so-called "Black friend" Validates your wokeness and erases your racism That kind of uncomfortable conversation Is too hard for your trust-fund pockets to swallow To swallow the strange fruit hanging from my family tree Because of your audacity To say all men are created equal in the eyes of God But disparage a man based on the color of his skin Do not say you do not see color When you see us, see us We can't breathe