The man is the employer
And the man was usually
A white man
A white employer
The man is a sheriff in Mississippi
The man is a cop in Harlem, white
He could be negro
Because even though he's negro
The man who's the head of his
Police department is
The white man
The white man
The white man
I knew as soon as I said that I shouldn't have
Without explaining it
My father was a number banker
He was a negro man who to survive, hustled
And in the sense of hustling
And a negro man
It means that
Often times if you were educated
And able to get a job
The most menial
And that was all you had to hold
You didn't want to do that
And you didn't want to work for someone
Who had less talent
Less brains than you
So you risked your life
You laid your life down on the line
You were a hustler
You worked with
In many times
Criminal attitudes
It took a lot of guts
And on the one hand
You chose that
Rather than have the man
Make a slave of you
The white man
The white man
The choice wasn't very wide
You could be a whore
Or a cook
Or you could struggle
And be a teacher
But on the whole
In New York
A little corrupt
A little cynical
You were more apt to be a whore
If you couldn't make it
And if you were, you know
A young, cute, negro kid
Than be a teacher
Especially if you hadn't had the education
Of being a teacher
And especially if your parents had no money
To make you anything else
The white man
The white man
The white man
The man
The man
The white man