Safe To Be Me

I don't wanna say the wrong thing

I don't wanna be the wrong thing

Where do I belong when the skin don't feel like home?

Tell me when it's safe to be me

Mulatto, mutt, mixed, half-breed

I've heard it all, but which hat fits?

Where do I go to find the ones like this?

They say love is a drug, can I get that fix?

Is it safe to come out after years of tryna pick a side? I'm livin' with doubt

Hard to be an unknown tryna live here with clout

Saw the world fall apart over race in the South

We are denied not only civil rights, but even human rights

Mama raised me with pride

Not saved 'cause of my race, but, which one is mine

'Cause I thought I was adopted 'til the day I was nine

And that's when I felt like an outsider for the very first time

Folks call me everything but a child of the king

No bubble for my pencil on they S-A-T's

Is he black? Is he a thug? Is he white? Is he rich?

Is he Asian? Is he smart? Is he, what? Oh, he mixed

I don't wanna say the wrong thing (I don't)

I don't wanna be the wrong thing

Where do I belong when the skin don't feel like home?

Tell me when it's safe to be me

If no one can identify me, can they identify with me?

It feels like the truth's a lie when they say that they get me

Ethnically ambiguous, where am I indigenous?

Exotic or hideous, does anyone consider this?

Never ceases to amaze me how people just keep forgettin'

They're not the only ones created in God's image

Unfortunate torture for the kids like me

This oppression still rampant in the land of the free

I don't wanna say the wrong thing, no

I don't wanna be the wrong thing

Where do I belong when the skin don't feel like home?

Tell me when it's safe to be me

Let me be

Don't care what I look like, care what you want me to be

Tryna tell me who I am, but nobody really knows me

I can't breathe

Breakin' all these chains and I'm finally free, oh

I don't wanna say the wrong thing, no

I don't wanna be the wrong thing

Where do I belong when the skin don't feel like home?

Tell me when it's safe to be me

Tell me when it's safe to be me