Model Minority (feat. Dante Basco & Neela)

In our wallets they're thinkin we got commas
Really in back pockets we're carrying deep traumas
Hang-tied us, by our own trousers
Seen as outsiders, they used to red-line us
Time called us "out-whiting the white" scholars
Drove a divide between us and our Black brothers
You got admitted to dominant white college?
Still you ain't valid for most of them white collars
Southeast Asian dark cousins
Drive down the streets, police radio buzzin
Gaslighted to thinkin we made progress
Still they killed Christian Hall and said nothin (Shh)
Not a model, not a monolith, ay
Not a pawn for your politics, nah
Learned from Gandhi and Dr King
If the system don't bring peace we must abolish it, yea

If you only knew
Walk a mile in our shoes
If you only knew
We're not so different from you
We're not invisible people

I'm sick of people believing that we got privilege
And we're passing as white
When that's a myth they fabricated to combat civil rights
Pit us against the Black and Brown, a means to divide
And dehumanize, like
"See them chinks? They doing fine!"
Just to justify their various slurs
Model Minority is not a portrait, it's an Asian caricature
To lump us together is parody work
Before you call us wealthy
Let's talk about our income disparity first
They're lying, claiming that we're white-adjacent
Then why do racists say "Ching Chong"
Slant their eyes at Asians?
Bamboo ceiling blocking high positions, higher wages
They hired us centuries ago for only migrant labor
My guy, they hate us
From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Hart-Cellar Act
Where they let us in to be pawns only part of their trap
Silence our issues like "It's in the past!"
We ain't got no political power or media coverage
Where's the privilege in that?

If you only knew
Walk a mile in our shoes
If you only knew
We're not so different from you
We're not invisible people

Model minority
Got people ignoring me, me
Me and my community
And just because some of us found success
Does not mean we do not know that we are being oppressed
Oppressed... see some of us have been here for generations
Others, childrens of immigrants
And even others still immigrants themselves
We struggle with our own histories of American colonialism
Yet we stand by our Black brothers and sisters
Because we share the pain, and we say your names
Vicha Ratanapakdee, Noel Quintana, Delaina Ashley Yaun
Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, and so many others
Rest in peace
This is not a privilege
This is not political
We are America
And we will never again be invisible
Never again be invisible

We're not invisible people