A Short History of Racism


Dehumanizing African lives
Rationalizing genocide
Embodied in-law-enshrined in rites
Consuming a nation riddled in lies

It lives in every cop car
Writhes on every cell block
Seeps through Obama’s door
Decimates Iraqi lives

Animates the tea party
Brain-dead proto-fascists
Armed with three bad ideas
But too shameless not to talk shit

Bigotry loves ignorance
Breeds in wells of bitterness
Born to feed the slave trade
Building prisons nowadays

Through the ages great minds observe
That those hurt aren’t always clear
Many see some benefit
In kicking down in ignorance

Frederick Douglass said it best
They divided both to conquer each
Workers of every color and creed
Must build a new insurgency