Sins Of The Now

I was born with freedoms but we all inherit the baggage All inherit the madness of culture and soul ravaged And there’s only so much that heals with time’s passage And anyway I’d rather take action than an adage Blending in with the sharks that I’m swimming with Learned to play nice with the great whites Raising civil kids who can’t seem to recognize privilege And my mission is I’m just trying to build a bridge With my sisters and brothers of other colors With the promise of being free and unencumbered They throw us shade in the day And out the lights when the sun is under Forcing us to come in numbers So now there’s riots for rights, minors are dying tonight Coolies’ american dreams are featuring China at night Some came to work for a living, some didn’t have any choice And now they’re dying in a country that denies them a voice And they all have families, and those families live on Still proud to be from ‘round here though they’ve got to wake up at dawn To start a ten mile walk or lay in back of a truck To get to work at a job that doesn’t pay them enough And then on top being told that they don’t belong any places ‘Cause every color that isn’t beige needs qualifications Saying Latin-American African-American Asian-American To people who’ve never set foot outside the nation Don’t get me started on Native American Look up the actual dictionary definition of "native" Verses that I’m killing like they did defenseless children Whether smallpox or slaughter, taking these lives by the millions And now they’re scared of a foreigner who’s not even a foreigner Makes me want to do some shit - somebody call in the coroner Someone sail in a ship, pull it up to the coast Start naming states and provinces, start turning people to ghosts Put a flag in the ground, spread some deadly disease Put the locals to war, get them down on their knees And when they’re dead from the sickness or finished fighting your battles Then corral them like cattle, also kill all the cattle Burn down the lifestyle and culture Even the forest, ignite it This is manifest destiny, I can dream, I can write it Let all us modern day North Americans see how we like it Sins of the now I’m still dreaming I haven’t lost that feeling But I need something more to believe in Need something more to believe in I’m still dreaming About a light down the road I’ve been seeing But I need something more to believe in Need something more to believe From other tyrants’ smoke, we were taking cover Searching high and low for a paper mother Trying to sow the seeds of a new life in China Cove Inscribing poems on the walls of barracks disguised as homes Clipped their wings and they called it Angel Island Though why would we fly any closer to a coast of violence With no rights to testify against whites Barred from business licenses and real estate rights A lot of colonies had salient convictions The UK label was “aliens restriction" Mother maple had a head tax fail us An Aussie policy literally called "White Australia" Six decades of a Chinese Exclusion Act Had a president executive producing that And 442 came home from war to prove They were fighting for some brutes still trying to shoot a Jap And today you’re still afraid and worrying Another pioneer is gonna come and take your work again They’ve got entire police forces murdering NY or Chi-town, LA to Ferguson Now calling for cameras on coppers And not the kind in the coffers Demanding justice and progress When only suffering’s on offer Killer in public he’s pious Tone down from bigot to bias But in his words and his actions That’s where his prejudice highest They make us work for equality Make us slave for equality Yeah it’s kind of ironic We have to pay for these policies with our lives And nobody asking are we ok Just years of impotent pronouncements from the DOJ So now we’re brown nosers blowing your white tissue Can’t hack a race issue? Then take a rights issue You say it’s challenging, yeah man I’m right with you ‘Cause we’re both in this for life, let the rice hit you This is a matrimony, it’s indivisible But you try to make individuals invisible You don’t see black and yellow, so now we’re seeing red And I hate it, don’t want to see anymore people dead On either side, I don’t want there to be a side to block It’s up to all of us together, only we decide to stop Sins of the now I’m still dreaming I haven’t lost that feeling But I need something more to believe in Give me something more to believe in I’m still dreaming (Martin had a dream) About a light down the road I’ve been seeing Give me something more to believe in Give me something more, something more It’s been futile since before the feudal Wealth and potential never distributed to the communal Every system has controls And every hand has callouses Some from the power they hold Flogging every message that we might send Every speech never speaks to the right gents No ears for the destitute Why’s every oppressor surprised somebody’s ready to fight them? This hollow struggle for change To see a slight bend rather than a break from status With every night spent laboring To give women and people of color the right To vote for a selection of white men It’s not my dream to be livid, delivering diatribes Can’t repair these relations, we’ll live and die a tribe But still I’m calling for progress ‘Cause even crawling is honestly faster Than waiting for kings to develop a conscience Keep making promises to all of the so-called godless While building nations on a history of violence and conquest So we’ll be scaling the fortress, we’ll be fighting the office And we’ll brandish the truth, though we might not be the strongest Bring your army and I’ll bring my heart Sling your arrows, I’ll be using them to etch my art You may have trampled us over, you may have knocked us down But there’s a harmony within us that will always resound It’s not a fight to be victors, it’s not a grab at the crown It’s a dream of unity even when we’re kicked to the ground ‘Cause even though I have anger my love is limitless loud And the longer it lasts, it grows ever closer the clouds Stronger than animosity, that’s why I’m finishing proud ‘Cause I have learned from every corner of a menacing crowd We all deserve respect and peace, put your enmity down The songs that I blast, you can’t diminish the sound History marches and I don’t fight for the wrongs of the past But the sins of the now We’re bringing them down So sing with me now I’m still dreaming (Martin had a dream) I haven’t lost that feeling But I need something more to believe in Give me something more to believe in I’m still dreaming About a light down the road I’ve been seeing Give me something more to believe in