Personal History

They say I can't go forward if I don't know where I been
But folks act like its an evil sin to ask what happened
To all my kin
The ones whose blood sweat and tears built this
Land we find ourselves living in
Every time I ask it seems to get left out
That I come from a proud, long history
Of freedom-fighters and visionaries,
Only they tell me they were
Trouble-makers and big mouths

They say I can't go forward if I don't know where I been
But folks act like its an evil sin to ask what happened
To all my kin
The ones whose blood sweat and tears built this
Land we find ourselves living in
Every time I ask it seems to get left out
That I come from a proud, long history
Of freedom-fighters and visionaries,
Only they tell me they were
Trouble-makers and big mouths

I want to know the mountains that they cried from
But first there's cold air to pry from
The lungs of these forgotten ancestors
Who's legacy they tried not to tell
Or else they re-sell it at half the price
half the story,
Half the calories,
Half the fat,
What it lacks in veracity
It makes up in creative facts

So I decided to do my own shopping
And put my history on lay-away
make payments to the
New Hampshire Higher Education
Loan Foundation
Found out it was my grandparents,
the sacrificial lambs of this "sweet land of liberty"
And you damned right I sound mad
Pissed off, enojada, enfadada, and angry in the tongue of every
person who built this land where "my fathers died"
and so did yours
of unnatural causes:
starvation,
lynching,
wars,
nuclear waste exposure,
electrocution,
industrial accidents,
lethal injection,
mine collapses,

but lapses in our "nations memory"
means that all we know is that
Lincoln single-handedly freed the slaves with a proclamation
Women got the right to vote by marching around in pretty banners
Workers got the right to an 8 hour day cuz Carnegie was feeling philanthropic
And everyone is equal because Dr. King gave a nice speech

And they tell me to calm down girl,
We have no time to get bogged down in details
People aren't comfortable accepting our past
America was built on a fairytale

But for which America will you stand
The United Bankers of America
And to the Republicans
For which it seems to stand
One nation, under Rockefeller
Easily divisible
with liberty and justice
For all...those who can afford it?


I say I'm pledging allegiance to the flag
Of the United Working Folks of America
And to the equality for which it stands, tall
One nation united
And fighting with
Education and health care for all

And they might call me un-American
But I'm unaffected
By Horatio Alger and Adam Smith
Cuz the miracle of capitalism
Only made the world safe for
Racism, sexism, McCarthyism,
Nationalism, regionalism,
Global-corporatism,
materialism,
me-ism,

Democracy-for-a-fee-ism
i-get-mine-you-get-yours-ism
right-to-pollute-the-land-if-you-own-it-ism
your-vote-doesn't-count-if-the-supreme-court-doesn't-agree-ism
freedom-to-shoot-a-man-more-than-forty-times-for-pulling-out-his-wallet-ism
systematic-socialization-and-justification-of-living-in-a-state-of-misinformation-ism

And I wonder if this is a democracy
Or a demo-on-how-crazy
You think I must be
To accept this as a reality

But I'm an N-Sync song that won't go away
The bad pop song that you can't shake
I'm the funk that you can't fake
the beat you can't break
i'm the history lesson you can't afford to tell
the past you re-shaped, re-told, re-done, and re-sold
the struggle hard fought but hardly won
and I am the promise of a revolution to come