Baby, I’m the white man
and I just don’t give a damn.
I killed your people and took the land.
And it’s all going according to plan.
Why was I born with this curse?

If nothing else, let’s not sugarcoat.
I’m the one that put you on that boat.
I’m the one that locked your chains.
I’m the one that gave you that name.
It’s so simple, don’t you see?
Run it through my ancestry.
Oh God, I’ve got to feed the need,
Anger, Foolishness, and Greed.
And if you think that memory is faded,
then I doubt you’re the one I’m denigrating,
for this denial and self-hatred,
is everything I created.

Good luck getting me to understand
why I can’t wash this blood from my hands.

You know I wrote that constitution,
the so-called American revolution.
All are equal in the eyes of God;
just ask the slaves in my backyard.
Too bad you can’t just wish it away.
A few generations cannot escape
being founded on murder, torture, and rape.
That’s what made your country great.
See, privilege isn’t just what you’ve got,
or not getting popped
when you’re stopped by a cop.
The difference is, who advances the plot?
You have to do it, and I can simply not, because…

I don’t sing the blues for what I lose.
That’s just a song I stole that I call rock n’ roll.
Circling your culture like a vulture.

Ever since the beginning of time,
I’ve been keeping down the womankind.
Must be some inferiority
that I need someone to belong to me.
Come here, girl, won’t you be my object.
I’ll dress you up for my pet project.
Keep you deprived so that you need me,
smile and sex and clean and feed me.
So twisted in my sense of worth,
my very concept of life perverts
when I can’t love the ones that gave me birth,
what you think I’m gonna do to Mother Earth?

Watch you strip so you can earn my big tip.
You think that disrespect does not connect?
It’s like when I kill the soil to drill for the oil.

You can’t circumvent cause and effect.
Columbus would’ve been better shipwrecked.
The land and the leaders and the people reflect
the history so what did you really expect?
White Man’s Burden and the Trail of Tears.
Round ‘em up with the gays and queers.
Multiply that by five hundred years
and you’re left with the sound
ringing in your ears;
the sound of two atomic bombs,
the sound of napalm in Vietnam,
of every usurped government gone wrong
and the refugee asking you
where you’re from, tell ‘em….

I put the white in the Red, White, and Blue.
If you’re not careful you might become one too.

So what’s the oppressor’s dog in this fight?
Like, I hear him, but this man is still white,
and you’re right,
but this song is all I have left.
I’m hollowed out, spiritually bereft.
Look in my eyes, I’m trying to get back my soul.
Check my pulse, I want to make my heart full.
Observe my mind, I’m trying to regain control.
It’s gonna take a long time
to get back what I stole.

Quicksand, falling fast.
Look at where you’re at
if you want to know the past.
The last will be first and the first will be last,
but I can’t remember now, who said that?
It’s the only way to save the nation,
revolutionize the education,
so every white kid from preschool to college
can grow up to truly acknowledge…

The whole foundation was built on sand.
A cracker is because he’s bland.
Oh please, don’t let this be who I am.
Baby, I’m the white man.
Why was I born with this curse?