America's Caste System Lyrics

I hit a nerve with one of my songs

It has to do with incarceration in the United States

And the inherent racism in our judicial system

And much of our population

I got lucky

There's a lot of people streaming it

Who usually perform hip-hop, old school and new styles of rap

Anytime an old guy like me does something that's accepted by younger

And ultimately cooler people

There's always a dangerous pride that wells up

Setting us up for a fall

I'm all for remaining uncool and unaccepted

So I thought I'd say my piece here

And let the song stand for what it is

Not trying to sway my artistry toward any one political bent

because I'm just a musician, not a political person

I did that for a while and I'm out

So I came from a really racist place

I didn't even know it until I was well into being a teenager

I didn't get my needs met by the white community

Didn't have the support I needed to thrive

So in kind of a cognitive dissonance

I told myself I just didn't fit in

And that place wasn't for me anyway

As I aged, my peers started to show me

Peeks behind the veil of sexism and racism

How the legal system and the Zoning Commission

Kept people just where the leaders wanted them to be

This was not only racial, but applied to certain families as well

There's a real caste system in the South

Much like overseas, we just internalized the judgments

And externalized the mode of controlling the untouchables

Well, as my needs continually were not met

Women eluded me, and having been abused sexually

I was not oriented toward men

I continued on my rejection of the region I'd grown up in

I was not solely into African-American studies

I saw the biggest black leaders of the day

I got to meet Rosa Parks

I heard her speak at the University of Las Vegas in the late 80s

I was more oriented toward the peace movement, though

Homelessness and anti-nuclear civil resistance and actions and such

One of my old cohorts, Vermin Supreme, is still doing his thing

Noam Chomsky stopped writing me, but we were pen pals for years

I think he was put off by my owning guns

But it's a difficult area that my family lives in

We got death threats and vandalism

And I'd target practice and clean my guns outside the front door

You know, posturing

It's just what poor people have to do

I don't think Noam can understand that

He's too fucking intelligent

I've met a lot of really smart guys, but he has been above them all

Maybe he's right. I shouldn't own guns

I'm not that smart, though

I'll kill a motherfucker coming after us

I think you would, too, if you saw my situation

So I'm doing this song, this poem or statement or whatever to clear the air

The truth is I got so many millions, tens of millions of streams

That I'm starting to get contacted by people

It's just a matter of time before people turn on me

Expecting me to be like them

And then try to destroy this fake image I'm not even trying to portray

So this is kind of like a reality check for the rap artists who have accepted me

Lately more than any other block of fans that I've got

Other than the middle-aged European ladies who love the pop stuff

The soccer fans, go Arsenal

I'll talk about rap to level this floor

Because the rap artists are really getting it

At least that one song

I did the Dax song because I thought it was crazy and cool

I can't rap, and that was the first time I tried, ever

Besides reading an Eminem song once to my seven-year-old

She was really impressed at seven years old

I think that's the only time she was ever impressed with anything I've ever done

Anyway, I did pay licensing for the Dax song

I didn't just steal it, and I'm not pretending that I did a good job

It was fun, though

Well, I used rap for a while to feed my body, my soul, whatever

I don't have the relationship with it that other people do

There's no deep affinity with rap music with me

It was just a selfish thing on my part

I was there at the mainstream appearance of rap

I remember Curtis Blow, Jazzy Jeff, and Will Smith, NWA, 2 Live Crew, Run DMC

Back then, those bands were really cool

You wouldn't be able to understand that now

But this time is different from then

They were really cool

Right about the time my daughter was being diagnosed with permanent disabilities

Global disabilities, I used the more violent gangster rap to help my mood

I was making banjos in this little shop far away from my home

And my buddy Zach and I blasted it ten hours a day, every day, for a year

We only lowered the volume when the boss came or the phone rang

I never listened to Tupac

because I saw one of his early battles

I don't know the other guy he was battling, but Snoop Dogg was there

Both of them weren't famous yet

And what they did on stage was just unacceptable to me

I grew up around the fucking Klan

But the venomous hatred and sexism was more offensive than cannibal corpse to me

I turned my back on both of them

I couldn't forgive back then

My own abuse was not allowing me to forgive people

I found out later that they both changed

And I regret my hatred toward those talented men, Tupac and Snoop Dogg

They both made positive marks on the world

My all-time favorite was Ice Cube

I know he sold out

Those first two albums, the third album too

They were as important to me than any albums ever have been

They were full of sexism too, and racial hatred too

Farrakhan was kind of tickling him throughout all of that

I worked myself with some of the Nation of Islam people for a while

They were decent men, upstanding men, at least to your face

I couldn't hang with them, though, from differences between our ideas of favoritism

Ice Cube was the best rapper that ever lived

I took African American studies at the university

And I hung with the rap aficionados who were kind of full of themselves

But they had every rap album and cassette ever made

I heard at least a hundred artists in the mid-90s

They had extensive collections and knowledge bordering on obsession

Bordering on insanity

They lived the music, and they didn't even make the music

Never seen anything like it

Anyway, no one could hold a candle to Ice Cube, in my opinion

Nas, Ice-T, Paris, Chris Parker, Public Enemy, and The Chronic were my go-tos

We didn't feel like white people should rap back then

Maybe we were a bit racist toward whites, but it just wasn't done

That was something the pop musicians mimicked

It wasn't for real fans

Eminem was just funny back then

He wasn't thought of as a real musician

Like Weird Al Yankovic, he was like a novelty

So for a period of time, I used angry gangster rap

To keep me from killing myself, and a few others

When you listen to it non-stop, ten hours a day, though, for a year

It changes you

It's kind of like eating Thai, Mexican, and Indian food only

And then you can't stomach eating anything that doesn't change you

You can't stomach eating anything that doesn't have a kick

All the food is bland if it doesn't have spice

I realized the point of the music wasn't my point

I had stuff that needed to be said, but I was a poor white

Having very little in common with black women and men of the time

My identity had vested in the music, and I could not put it away

I had to destroy all the CDs just to stop listening to it

I have a serious drug problem, too, and it's a similar thing

So that's my big thing

Thirteen years of growing a collection that I burned to break from it

I figured I'd put that out there in the world

I'm not claiming to be smart or fresh or cool

I'm a fucking mess

I'm a fucking mess

I'm just a fat old man

The thing is, though, I really do care

I care about the justice system being seriously flawed

I read The New Jim Crow when it came out

I read Angela Davis before most of you guys were even born

I'm not a powerful man

I'm not smart like Ms. Davis or Chomsky

And I'm not important

I really do care, though

History shows we won't ever love each other fully

We all need our other people, people who are other than ourselves

Someone to give us an identity from their being too different

It's human nature

That doesn't mean I have to hate my race or any other in order to have an identity

The liberals play that game still

They act out a guilt, which is really a form of hatred if you deconstruct it

They create in their minds that they're better off than someone else

So they make all these groups to help the disadvantaged

They do all the defining

There's better ways to bring everyone up together

Fuck it, fuck this

It's going nowhere

I appreciate people who stream my song, Black Inmate

It's brought some money to me, that's appreciated

I care for you as best I can

I like being liked

But there's more going on with me than just that one song

So should you choose to contact me thinking I'm just one way

I'm not going to play that game, sorry

I don't need you as a stepping stone to make me richer or better

Thank you anyway

Especially thank you to the women

I value you

I care for you

But I'm still taken with a family

And in case you're trying to fix me, as I said, I don't do dope anymore

I don't do needles. I don't do meth. I don't even want pot

So I appreciate you

I appreciate it, I really do

But no thanks

And like the nerdy Forrest Gump, to end this all I'll say

And that's all I'm going to say about that