What Made the White Man White - Higher State, EMC, Hermitofthewoods

We love to claim it, our great nation

Post card picture perfect snowy white places

Molson Canadian, beaver tail maple

Tim Horton savoured, hockey skating

Welcome to the celebration, we made a special reservation

For First Nations populations tucked away in isolation

Far away from most Caucasians, silent war of decimation

Out of sight and out of mind of most Canadians

But not the first Canadians, you know

The ones with whom we traded

Gave em small pox and residential education

Starved them on to reservations

Took the land and segregated

Faced racist hatred through a violent assimilation

Government funded experimentation

Housing project degradation

Health care like 3rd world nation

Highest rates of incarceration

Cops drive kids off reservations

Leave em to die in the snow, isolated

Highest rates of suicide and homicide in the nation

I watched my best friend become a prison statistic

His father a survived they schools

But he lost his mother and sister

You don’t think we have a race problem?

This story comes to mind:

On the rez when kids to got ready for church

They were asking «Why?

Who died?î

What made the white man white

Is it his white wash of history or his white lies?

His white picket fence that his privilege designed?

His white pointy cap, fully masked but his eyes?

The colour of the flame that burns a cross in the night?

Wall of the halls where the power resides?

The porcelain of his idol, his white mansion in the sky

Or the white light he’s going to follow so he can take what he likes

We like to say it.

'We're not racist'

Anyone who says so is ignorant and tasteless

Let me kick the basics (You must learn!)

Let it burn

Back in the day when the Church was moved to Rome

White men stole and took control of the throne

They shaped knowledge by consensus to relentlessly ensure

That their power was absolute and forever would endure

The kings and queens of Europe

Sent their ships to spread the word

That their own claims to greatness

Were all rules to be observed

They conquered distant nations

And waged wars against the heathens

That is, any one on earth

Who didn’t believe what they believe in

Empires rose upon the bones of those

From whom the lands were taken

Justified by a book held high, loosely translated

Established a ruling class and created global trade

The engine ran on genocide, but there was money to be made

Generations fade away and the machines just keep on turning

They lead a life of leisure while their fortunes do the earning

Secure in several centuries of social manipulation

That benefited white men in nearly every situation

What made the white man white

Is it his white wash of history or his white lies?

His white picket fence that his privilege designed?

His white pointy cap, fully masked but his eyes?

The colour of the flame that burns a cross in the night?

Wall of the halls where the power resides?

The porcelain of his idol, his white mansion in the sky

Or the white light he’s going to follow so he can take what he likes