19. Tell a story about the first time your recognized injustice.

100 days of responding to writing prompts

In all honesty, the first time I recognized injustice is when I realized that my older brother letting me watch him play Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Entertainment System was not a special thing but instead a way of not giving me turns to play the game that my mother explicitly said we were meant to share equally. With my much more mature and experienced brain now I can recognize that this is me noticing unfairness and feeling the feelings of injustice, but it was not a violation of my rights as a younger brother.

I’m embarrassed to name that my overall awareness of injustice as a young person was fairly narrow. My mother would sometimes talk about her frustration with feeling over taxed by the IRS and I knew we were fairly poor so I had a vague awareness of socioeconomic class differences. But it wasn’t until I was 14 and I devoured Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut album “Rage Against the Machine” that I had a legitimate awakening to injustice at a societal level. The song “Killing in the Name” made me feel big feelings and also drove my curiosity.

As far back as I can remember I listened to albums with the lyrics and liner notes spread out in front of me. I’m a big lyrics person and I enjoyed reading along with the words of a song as I worked to connect with it. In 1988 I knew every bit of grammatical structure in the lyrics of Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” record thanks to obsessively unfurling the cassette cover to really understand the message behind ‘Straight Up,’ ‘Cold Hearted,’ and of course “Opposites Attract.” Pearl Jam’s “Ten” was the first album I had on CD and the cover unfolded with the lyrics for all the songs on one side a poster of the band on the other. But my social justice awakening was printed on the dust sleeve of “Rage Against the Machine.”

On the cover of the album was a famous graphic photograph of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức committing self-immolation. He set himself on fire and burned to death on June 11, 1963, to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government. I had to look that up in an encyclopedia. In the thanks for inspiration section the band thanked IRA activist Bobby Sands, Black Panther founder Huey P. Newton, and Minor Threat’s frontman Ian MacKaye. I saw those names and did research at the library on each one because I had to know what stories were behind the righteous anger I felt in the music.

And then there’s power of what wasn’t present. Each song had the lyrics except for track 2 – “Killing in the Name.” The dust jacket just had the track title and kept going right to the next song with that song’s lyrics. So my only option was to just listen over and over and over again so I could write the lyrics out myself. –

“ Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses”

I was aware in 1991 that Rodney King was horribly beaten by LAPD officers and I knew that it was bad and wrong. But I absolutely absorbed the story fed to me in my young white body by the media that it was simply a matter of some police officers using excessive force while arresting a criminal. I didn’t know there was a deep history of police violence against Black folks. I didn’t know that modern policing was descended from enforcers of enslaved people. I didn’t know the phrase ‘military-industrial complex.’ I didn’t know that the Ku Klux Klan was still operating or how prevalent newer forms of white nationalism were becoming in the late 80s and early 90s. Initially, I just thought a song that allowed me to shout “fuck you I wont do what you tell me” along with it was pretty cool. But the line,” you justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites” had a way of sticking in my little teenaged brain. And eventually it was this song that helped me start to understand that there wasn’t simply “a few bad apples” on the occasional police force. It wasn’t a long walk from that me to starting to recognize that arresting someone may not mean they deserved to be arrested.

My awareness has only grown and I know a great many white teenage boys who listened to Rage in the 90s have gone an entirely different direction with the way they’ve internalized lessons these days. I have a hard time reconciling someone loving Rage Against the Machine alongside me as a teenager who has gone on to supporting not one but two Donald Trump presidencies but that must exist. What I can honestly say is that RATM played a meaningful role in my waking up to injustice and I still return to their albums to learn but also to allow myself to feel the depths of anger and disgust that bubbles up when I stare too directly into our capitalist systems of harm.

Killing in the Name

Killing in the name of!
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Huh!

Killing in the name of!
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
But now you do what they told ya
Well now you do what they told ya

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites

Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Uggh!

Killing in the name of!
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control (7 times)
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya!

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
Come on!

Yeah! Come on!

Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Motherfucker!
Uggh!