Member-only story
People are Beginning to Realize Their Hyphen Never Existed
Today’s Revolution, Spoken Through Rage Against the Machine
It’s five lines repeated over five minutes. The interplay of alliteration and repetition shouldn’t work. The juxtaposition of repeated lines in each verse seems untethered. Jumping from each verse seems to make very little sense. Yet, it is a masterpiece in its own right. Killing in the Name is the crescendo and the unifier for oppression and suffering.
The entire piece ethers complacency of a people that are taken advantage of. Of a people blinded to the reality that their instincts ignore: A people accepting that they are not worthy of the rights of the white American.
It’s the realization that the hyphen was never there.
Repetitions of “Now you do what they told ya” along with verses repeating “Some of those that workforces are the same that burn crosses” along with verses repeating “You justify those that died / By wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites”
This is the entire song. It is the interplay of terrorism happening at the hands of those in power while the masses stay put and orderly in the face of legalized, systemic oppression.