Youth in Action: …It’s That Capitalistic System

 


… It’s that capitalistic system

Reshad Karboau, 15, is the author of the rap song presented below. He is a member of the San Francisco chapter of Youth for Socialist Action (YSA).

It’s that capitalistic system that never came in contact with reality

So overpowering and towering

Did that to everything

Even the people that labor for it to exist

Cause ain’t nothing would be shit

Unless the masses of people woke up every morning to put in

Eight hours of work every five days of seven

Two days of relaxation are givin

And I don’t know about You

But I sure the hell am trippin

I’m so tired of getting dicked from every position

I be put in

Thats how it be

For every young poor person like me

So try to understand

I want to live in a land

With true equality for all

But that idea just seems to fall

In the system we be in

So try to understand

I want to live in a land

With thirty for forty not forty for thirty

So for the last time try to understand

I want to live in a land where people revolutionize

Cause they realize

That the times are bad but the ways are even worse

I want to hurt

A government, state, or city official

Always serving us with rhymes puzzles and unsolvable enigmas

They try to keep my eyes blind

With my head not able to decide

But it does

And I shine my own light to guide my own way

through these sideway days

Maintaining the focus on which I know this

Whole nation’s a plantation

With the creation of a million waged slaves

They try to maintain that hunger and fear

To stir you all up in the right direction

Because they know you aint able to think right when you be stressin

There aint no one in this nation behind the creation

Of more moves with more domination

Then that mother fucking sucka bill clinton you see

So I dont think you understand

You aint capable with one, with you aint capable with two, you aint capable three to four gats, Uzis, or bazookas in your hand

Of blowing up other countries and making indentation in foreign lands

Like I said aint no one more gangsta gangsta then Mr. Bill Clinton

Or any of them congressmen cause they all gee’s

Droping bombs on Kosovo and overseas on the Iraqian too

Using bombs filled with depleted uranium

and bought to use em on you

Cause really they dont give a fuck

Get in there way there quick drop bombs strap out and buck

Unload a truck full of troops

They trained by running through hoops at the school of the americas

Cause really they’re not caring about who the true enemy be

Concentrated on how to be making and maintaining the cash flow

If you havent been told

The U.S. is in debt

And the bombs that they sent to Kosovo

To kick off the next world war

Probably been paid by credit

At the expensive of all your dollars and cents

But into social security

Paid by people like you and me

Provided by the powers that be

You ask me what I mean by that

I mean it wouldn’t be like that if the powers that be got their caps pulled back

You know im down for all that

But a we got to hit ’em strong got to get’em all

Or else they’ll have us behind bars

With four walls a ceilin and a flow[a floor]

Cause a I know the prisons they build’em to fill’em

With the people retaliating there hating

Thats why they really makem

And a I also know

They ruin that true way of life commercialized that way of greed

Indeed I see it every day at school

One teacher took me to be another mother fuckin´ fool

He used some words basically to say to me

That I won’t ever be shit

Unless I stack a large amount of gripp

So on his face I felt I should place some spit­But didn’t

Came to my senses realized it was all a part of this capitalistic system.

Socialist Action /July 1999

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