Criminal

They sat me down
In the big green police chair
With a big green light cornering my soul
They said:
You tell us who s the boogey man, ma am
You point out the Criminal
And they tell me they can tell I m a
First-class, top-notch, jury-duty, law-abiding
Kind of chick
So, I flash my big, bright smile, I say:
Well, I m glad that s what you think
And they hand me a box of composites
Stacked in some kind of alphabetical caste
Where last names don t seem to matter
Goes from A to Black to Blacker
But I m a model-citizen and
Model-citizens don t cause kinks
Yes, I m a model-citizen
So I sit my top-notch ass down to think
In the morning paper, they say:
Those spam-eating spics
Are out to scam your family
Yeah, they ll rob your job
Soak up the last three drops in this
Trickle down, down
Down-under country
Well, while big-business takes its little piggies
To market
By keeping us dependent
The morning paper says:
The Criminal s
The Immigrant
And on the four o clock pop-rock talk show, Joe says:
Yeah, a dyke is easy to spot
She looks like a man, talks like a man, acts like a man, Yeah
But she s sure as hell not
And all the other guests say:
Yeah, Joe, I think she s out to get your woman
And by five o clock, all the other Joe s in America know
The Criminal s
The Lesbian
And on the TV News, it s:
Poor Black Women (colon) The Expert Opinion
And all these white male scholars saying:
Well, she shouldn t have a baby if she can t feed him
But she shouldn t have an abortion either
She should just know better
You see, knowledge is power
Yeah, but power is money and
Money s what matters
And in the New York Times
It s handcuffed protestors in Seattle
And the headline reads:
Angry Activists Start a Battle
And the World Bank Leaders and the WTO
And Disney and Visa and Mansanto
And Goodyear and Texaco
All smile and say:
Sure is nice to own the paper on a day like today!
So, I m sitting in the big, green police chair
With a big, green light cornering my soul
They say:
You tell us who s the boogey man, ma am
You point out the criminal
So I finger the composites stacked in my hand
I flash my big, bright model-citizen smile
I say:
I m sorry Sir
But the criminal
Ain t in this pile