By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 10 years ago

Lauryn Hill dedicates version of her song “Black Rage” to Ferguson

Lauryn Hill has released a old sketch of her song “Black Rage” in honor of the people of Ferguson. Recorded in her living room, the song is set to the tune of “My Favorite Things.” Check out the lyrics after the jump. 

 

Black rage is founded on two-thirds a person

Rapings and beatings and suffering that worsens,

Black human packages tied up with strings,

Black rage can come from all these kinds of things.

Black rage is founded on blatant denial

Squeezed economics, subsistence survival,

Deafening silence and social control.

Black rage is founded on wounds in the soul!

 

When the dogs bite, when the beatings,

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don’t fear so bad!

 

Black rage is founded: who fed us self hatred

Lies and abuse while we waited and waited?

Spiritual treason, this grid and its cages

Black rage was founded on these kinds of things.

Black rage is founded on draining and draining,

Threatening your freedom to stop your complaining.

Poisoning your water while they say it’s raining,

Then call you mad for complaining, complaining

Old time bureaucracy drugging the youth,

Black rage is founded on blocking the truth!

Murder and crime, compromise and distortion,

Sacrifice, sacrifice, who makes this fortune?

Greed, falsely called progress,

Such human contortion,

Black rage is founded on these kinds of things

 

So when the dog bites

And the ceilings

And I’m feeling mad,

I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don’t fear so bad!

 

Free enterprise, is it myth or illusion?

Forcing you back into purposed confusion.

Black human trafficking or blood transfusion?

Black rage is founded on these kinds of things.

Victims of violence both psyche and body

Life out of context is living ungodly.

Politics, politics

Greed falsely called wealth

Black rage is founded on denial of self!

Black human packages tied in subsistence

Having to justify very existence

Try if you must but you can’t have my soul

Black rage is founded on ungodly control

 

So when the dog bites

And the beatings

And I’m feeling so sad

I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don’t feel so bad!

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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