[Lyric] The System (Ruckus Aquinas)

To serve and protect
Means more than making arrests
So why are there quotas
Is this how it was
When they dispensed law
In the days of the Wild Wild West
Too much of this trade
More matches catching runaway slaves
Prisons for profit
Today don’t pick cotton
But still demand bodies
By the fistful by the day

Aren’t you here to help
Those who can't protect themselves
So why are you missing
When there is a lynching
Why’s your suspicion
The dead are victims of suicide
Would this story fit
If we were to flip the script
If Titi Gulley
Was as white as a sheet
Would you conclude as quickly
There was no larceny of life
The problem turns out to be
Not good or bad apples individually
It’s the crate and the cart
And the orchard and trees and the roots
Upon which you still keep grafting
Out to the street
You toss the ones who rat out your bad seeds
You teach them to rot
To shoot first not get shot
And keeping the bigots
Won’t complicate keeping the peace

The system is not down
The system is up keeping some of us down