Sell Me Something More Than Snake Oil And Lies

 

They say that pulling down statues

Is rewriting history

As though the sculptors who made them

Were historians

And not some commissioned artist

Doing what he was told

 

Sell me something more than snake oil and lies

 

It is a form of history

Cast in the wealthy viewpoint

From the stance of the privileged

It’s the history of the aggressor

Not the bruised and beaten

Or the downtrodden and defeated

Where an island built prosperity

On the bones and the blood of the black

 

Sell me something more than snake oil and lies

 

If pulling down statues rewrites history

So be it

Take the history books and the propaganda

And write them in truths

Let history tell the tale of what happened

Not what they wanted you to believe

 

Sell me something more than snake oil and lies