The Arc Bent Backward
A reckoning with the myth of inevitable progress and a warning that justice does not move unless we move it.
I created three songs for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the first of which was Silence Is Violence. This is the second, envisioning how MLK might view us now, were he alive. (And, you know, the fact that I don’t want to link to anything from the federal goverment because I can’t trust it to be historically accurate really speaks volumes of where we’re at.)
Lyrics
I said the arc of the moral universe is long
But it bends toward justice; I was wrong
Or maybe just too hopeful, too naive to see
That arc can bend backwards into catastrophe
We marched from Selma’s bridge, we bled for voting rights
Now you purge the voter rolls and close the polls at night
In neighborhoods where Black and brown must wait in longer lines
Tell me how we’re bending toward justice this time
The arc bent backwards, we’re losing ground
Every right we won, you’re tearing down
The arc bent backwards, can you hear the sound?
Of freedom’s footsteps in reverse, of chains being bound
We integrated schools through court-ordered mandate
Now you’ve got segregation by zip code and real estate
School-to-prison pipeline, just slavery with new clothes
Mass incarceration for the crimes that poverty imposes
I died for the Poor People’s Campaign, for economic rights
You gave tax cuts to billionaires and left the poor to fight
Among themselves for scraps while billionaires hoard their wealth
The arc bent backwards into a new Gilded Age itself
We won hard-won battles against separate but equal’s lie
Now you’re bringing back the segregation, just with different battle cry
“Border security,” “law and order,” “making us safe again”;
The same excuses segregationists used back then
We fought to end the wars, to bring the soldiers home
You militarize the border and the police everywhere you roam
Weapons of war in the streets, used against your own
The arc bent backwards into a military zone
I preached nonviolence as the weapon of the strong
You meet peaceful protest with tear gas and batons
Pardon those who storm the Capitol to overturn the vote
While felonizing refugees and letting justice go
The arc bent backwards, can’t you see?
We’re marching toward the past, away from being free
The arc bent backwards; history repeats
When we forget that freedom’s not complete
Until the last of us are free
But arcs can bend again if we apply the weight
Of moral courage, mass resistance before it’s too late
The universe is long, but we don’t have all time
To stop this backwards slide, this regression into crime
Against humanity itself. The arc is ours to bend
The question is: how does this story end?