Colour Line

Today, the color line is the power line, is the poverty line

Racism and imperialism work in tandem
And poverty is their handmaid

Those who are poor and powerless to break out of their poverty
Are also those who by and large are non-white, non-western, third world
Poverty and powerlessness are intertwined in color, in race
Discrimination and exploitation feed into each other today
Under global capitalism

We are back to primitive accumulation, plunder on a world scale
Only this time, the pillage is accompanied by aid
Sustained by expert advice and underpinned by programmes
And policies that perpetuate dependency

The IMF, the world bank, structural adjustment programmes
General agreement on tariffs and trade, gatt
Are just a few of the organizations, schemes, projects
Which under the guise of developing the third world, plunder it

Trade agreements and commodity price-fixing
Patents and intellectual property rights
They lock them into paralytic dependency

There is no such thing as illegal immigrants
Only illegal governments

Black is not just the color of our skins
It's this color of our politics

There is no such thing as illegal immigrants
Only illegal governments

Today, the color line is the power line, is the poverty line