Cedric McClester Apr 2015
SINS OF THE PAST
By: Cedric McClester

We’re gonna have to answer
For our nation’s past misdeeds
So calls for reparations
To address present needs
Shouldn’t just be dismissed
Totally out of hand
Clearly there’s a debt owed
Is that so hard to understand

We can’t simply wish
The sins of the past away
We’re gonna havta answer
Sooner or later some day

Our history tells the sad tale
Of countless acts of genocide
Look at the indigenous peoples
And how so many of ‘em died
Then there’s the African
Who was forced into slavery
Robbed of all family ties
As well as their dignity

We can’t simply wish
The sins of the past away
We’re gonna havta answer
Sooner or later some day

How can we just pretend
That none of this ever existed
We need to make amends
For those crimes already listed

We can’t simply wish
The sins of the past away
We’re gonna havta answer
Sooner or later some day

Few want to be confronted
With this kind of ugly truth
But history has recorded
All of the needed proof
So the time for reparations
Long has been past due
And if we were to be honest
We’d own up to it too

We can’t simply wish
The sins of the past away
We’re gonna havta answer
Sooner or later some day

How can we just pretend
That none of this ever existed
We need to make amends
For those crimes already listed

We can’t simply wish
The sins of the past away
We’re gonna havta answer
Sooner or later some day