Once upon a time, in America,
The Indian settled the wild frontier.
Until the white man appeared with his guns,
And took land that did not belong to him.
They were confined to the reservations,
While the white man built his cities and towns
On the plains where they’d hunted buffalo,
And the rivers where they once built their homes.
Now those cities rise up to pierce the sky,
While the towns are polluting the rivers.
Citizens have the right to purchase land,
And upon this property homes are built.
We’ve prospered for over a hundred years,
Reaping the spoils of land we did not earn.
Today a shadow falls upon that land,
The looming threat of eminent domain.
It gives the government the legal right
To force you to give up your happy home.
If a city government finds a cause
To generate more local revenue,
They’ll force you to sell what you have worked for,
And pay you only what they think is fair.
So if they want to build a shopping mall,
A freeway, airport, or a city zoo;
If your home happens to be in their way,
Just take their offer and be on your way.
Through eminent domain they have that right,
Though I don’t remember voting for it.
But revenue doesn’t care about rights,
And government represents government.
The people have no representatives,
And we have no one to blame but ourselves.
While we’ve been fighting over politics,
Divided by partisan perspectives,
We have not been united in this land.
Our rights slip farther away, day by day.
We are oblivious to their passing.
And in the time it took to read this piece,
Another home has been forced to be sold.
In this way, we’ve nearly come full circle.
How does it feel to be the Indian?
