If you don’t take action now
We settle for nothing later
We’ll settle for nothing now
And we’ll settle for nothing later!

I found Rage Against the Machine’s debut album, 20^th anniversary version at my local music store (I understand it came out in 2012). I bought it, immediately,

I was first introduced to RAM(Rage Against the Machine) on MTV, watching the video for Freedom, it had to be the early 90’s. Something struck me. It wasn’t just that the lead singer was screaming but the way he incorporated the scream into the song. It wasn’t random, it grew, and it grew from nothing to deafening. And it wasn’t baseless, it had purpose, literal outcry. The video and song tell the story of the Federal Raid of the Pine Ridge Reservation in the early 70’s, and though it would be 20 years after the release the song the video would become the core of a Thanksgiving Sermon.

One of the reasons I love Rage Against the Machine is that they go further than simple social commentary but send a call to action. It would be years after their initial release and the beginnings of my work as a minister that would bring them to the forefront of my listening life. Rage Against the Machine remind me that the winners control history, and if we are to fight marginalization we may have to embrace basic principles of anarchy. I myself am not an anarchist, I appreciate order, I just get frustrated when that order is skewed so far to the white that oligarchs use crisis as fuel to control the population. If the poor and middle class are pitted against one another, by class, race, gender, religion, or freedom (yeah right) then the top 1% are free to function without question, at least without real question.

There used to be a word in English, accountability. Now when the corporate oligarchs do something unethical they are called before bought men and instead of being brought to justice they are given tribute. They are too big to fail, but down here in Mississippi, we are too small to survive. I am reminded every day that Mississippi is run by stewards, stewards bought and paid for by the Corporate Oligarchy. Before the Civil War Mississippi had one of the highest GDP’s in all of the United States, money made off the backs of slaves. If you visit Natchez you can still go to the site of the biggest auction block in the country. Cemented in the ground are shackles and chains that had been lost to the elements and buried until a work crew found them and cemented them into a large concrete block in the ground.

But sadly as I grew up the injustice didn’t register. I grew up religious, I am religious today but it doesn’t look like it used to. I have learned that to be moral I must also be active. It is Rage Against the Machine that drives me downtown for a march, or a rally. It is Rage Against the Machine that forces me to vote, it is Rage Against the Machine that makes me value justice, even when justice bring me discomfort and pain. I often find myself sitting in rooms full of men and women whose names were recorded on secret Sovereignty Commission lists in Mississippi that date back to 1956, those who were vocal those who fought against the machine that grew strange fruit.

The cover of this album has a Vietnamese Monk burning himself in protest, asking only for religious freedom. RAM reminds us of the cost of activism, the cost of standing for right. It was a religious man on the cover, I am a religious man, I was raised in a faith that called death the ultimate sacrifice but the right one when facing injustice. I don’t know if I have that courage, but it is a courage that has passed through many leaders of the past: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X, Medgar Evers, Mahatma Gandhi, Michael Servetus, John F Kennedy.

I may sound bitter as you read this, but it really isn’t bitterness, it is shame. I live in Mississippi, white privilege helps me on a day to day basis. It is privilege I grew up with. In fact, it was so much a part of my White and Male privilege that I didn’t catch it. I never really noticed my bias’s, toward people of different color, different gender, and religion. I know that even while listening to Rage that I am part of the Machine. I made a lot of changes but change is slow. I sit frequently in rooms with leaders fighting for equality, whether it’s race, gender, orientation, or labor. I try to face rage with peace. I am a pacifist, there is enough violence, there is enough death, without adding anything to it, but even peacefully we can rage against the machine.  I know I stand on the shoulders of all those who came before me and I know that what I reap is what I sow.