Stand and Fight – for Human Life
Carole St. Laurent
Rotary Peace Fellow. Peace Educator. Digital Storyteller. Songwriter. Dreamer.
How can those charged to serve and protect
kill an unarmed man with a knee to the neck?
Why do brown people fear the men in blue
when there is no difference between me and you?
It’s not right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human rights
Why do people living off their last piece of earth
get sold out and silenced as if they’re of no worth?
Who gave away the land of their forefathers?
I won’t profit off of it any longer
It’s not right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human rights
The system’s not broken – it’s totally rigged!
It’s time to give up this exploitative gig
How can 1% of us own all of the rest
with the gap getting wider till there’s nothing left?
It’s not right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human rights
The salt in my chocolate shouldn’t be a child’s tears
The genes in my corn shouldn’t whither next year’s ears
True riches are clean souls, clean air, and clean water
It’s leaving enough fish for our sons and our daughters
If we think the goal is winning, we’ve already lost
If we think that wealth is money, remember the true cost
We can’t restore one life after it is lost
We can’t refreeze one iceberg once it is thawed
It’s not right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human rights
We need justice, equality, shared resources, green ecology
We have to expose corporate greed and ideology
7 billion people on one planet earth
What fair share do you think each one of us is worth?
I won’t pursue a dream that makes someone’s life a nightmare
in a sweatshop earning peanuts for my Nikes or my smartwatch
We’re one global family and I can’t pretend
that the means are justified by selfish ends
It’s not right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human rights
We’re told that’s the way that it has to be
It takes violence to protect your marketed dreams
Then you export “democracy” with lucrative contracts
Guerrilla or freedom fighter? It depends on who’s talking
But violence begets violence in a vicious cycle
I refuse to be complicit in it any longer
And it’s supposed to be obvious but to me it’s unclear
Why I need a big house, SUV, and TV
What I need is a future that is sustainable
And shared with everyone so our dreams are all attainable
That’s what’s right
We see the light
We’ll stand and fight
For human life
Carole St. Laurent
In solidarity with victims of police brutality and racial injustice, with impatient but indefatigable faith that one day no one will understand how skin colour could make a life-and-death difference to North Americans in the 21st century.