Youth Speaks - Somewhere In America lyrics

Here in America, in every single state, they have a set of standards for every subject A collection of lessons that the teacher's required to teach by the end of the term But the greatest lessons you'll ever teach us will not come from your syllabus The greatest lessons you will ever teach us, you will not even remember You never told us what we weren't allowed to say We just learned how to hold our tongues Now somewhere in America, there is s a child holding a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" and there is a child holding a gun But only one of these things have been banned by their state government And it's not the one that can rip through flesh It's the one that says "f** you" on more pages than one Because we must control what the people say, and how they think And if they want to become the overseer of their own selves, then we'll show them a real one And somewhere in America, there's a child sitting at his mother's computer, reading the homepage of the KKK's website, and that's open to the public But that child will never have read "To k** a Mockingbird" because the school has banned it for it's use of the "N" word Maya Angelou is prohibited because we're not allowed to talk about rape in school We were taught that 'just because something happens, doesn't mean you are to talk about it' They built us brand new shopping malls so that we'll forget where we're really standing On the bones of the Hispanics, on the bones of the slaves, on the bones of the Native Americans, on the bones of those who fought just to speak! Transcontinental Railroad to Japanese Internment Camps There are things missing from our history books But we were taught that it is better to be silent, than to make them uncomfortable Somewhere in America, private school girls search for hours through boutiques, trying to find the prom dress of their dreams While kids on the south side spending hours searching through the 'lost and found' 'cause winter's coming soon and that's the only jacket they have Kids are late to cla** for working the midnight shift They give awards for best attendance, but not for keeping your family off the streets These kids will call your music ghetto, they will tell you you don't talk right Then they'll get in the backseat of a car with all their friends singing ‘ bout how “They're ‘bout that life” and “we can't stop” Somewhere in America, schools are promoting self confidence While they whip out their scales and shout out your body fat percentage in cla** While heftier girls are hiding away, and the slim fit beauties can't help but giggle with pride The preppy kids go thrift shopping ‘cause they think it sounds real fun But we don't ‘cause that's all we got money for ‘Cause momma works for the city, momma only gets paid once a month Somewhere in America, a girl is getting felt up by a grown man on the subway She's still in her school uniform and that's part of the appeal It's hard to run in knee socks and Mary Jane's, and all her male teachers know it too Coaches cover up the star players raping freshmen after the dance Women are k**ed for rejecting dates, but God forbid I bring my girlfriend to prom Girls black out drunk at the after party, take a picture before her wounds wake her How many pixels is your sanity worth? What's a 4.0 to a cold jury? What'd you learn in cla** today? Don't walk fast, don't speak loud, keep your hands to yourself, keep your head down Keep your eyes on your own paper, if you don't know the answer, fill in “C” Always wear earbuds when you ride the bus alone If you feel like someone's following you, pretend you're on the phone A teacher never fails, only you do Every state in America, the greatest lessons, are the ones you don't remember learning