IfwhiteAmericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart

https://227lears.com/2020/02/01/national-anathema/

The link above goes into detail more than I could ever hope.
Here are the lyrics:

“Next Thursday you’re invited to watch Rising Tide’s live coverage of a gala tribute in salute to Ronald Reagan. Host Haley Barbour joins special guest lady Margaret Thatcher in celebrating the former president’s 83 birthday. Ticket’s are 1000 Dollars a plate but you can see the event free on GOP TV.“ This is taken from a trailer for GOP TV’s “Rising Tide” show, which is promoting an event which is celebrating the successes of former Republican US President Ronald Reagan.

Images of perfection, suntan and napalm
Grenada – Haiti – Poland – Nicaragua
Who shall we choose for our morality
I’m thinking right now of Hollywood tragedy

Big mac: smack: phoenix r: please smile y’all
Cuba, Mexico can’t cauterize our discipline
Your idols speak so much of the abyss
Yet your morals only run as deep as the surface

Cool – groovy – morning – fine
Tipper Gore was a friend of mine
I love a free country
The stars and stripes and an apple for mommy

Conservative say there ain’t no black in the union jack
Democrat say there ain’t enough white in the stars and stripes

Compton – Harlem – a pimp fucked a priest
The white man has just found a new moral saviour
Vital stats – how white was their skin
Unimportant – just another inner-city drive-by thing

Morning – fine – serve your first coffee of the day
Real privilege, it will take your problems all away
Number one – the best – no excuse from me
I am here to serve the moral majority

Cool – groovy – morning – fine
Tipper Gore was a friend of mine
I love a free country
The stars and stripes and an apple for mommy

Zapruder the first to masturbate
The world’s first taste of crucified grace
And we say there’s not enough black in the union jack
And we say there’s too much white in the stars and stripes

Fuck the Brady bill
Fuck the Brady bill
If God made man they say
Sam Colt made him equal

This was taken from the Genius website:

It’s not a completely anti-American song. It compares British imperialism to American consumerism. It’s just trying to explain the confusion I think most people feel about how the most empty culture in the world can dominate in such a total sense.

So said Nicky Wire in a 1994 Melody Maker interview. A strange defence, perhaps, of a song which seems to have nothing positive to say about America. According to “Ifwhiteamerica…”, American culture is vacuous and its disastrous foreign interventions are only matched by its hapless domestic policy. Later, Wire would clarify:

I know people are going to think ‘Yank-bashing’ straightaway, but I don’t want it to be construed as that. I’m not part of this thing that thinks British music is the best and we should all stay in Britain and wave the Union Jack and then things will be great. It’s just that people do bow down to American culture. Sometimes I think I’ve got to make myself like basketball and stuff like that, but I just can’t.

The bulk of the song’s lyrics were written by Wire, but Richey Edwards contributed a few lines. Most notably, the “Zapruder” line bamboozled Wire at first. As usual, the song’s music was arranged by James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Handgun_Violence_Prevention_Act
An Act to provide for a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, and for the establishment of a national instant criminal background check system to be contacted by firearms dealers before the transfer of any firearm.

I enjoyed drawing this picture not sure if the satire hits or exactly what the message is.
Is it that systemic racism is so embedded in our society that the caricature of an authoritarian expertly demonstrated by Cartman from the show South Park is so spot on that the brutality just seems literal.
I’m not sure if I will use this image in my final work it might be too confrontational and exploitative of black trauma.

Created on Procreate and using all the pieces relevant to the theme of the song’s lyrics.
These include the U.S. sanctioned use of torture at Guantanamo Bay, their involvement in Viet Nam, JFK’s assassination, police brutality and freedom of speech exemplified by the moral majority figurehead Tipper Gore.