"It's Not For You"

“It's not for you”, the preacher said,
To the hungry child who longed to be fed,
As he stood in front of the pantry door,
Full of food and drink and so much more,
“This is for OUR people, you see,
The ones who fuel our endless greed,
Some things in life are always true,
And this food was never meant for you”

“It's not for you”, said the man in the uniform,
To the refugee, weak and worn
“We built this country from the ground up,
To be here for people just like us,
So grow our crops and harvest our food,
Clean our gutters and hotel rooms,
But some things in life are always true,
And this land was never meant for you”

“It's not for you”, said the man at the country club,
To the lonely beggar seeking grub,
“It's true that we have miles and miles of food,
And I'll tell you it's all mighty good
But this food comes with an entry fee
This land was made not for you, but me,
And some things in life are always true,
That all of this was not made for you”

“It's not for you”, said the man at the voting booth
To the one who came to vote his truth,
“We would not want those who lead us through,
To be voted on by folks like you
So we obstruct, we tax, we gerrymand,
To control the vote throughout the land
And understand that this is true,
That voting rights are not for you”

“It's not for you”, was the bureaucrat's rule
At the entrance to the charter school,
“You'll spend your life digging a ditch,
While we build a better life for the rich,
And you'll often wonder what you could do,
If education were your birthright, too,
You'll learn some things in life are true,
The keys to knowledge are not for you”.

For broken people across the land,
Doors are closed by an invisible hand,
And everytime we try to cross through,
A voice will say “it's not for you”
It's time to tell every political hack,
That we have come to take it back,
And one day maybe the tale will ring true
That they will no more say, “It's not for you”.