A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
The day Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game
Copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Brothers
There were those, back in 1963-64, who felt Bob Dylan was being too sympathetic towards the "poor white man" who was indoctrinated into the ways of hate, so that he became a powerless, easily- manipulated "pawn in their game".
But look at the way it is.
If anyone believes Dylan did not deserve his Nobel Prize, they should LISTEN to the lyrics of something he wrote more than half a century ago.
These lines are eerily prescient:
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
If this bellowing tyrant actually wins, will the "poor white" ever reap the rewards they have been promised? Well, what do YOU think? Or are these people, like everyone else Trump engages with, merely pawns in his toxic, terrifying game?
It is depressing to me that after all the hard work of the 1960s, things could be even worse, all progress undone and kicked backwards. But how else would an evil man like this have ascended to gain control an entire political party?
"White trash"/ "trailer park trash" - poor whites, mostly men, mostly down South - are being blamed for this frightening ascendency. But is it their fault? Doesn't the rise of this despot indicate the desperation and powerlessness of his supporters?
But if they think Trump is a remedy for all this, they had better guess again.
Trump exists only for himself, and does not give one good goddamn about anyone who does not further his single cause - which is Donald Trump. The day of reckoning is terrifyingly close, and at this point there is absolutely no getting away from it (and I live in Canada!). His win could be the death of democracy as we have known it. I never wanted to write about this! Never. I try not to let this blog get political, because in the best of times I am almost apolitical. But not now, no matter how much I long to be.
And even if the tyrant "loses", will he go away? He will whip up his ignorant forces with even more vehemence, urging his white trash troops onward to ever more heinous acts of violence, while Trump does not sustain so much as a single bruise.
Only a pawn in his game.
