Law enforcement agencies, such as the police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have held an established history in the formation of our nation. From humble origins as slave patrols to their modern brave behavior, such as brutalizing children using their freedom of speech last weekend, these groups of proud heroes march with bullets and buzzcuts to let us know that 40% of them are involved in marital abuse. From Minnesota to Los Angeles, we wait with held breath to see what they will do for any sense of authority, racial supremacy, and the acceptance of their deputy gangs.

The band Rage Against the Machine knew all of this when they formed in 1991. Especially since their lead guitarist, Tom Morello, has a degree in political science from Harvard. They were not rabble screaming into microphones; they were well-informed artists screaming into microphones. In 1992, after the beating of Rodney King was captured on tape and the police were acquitted, they produced their most popular song, “Killing in the Name.”

Although the song is not lyrically articulate, the few repeated lines are delivered with radical intensity. Rage Against the Machine holds no bars with their message, implying that police forces consist of people who have the same ideology as members of the Ku Klux Klan:

“Some of those who work forces / are the same who burn crosses.”

In 2006, the FBI released a document labeled White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement. This document detailed the shocking fact that this is a conscious effort for these groups to enter positions of authority, but worse is the lack of response to weed these bad actors out.

Gangs consisting of police since the 70s, made an effort to either target minorities, deal in drugs, theft, corruption, and even executions of citizens. There is a specific gang in Lynwood called “Lynwood Vikings,” whose identity revolves around racial superiority, in a marriage of both ideologies. It makes sense why Zack de la Rocha sings so impassionedly about telling it how it is:

“You justify those who died by wearing the badge / they’re the chosen whites.”

However, in his distress, there is a solution. In the last verses of the song, the lyrics get expletive in order to stress the one tool we can use against these oppressors. It is in disobedience that progress can be made.

It was people such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks who took the first steps for their causes by protest or sit-in, in order to display the need for change. But, in times where those in power are actively working against you, it is the revolutionary actions that Malcom X would implore us to use to defend ourselves and our rights, to disobey. Oppressors cannot control us if we do not let them.

“I won’t do what you tell me.”