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Camp

Six days' distance from the sentence
She crammed years in a suitcase and said her goodbyes
In sunday clothes she crossed the bridge
With the other criminals of race
Us blue eyed neighbors staring back
What have we done
Oh, what have we done...

We took away her land
We took away her life
Nobody took a stand
But the camp didn't break her down

He arrived in purgatory, an orphan of the islands
With a smile from the movies, his laugh would spring up
Like flowers coming up through the concrete
They found each other behind barbed wire fences
He'd sing to her about his dreams of all their better days ahead

We took away their land
We took away their life
Nobody took a stand but
The camp didn't break them down

Rounded up and locked away
Profiled from the masses
Dismissed our own bigotry
In all of our history classes

I was just a soldier with impossible orders
Ashamed of my skin and my uniform, I knew it was wrong
In spite of my duty standing guard
I gave sugar to the babies and respect to the ladies
I shook the hands of my brothers interned as "The other"
All of us together, we were prisoners of panic and rage

I didn't take a stand
I stood guard on these people
We betrayed our fellow man but
The camp didn't break them down
We couldn't break them down

If I could do it again I'd take a stand
For my fellow man
It was all of us together
It should've been all of us together
Now it could be all of us together

Written by Shannon Harris