[Verse 1] How do you recognize a bigot? Listen close as evidence they bring “It happened to me, so all of them are like it” As if one shitty life explains everything You and your friends and everybody that you know Aren’t one percent of a meaningful sample You can’t measure nations from the people in your circle Then call your prejudice empirical, bigot [Pre-Chorus] The smaller your world The larger your certainty But truth gets harder to see When “I” becomes “we” [Chorus] Every bigot’s got a sob story About the people they despise A wound becomes a warrant And a stereotype becomes a crime The Klan had stories, too They swore their fear was justified Everybody has a reason That doesn’t make the reason right [Verse 2] My Iraqi tailor friend complained about Arabs My mother had complaints about the British Everybody’s got a category Everybody’s got a grievance But anecdotes are anecdotes They don't become statistics when they're repeated And hatred doesn't turn to wisdom Just because somebody's been mistreated [Pre-Chorus] If you want your ideas to mirror the universal Then personal experience weighs less The farther out you zoom the lens The less your sad little circle can confess [Chorus] Every bigot’s full of sob story About strangers they despise their wound is criminal warrant stereotype becomes hate crime The Klan had stories, too They swore their fear was justified Everybody has a reason That doesn’t make ignorant clowns right [Bridge] National scale ain't neighborhood scale Global truth ain't dinner-table lore (but it can be) cosmic claims call for clearer evidence Not memories from lemmings next door probably somebody hurt you Likely somebody lied Maybe somebody from moldy group Did something you can't set aside But justice can't ask, “What happened to me?” It asks, “What is leveled to square true?” And “What do we do with certainty?” [Breakdown] I am a grown-ass, aware man So I separate the wound from the world I can hate what someone did Without hating everyone they call in I don't need a villain To explain my pain (into politics) I don't need an “other” To pretend myself sane [Final Chorus] Every bigot’s got a sob story So listen for the leap From “this happened to me” To “this is what they all must be” That’s where the poison enters That’s where the thinking dies When one man's anecdote Becomes a million people's alibi [Outro] I am a grown-ass, aware man I know the difference between fear and fact I don't need an “other” And I won't build my worldview on that in fact, hear me true as I point at you if bigotry grew into here through you A root of the suffering, mourning dew your card gets pulled, reflection true it's easy to let go much easier than learning but they all start to learn Once Pan Fryer starts Soul Burning.
