Unforgivable Youth

## Song by Lupe Fiasco featuring Jason Evigan

"**Unforgivable Youth**" is a song by Lupe Fiasco, released as the 15th track from his fourth studio album, *Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1* (2012). Fiasco talks about America's history of settler colonialism and slavery in the first two verses. The final verse details archaeologists in the future who ironically believe that it was an egalitarian, peaceful society because of its advanced technology, infrastructure, and emphasis on wealth.

## Analysis

"Unforgivable Youth" looks at how ignorance leads to adopting values and beliefs that are believed to be for the greater good, when in fact being harmful. The first two verses touch upon colonialism, which includes the pilgrims, who are celebrated during Thanksgiving Day. Rather than being a day of celebration, it is a day of mourning for Native Americans. European settlers brought along the smallpox, which wiped out many native populations who did not have immunity to the diseases they carried. Additionally, they stole land from and tried to convert Native Americans to Christianity. There was also reference to the "500 year war" with the attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples, resulting in loss of family, land, and culture. Settlers believed this to be "good" for their country, merely because of American imperialism.

Concerning slave labor, this refers to America exploiting minorities to do unpaid labor for them, resulting in a racial hierarchy and racist practices. Consider immigrants who enter the country and work hard to provide for their families back home. Historically, an instance is shipping Africans across the Atlantic for slave trade. The phrase "manifest destiny" was used as justification for settlers to conquer more land, the belief that it was virtuous and a mission sent from God. This resulted in forced relocation and the massacring of Native Americans. People who were non-white could also not possesses any land, which lent itself to a white supremacist doctrine. This continues to ask "How can land be owned by another man?" where there was a language barrier between the Native Americans and settlers, the latter creating treaties to give up ownership. This was seen as "fair" under America's terms, because it was legally obtained, despite use of manipulation. In Native American culture, the land is believed to be sacred and to be shared, where no one owns it.

## Lyrics

**Lyrics**
[Chorus: Jason Evigan]

This world, my heart, my soul

Things that I don't know

The icicles they grow

They never let me go

Scars are left as proof

But tears they soak on through

Things I've done

My young

My unforgivable youth

[Verse 1: Lupe Fiasco]

With land on the horizon and passion in their eyes and

What they think are islands are much more in their size and

Bountiful and plentiful and resource to provide them

Supplies slim, morale once so heavily inside them

Now steadily declining

Return is not an option as necessity denies them

With this they choose to dive in

Now along the shore and so aware of their arriving

Are the children of this land prepared to share in their surviving

A pageantry of feathers stands his majesty with treasure

Not the material things of kings that could never last forever

But secrets of the spirit world and how to live in harmony together

Unbeknownst to him his head would be the first that they would sever

And stuck up on a pike up along the beach

Kept up as a warning to the rest to turn away from their beliefs

And so began it here, and for five hundred years

Torture, terror, fear 'til they nearly disappear

[Chorus: Jason Evigan]

This world, my heart, my soul

Things that I don't know

The icicles they grow

They never let me go

Scars are left as proof

But tears they soak on through

Things I've done

My young

My unforgivable youth

[Verse 2: Lupe Fiasco]

Ways and means from the trade of human beings

A slave labor force provides wealth to the machine

And helps the new regime establish and expand

Using manifest destiny to siphon off the land

From native caretakers who can barely understand

How can land be owned by another man?

Warns, "One can not steal what was given as a gift;

Is the sky owned by birds and the rivers owned by fish?"

But the lesson went unheeded, for the sake of what's not needed

You kill but do not eat it

The excessive and elitists don't repair it when they leave it

The forests's were cleared, the factories were built

And all mistakes will be repeated

By your future generations doomed to pay for your mistreatments

Foolishness and flaws, greed and needs and disagreement

And in your rush to have the most, from the day you left your boats

You'll starve but never die in a world of hungry ghosts

[Chorus: Jason Evigan]

This world, my heart, my soul

Things that I don't know

The icicles they grow

They never let me go

Scars are left as proof

But tears they soak on through

Things I've done

My young

My unforgivable youth

[Verse 3: Lupe Fiasco]

As archaeologists dig in the deserts of the east

A pit a hundred meters wide and a hundred meters deep

They discover ancient cars on even older streets

And a city well preserved and most likely at its peak

A culture so advanced, and by condition of the teeth

They can tell that they were civil, not barbaric in the least

A society at peace. With liberty and justice for all

Neatly carved in what seems to be a wall

They would doubt that there was any starvation at all

That they pretty much had the poverty problem all solved

From the sheer amount of paper, most likely used for trade

Everything's so organized. They had to be well behaved

Assumed they had clean energy, little to no enemies

Very honest leaders with overwhelming sympathies

Religions kinda complex. Kinda hard to figure out

But this must be the temple

This White House

[Chorus: Jason Evigan]

This world, my heart, my soul

Things that I don't know

The icicles they grow

They never let me go

Scars are left as proof

But tears they soak on through

Things I've done

My young

My unforgivable youth