Business Suits and Combat Boots
The Agonist Lyrics

Does history guide you or do you set out to change it?
Do you follow or challenge the actions of those who came before you?

Breached, not broken
The boundary has been crossed, but it still exists.

Do you set out to change me?
Do you aim to change who I am as a person?

Thank you for that you giant human rat
Sarcastic thanks for the exploitation and greed.

Fuck your skinned-alive designer wear
Screw the cruel practices behind the fashion industry.

Fashion shades and salon hair
Superficial beauty standards and cultural norms.

Heels to help where nature failed
Expectation to conform to societal norms of beauty.

Artificial teeth and nails
The increasing popularity of plastic surgery.

The wasp's nest expands
Social hierarchy that creates more division and inequality.

So, clap your hands
Ironically cheering for the failures and greed of society.

It's her, the one black woman who's success you don't credit to Affirmative Action
The societal tendency to discredit the accomplishments of people of color.

The way of the future is corporate sponsors raising your kids
The commercialization and capitalization of every aspect of modern life.

Maternal love is nothing compared to what seven dollars gives
The belief that money can be an adequate replacement for love and support.

Put in, suck out plastic body parts
The literal and physical changes made in the name of beauty and social acceptance.

It's the ever-growing industry of cosmetic arts
The rise in popularity of plastic surgery and similar procedures.

Bombarded with idealized shots, dysmorphic, self-destructive plots
The dangerous effects of a media that spews unrealistic beauty standards.

Physical flaws are a mental blank, a mental blank
The creation of social stigmas and negative self-image.

So pay your surgeons, it's your parents who you should thank
False societal perceptions that plastic surgery creates success and happiness.

These eyes are blind to several hundred left behind (lest we forget again)
Forgetting about the marginalized and oppressed individuals in society.

But the border is breached but not broken
The divide still exists, but it has been infiltrated.

Who tries to find the several hundred left behind
Who is actually making an effort to help those in need.

Co-existing in a twisted society
Living in a corrupt society where inhumane values remain prevalent.

Where youth is a crime and wasteful sweat-shop expenditures is how luxury is defined.
Consumer culture promoting and valuing cheap labor disguised as luxury.

Now the KKK has found a new masquerade
The timelessness of systemic racism and how it is hidden today.

Fuck your self-claimed supremacy
Screw the idea that one's race or social status makes them superior.

You hide your face and your shame
The cowardice and guilt associated with hateful behavior.

Identify right and wrong when all fact is merely opinion
The subjectsivity of ethics and morality that undermines right and wrong.

You cannot know the sweetness of victory without first dwelling in the agony of defeat
The value of perseverance and the process of overcoming failure.

We forgot again
The recurrence of society's tendency to ignore and forget about systemic injustice.