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Fuck Tha Police



Before we get started I want to prepare you with a few disclaimers. First of all, I fully agree with the 'Fuck Tha Police' sentiment. I am a police abolitionist, so this lyric critique is not coming from a place of syCOPhantic police apologism or sympathizing. This is just not a good anti-police song, and I will explain why. Secondly, I am not going to comment on the entire set of lyrics, since they are an endless saga of repetition, which is mostly just machismo posturing. The lyrics to this song are everything I hate about Quentin Tarantino films. I won't need to use many examples to show you why these lyrics are just patently self-refuting and thus pretty fugkn dumb.

You probably know very few lyrics from this song. Maybe the spoken part at the beginning and the first verse, and certainly the chorus, but I would almost guarantee that 99% of people who claim they love this song have no idea what the rest of it is about. Because of that, most people think this is a song about how police are picking on innocent black people for no reason, so fugk them. This is not the case.

Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground
A young nigga got it bad 'cause I'm brown
And not the other color so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority

This is why you think this is a song about racist cops. But even Eazy-E isn't full-in on that explanation, as he also cites his age as a cause of discrimination.

Fuckin with me 'cause I'm a teenager
With a little bit of gold and a pager
Searchin' my car, lookin' for the product
Thinkin' every nigga is sellin' narcotics

But the thing is, Eazy really was selling narcotics. I'm not judging him for that. His life circumstances didn't leave him much choice. Any of us in his place would have made some hard choices that we weren't necessarily proud of. But if you are going to get into that game, it is with the tacit understanding that you are going to have problems with the police.

Yet selling narcotics is not the only reason that police are riding his black ass, since he discusses killing people, including police, right here in this same song. That shit will get you on the cops radar no matter what color you are.

A young nigga on a warpath
And when I'm finished, it's gonna be a bloodbath
Of cops, dyin' in L.A.

Smoke any motherfucker that sweats me
Or any asshole that threatens me
I'm a sniper with a hell of a scope
Takin' out a cop or two, they can't cope with me

I'm tired of the motherfuckin' jackin'
Sweatin' my gang while I'm chillin' in the shack, and
Shining the light in my face, and for what?
Maybe it's because I kick so much butt
I kick ass, or maybe 'cause I blast
On a stupid ass nigga when I'm playin' with the trigger

The assertion that Eazy and his gang associates are being harassed because the color of their skin is completely torn apart by numerous later admissions that they are participating in extreme acts of senseless violence. This is not a song about how police are shitty racists, so much as it is a song about two rival gangs at war with one another. 

This is a terrible lens from which to view police issues, because it feeds a grotesque falsehood believed by police supporters that people of color are incorrigible thugs who get what they have coming, and that brutality and murder are thus justifiable. This is exactly the sort of narrative that benefits the institution of policing. This is not an anti-police anthem, this is an anthem for street gangs at war with the badge gangs.

Again, I am not judging the people in these street gangs. This social phenomena evolved from an undeniable history of extreme oppression and subjugation. Gangs are an obvious outcome of the free range prisons we call ghettos which were built by rich white people to keep their neighborhoods pristinely Caucasian. There is a massive amount of room for sympathy for the people involved in that lifestyle, no matter how frighteningly violent they appear to those of us lucky not to be caught in that trap. But you cannot claim cops target you for your color when you are killing them and other people.

While I can make room for sympathy for the disadvantages that led to the gangsta life, it is a bit more difficult to look past the blatant homophobia that appears in this and several other NWA songs. That is not explained or justified by the circumstance of their lives, that is just a failure to accept and respect people who are different than you, but do not pose any threat to you whatsoever.

I don't know if they fags or what
Search a nigga down and grabbin' his nuts
And on the other hand, without a gun, they can't get none

If you want a good example of a song about the struggle between people of color and law enforcement, go listen to They Don't Really Care About Us by Michael Jackson. It is a better song with a more realistic portrayal of the struggle that you mistakenly always believed Fuck Tha Police was about.

LYRIC SOURCE


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