He pronounces “Sealy” like “ceiling” making it a homonym. The bottom is the same as the top, further explored in the next line.

A “Sealy” being a mattress. When trying to keep the poor class at the bottom, they are taught that it will never get any better. Do not pursue success and riches because sleeping on an expensive mattress will not feel any different than the floor. Lupe is continuing from a few lines before with his idea that “they” are trying to keep them in their hoods.

Refers to the Los Angeles riots in the 40’s. “Zoot suits” were primarily mexican american kids (some were fillipino as well) who openly defied the impliment of cloth limits by the U.S. to reserve more cloth for the war effort. These zoot suits were very large and baggy, so it took a lot of cloth to make. One night, sailors who’s ship had docked in the los angeles port went around the town and accosted some mexican girls. Because of this, a local group of zoot suits fought them and beat the sailors. The next night, hundreds of sailors flooded the streets of L.A looking for any mexican american or even hispanic kid and stripped them of their clothes, which is where the “troops strippin' zoots” lyric comes from. It was not just white sailors however, it was also african american sailors who took part in this, despite the racism geared towards them, many african americans had racism towards hispanics and asians. Even though the sailors were the ones beating all the hispanic and fillipino kids, the zoot suits were the ones being put in jail. It was a very corrupt time.

Subverting the previously repeated line of “Now you do what they told ya”, Zack states his stance of rebellion – a refusal to be controlled and thus a denial of authority.

He chants the same line sixteen times, murmuring for the first four refrains, before building in a crescendo the next four and then angrily screaming it the final eight times.

A few days before “Killing in the Name” became the UK Christmas number 1 in 2009, RATM performed the song on BBC Radio 5 Live. Zack was asked not to swear, but he definitely didn’t do what they told him!

Written in response to the Rodney King beating, the L.A. Uprising that followed, and the eventual trial, “Killing in the Name” equates the police force with Ku Klux Klan lynch mobs, which have been known for cross burning since the Klan’s second incarnation as a means of intimidation.

While these lines have been interpreted as a metaphorical indictment of racist institutions, they also reflect an undeniable, literal truth. During reconstruction, modern police forces and the Klan emerged side by side to maintain white supremacy in the wake of the Civil War. Southern police were being created from the slave patrols that had terrorized slaves before the end of the war, as the Klan was evolving from a whimsical fraternal organization of Confederate veterans to a network of terrorist vigilante cells targeting freedmen and their allies. The two groups commonly supported each other and shared many members in common.

During the Civil Rights movement, Klansmen infamously worked in concert with Southern law enforcement agencies to suppress desegregation efforts. Even as recently as 2019, “an epidemic of white supremacists in police departments” was documented by the Lewis & Clark Law Review, a matter which the FBI warned of more than a decade ago.

Klansmen marching in support of local police, escorted by officers, in Meriden, Connecticut, in 1981.

When played live, these lyrics have occasionally been changed to:

Some of those that work forces are the same that burn churches
-Woodstock 1999

Some of those that burn crosses are the same that hold office
-Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, 2003