March March

"Baptized in these waters, and in each other's blood."

Required reading, if you ask me:

"You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," 1963

And required listening, if you ask me:

41 shots
41 shots
41 shots

41 shots

41 shots, and we'll take that ride
'Cross the bloody river to the other side
41 shots, cut through the night
You're kneeling over his body in the vestibule
Praying for his life

Is it a gun, is it a knife
Is it a wallet, this is your life
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
No secret my friend
You can get killed just for living in your American skin

41 shots
41 shots
41 shots
41 shots

41 shots, Lena gets her son ready for school
She says, "On these streets, Charles
You've got to understand the rules
If an officer stops you, promise me you'll always be polite
And that you'll never ever run away
Promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight"

Is it a gun (is it a gun), is it a knife (is it a knife)
Is it a wallet (is it a wallet), this is your life (this is your life)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
No secret my friend
You can get killed just for living in your American skin

41 shots
41 shots
41 shots
41 shots

Is it a gun (is it a gun), is it a knife (is it a knife)
Is it in your heart (is it in your heart), is it in your eyes (is it in your eyes)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)

41 shots, and we'll take that ride
'Cross this bloody river to the other side
41 shots, I got my boots caked with this mud
We're baptized in these waters (baptized in these waters)
And in each other's blood (and in each other's blood)

Is it a gun (is it a gun), is it a knife (is it a knife)
Is it a wallet (is it a wallet), this is your life (this is your life)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
No secret my friend
You can get killed just for living in
You can get killed just for living in
You can get killed just for living in your American skin

41 shots
41 shots
41 shots
41 shots


#blacklivesmatter #icantbreathe #nojusticenopeace #justiceforgeorgefloyd

What It Means

The vice presidential debate just finished and now the talking heads are talking their heads off. But for some reason this song is going through my head, just like it has for much of the week.

He was running down the street when they shot him in his tracks
About the only thing agreed upon is he ain't coming back
There won't be any trial so the air it won't be cleared
There's just two sides calling names out of anger out of fear
If you say it wasn't racial when they shot him in his tracks
Well, I guess that means that you ain't black
It means that you ain't black
I mean, Barack Obama won and you can choose where to eat
But you don't see too many white kids lying bleeding on the street

In some town in Missouri but it could be anywhere
It could be right here on Ruth Street, in fact, it's happened here
And it happened where you're sitting, wherever that might be
And it happened last weekend and it will happen again next week
And when they turned him over they were surprised there was no gun
I mean, he must have done something or else why would he have run
And they'll spin it for the anchors on the television screen
So we can shrug and let it happen without asking what it means

What it means
What it means

Then I guess there was protesting and some looting in some stores
And someone was reminded that they ain't called colored folks no more
I mean, we try to be politically correct when we call names
But what's the point of post-racial when old prejudice remains
And that guy who killed that kid down in Florida standing ground
Is free to beat up on his girlfriend and wave his brand new gun around
While some kid is dead and buried and laying in the ground
With a pocket full of skittles

What it means
What it means

Astrophysics at our fingertips and we're standing at the summit
And some man with a joystick lands a rocket on a comet
We're living in an age where limitations are forgotten
The outer edges move and dazzle us but the core is something rotten
And we're standing on the precipice of prejudice and fear
We trust science just as long as it tells us what we want to hear
We want our truths all fair and balanced as long as our notions lie within it
There's no sunlight in our ass' and our heads are stuck up in it
And our heroes may be rapists who watch us while we dream
But don't look to me for answers 'cuz I don't know what it means

What it means
What it means