I just watched Horror Noire on @IFC. Now watching ‘Hip Hop the Songs that Shook America’. This ep is about Jesus Walks. The breakdown of how this song came to be. Just wow man. Even the original song, Jesus Walks...they talk to that guy & the chorus who orig sung it. I cannot...
...remember the man’s name (forgive me) but he was a Jazz artist. He moved to NYC to be a jazz artist. He got involved with drugs. He was in a kind of shelter & asked if he could start doing arranging with some of the othet records. He arranged/wrote Jesus Walks & residents...
...of the shelter sang it. They were singing for their lives. It was because of their journeys, their stories that the orig Jesus Walks was made. A friend of Ye was going thru some shit & he heard the song. He sent it to Ye. Boom. I love how inter generational the story/song is.
Was listening to @TBGWT & Rod does his reading rainbow segments. One of the books he read talked about the drug era. And how when folks think about the drug era, they usually think crack. But herion was first. Herion ravaged our communities. When you think about...
...The Great Migration, when did Black Americans EVER have it...forget good, when did we ever have it...just cool? Decent? Normal in terms of what normal is in the richest country in the world. Have we ever had that? Not even 100 yrs since the Civil Rights Act. But even so...
...our experiences fuel who we are. And fuel our fight for better. In Rod’s reading about herion, the book said 1 addict commited 300 crimes. That’s just 1 person. Addiction became the crime & fueled crime. Imagine the opioid epidemic never ending & ravaging communities fresh...
...out of enslavement. Like FRESH OUT OF ENSLAVEMENT. When I think about it, my great uncle was a Vietnam Vet. He & my mom were very close in age. They were raised as siblings. He was a herion addict. So many of the Vets were. The draft was so real. We already know the racial...
...breakdowns of who was on the frontlines of these wars. Poor ppl. Black & Brown ppl. A lot of them came back addicts. That got us to the War on Drugs & the Crime Bills. White and Black politicians hearing communities cry out for help. Politicians were all to ready to bring...
...in police & prison sentences but did nothing about bettering those communities which folks also asked for. Folks also wanted jobs, more school funding, after school programs, mental health programs...again, these are communities fresh out of enslavement. Fresh fresh...
...in Jim Crow. Cause see, Reconstruction did a lot of good for Black Americans. The 1619 Project showed you how much Black Americans did in that small amount of time & how the laws we got passed not only helped us, they helped EVERYONE. To today! But Jim Crow came in swiftly.
Vietnam, CRA, VRA, followed by the war on drugs & mass incarceration. Now here we are. With companies emailing their workers, the night before letting them know they’re getting Juneteenth off. Lol. And while allies are getting exhausted, majority if Americans are still against...
...Reparations. We’re a lot better with our language around drug addiction & mental health. We understand addiction is not a crime. Having mental health issues is not criminal. But they have been criminalized ESPC if the person is Black. This is centuries in the making. Folks ...
...do not want Reparations even while saying the police are corrupt & target Black communities. They can say that because Black People & specifically, Black Americans are still looked at as criminals. As scammers. Liars. Not to be trusted. So ofcourse ppl do not trust...
...Black ppl with our own money that we are owed, knowing we came here at -1000 & have NEVER even SEEN what equal footing would even look like for us. Non-white ppl still see us as needing guidance. Needing to be taught or looked over...as if they have the authority 2 say that.
That’s what these Karen videos are. Folks really think they have the right to go up to complete strangers & tell them what they need to be doing. But that’s what whiteness has always been. Saying all of that to say, today...the first time this country has EVER acknowledged...
...Juneteenth (it’s so funny you have to laugh) it’s important to remember that we have never been perfect. We’ve always been human beings who’ve always wanted better for our children. And how Jesus Walks came to be is just one example of that.
