"This land is your land, and this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me."
- Woody Guthrie
Those lyrics from Woody Guthrie's song, "This Land is your land," ran through my head as I awoke yesterday morning.
Great song. A great reminder that this land, this country, under the great Democratic experiment of America, is supposed to be the home of equal rights and justice for all.
But it's a idyllic notion, that's never been realized -- for all of us.
This land has never really been black Americans' land. African Americans never have been made to feel welcome, dating back more than 400 years ago, to 1619 in Jamestown, VA, when Africans were first introduced to American soil as slaves.
And before this land was claimed by the white man as their own, the land, for all intents and purposes, belonged to native Americans until so many of them were slaughtered at the white man's hand.
So whose land is it, really?
Like many of us, I've been pondering the vast injustices of "our land."
From California, to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me."
- Woody Guthrie
Those lyrics from Woody Guthrie's song, "This Land is your land," ran through my head as I awoke yesterday morning.
Great song. A great reminder that this land, this country, under the great Democratic experiment of America, is supposed to be the home of equal rights and justice for all.
But it's a idyllic notion, that's never been realized -- for all of us.
This land has never really been black Americans' land. African Americans never have been made to feel welcome, dating back more than 400 years ago, to 1619 in Jamestown, VA, when Africans were first introduced to American soil as slaves.
And before this land was claimed by the white man as their own, the land, for all intents and purposes, belonged to native Americans until so many of them were slaughtered at the white man's hand.
So whose land is it, really?
Like many of us, I've been pondering the vast injustices of "our land."
The intense hatred and engrained racism is borne of fear. And that fear is covered up by the pathetic political posturing of ruthless, alarmist, greedy, elitist, controlling miscreants, posing as heroic defenders of righteousness, so they can satisfy their obsessions with self, and have their way.
So much has been written about the horrible killing of George Floyd for the past three and half weeks. What is there left to say? Plenty. Hundreds of years of oppression, discrimination demands it.
How does a cop crush the life out of a man for more than eight minutes, seemingly without a care in the world, while being video-tapped doing it?
What makes Floyd's killing so unfathomable was that it wasn't the result of an impulsive, adrenalin-fueled, act of fear, where a cop fires his gun at an unarmed black man.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, charged with Floyd's murder, acted like a wild animal, a jungle cat which, after it initially takes down a vulnerable Gazelle, firmly clamps it's jaws down on its prey's throat, patiently squeezing out its last breath.
Chauvin's act, coupled with the look on his face, was evil. Period. It was cold-blooded murder, which is how I described it when I first saw it on Twitter, shortly after Memorial Day.
When I watched it again, incredulous, like many of us, I cried.
On Tuesday, Minneapolis state police filed court documents, indicating it too is reviewing former cop Chauvin's actions.
Now, amidst the inspiring peaceful protests, demanding police accountability and serious reform, all across this land and the world, it feels like real change, real justice is finally possible.
Jesus Christ, who preached love, truth and forgiveness was crucified on a crude cross, to save man, according to God's plan. God's righteousness demanded such a price.
George Floyd, who once told a friend "I want to touch the world" and who mostly spread love and joy during his 46 years on earth, was also killed by hate, it seems, to save the rest of us.
(I wrote the piece below for Counter Punch a year and a half ago, amidst racial tensions surrounding a Mississippi senate race. It relates my experience with southern racism when I lived in the Magnolia State in the late 1990's.)
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