In the summer of 1999 a song made it’s way onto a mixed tape (yes, I was one of the few still doing those in ’99) that I had only just discovered.
It was haunting, beautiful, sad.
Sinead O’Connor – Black Boys On Mopeds.
The lyrics were obvious, the quiet rage behind them astonishingly clear. Sincere. Real.
And in ’99 the song to me was already from a bygone era. A protest song around issues we have since resolved. It was recorded in 1990 and was about an incident from the year before where police chased a black youth named Nicholas Bramble on a moped they thought was stolen (it wasn’t) and after losing control, Nicholas was victim to a fatal accident.
The song was on an album dedicated to a black man named Colin Roach who died of a gunshot wound inside a police station in London in 1983. You can read the wikipedia entry here adding further to the feeling that we are… we HAVE to be… past this sort of systemic racism in our modern, enlightened society.
The shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are not new stories. We have sadly seen too many cases like these in recent months and years; however, with these two shootings, followed by the police killings in Dallas, I am starting to feel in my deepest gut that we are at a tipping point.
The violence of Dallas is a huge escalation in this tension and, when coupled with stories like the Bahamas issuing official warnings and travel advisories for certain parts of the US, this has now gone further than we have seen it go in almost 50 years.
And that’s just the thing, now we SEE it.
We do not have these stories filtered through news media; we are seeing it first hand, from people’s cell phones, immediately. I cannot shake the Philando Castille video from my brain. It plays on the backs of my eyelids when I sleep. The lasting effect of the immediacy with which we see these visceral images is yet to be determined, but there is one thing they do better than anything else: they polarize us.
When you see videos on topics like this (as opposed to reading news reports, columns, op-ed pieces) without the ability to discern full context it is so much easier to jump to assumptions and to form an opinion that is rooted in your own bias. I am reminded of the footage we were all glued to in 1990 during the Iraq War – whether we knew it or not at the time, watching war happen in real time, for the first time, was the strongest form of war propaganda we had ever had in the Western World.
This is a great article from The Guardian on Confirmation Bias and sums up what I am trying to say perfectly:
“The more ‘news factoids’ you digest, the less of the big picture you will understand.”
This is no more apparent than with the recent hashtag #AllLivesMatter as a response to the #BlackLivesMatter message.
There have been some solid takedowns of this (see here and here for two of my favourites) but here is my simple take on it:
When you read #BlackLivesMatter which option below are you automatically confirming in your head?
#OnlyBlackLivesMatter
OR
#BlackLivesMatterToo
If you chose the first option you are, to put it nicely, simply unaware of the broader context of the message.
(You should see the descriptive sentences I deleted prior to settling on that one. I’ll leave those in my drafts though – won’t win over anyone using insults now, will we?)
When the statistics show how much more likely it is for a black man to die at the hands of police than a white man, we NEED to have a dialogue around this and saying Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean that others lives don’t matter. Again, to my point above, when we subject ourselves to getting our news in quick bites on important topics we risk simplifying the issue to the point that it disappears completely and the very nature of the conversation we need to have has changed.
Trevor Noah says this brilliantly in this piece.
“You can be pro-cop and pro-black, which is what we all should be.”
And this brings me back to Sinead O’Connor. The song and the album were not only anti-police, they were her way of voicing her opinion against the Conservative politics of the time, comparing Margaret Thatcher’s methods to that of the Chinese totalitarian state that caused the massacre on Tiananmen Square.
“These are dangerous days. To say what you feel is to dig your own grave.”
You can either listen to the song and rush into confirming your own biases, using it for whatever purpose suits the message you ultimately want to say anyway, or you can dig a little deeper and understand the context around it.
I feel that in these dangerous days, we should all be digging for a bit more context before spouting off our opinions.
* * * * *
Oh right, this is a MUSIC blog… I’m not supposed to have opinions on other topics here.
Well, here is the music that has been the soundtrack to the news videos that have been playing and replaying themselves in my head.
And the full lyrics to go with it:
Black Boys On Mopeds
Margareth Thatcher on TV
Shocked by the deaths that took place in Beijing
It seems strange that she should be offended
The same orders are given by herI’ve said this before now
You said I was childish and you’ll say it now
Remember what I told you
If they hated me they will hate youEngland’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses
It’s the home of police who kill black boys on mopeds
And I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving
I don’t want him to be aware that there’s
Any such thing as grievingYoung mother down at Smithfield
Five a.m., looking for food for her kids
In her arms she holds three cold babies
And the first word that they learned was pleaseThese are dangerous days
To say what you feel is to dig your own grave
Remember what I told you
If you were of the world they would love youEngland’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses
It’s the home of police who kill blacks boys on mopeds
And I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving
I don’t want him to be aware that there’s
Any such thing as grieving
* * * * *
In trying to make sense of everything over the last few days, I picked up the guitar and tried my hand at updating this amazing song to fit the still-developing narrative in the news today.
I don’t offer this as a piece of good music, just my attempt to interpret some further meaning in the chaos I feel building around us.
* * * * *
Update – June 10th 2020
With the death of George Floyd and the protests happening all over North America, I thought about writing a new post but decided against it, instead choosing to add to my previous thoughts here.
What I thought was the tipping point four years ago when I initially wrote this post was not, in fact, the tipping point at all. The outrage subsided, inaction again ruled the day and there was no significant change. I was complicit in this. When the story moved on from the news cycle, it stuck with me, but did not force me to actually change or grow.
The action, awareness and calls for change we are seeing now eclipse what we saw in 2016. I know I have been profoundly rattled, to my core, and I have been and will be working hard to ensure equality for people of colour.
Is this now, finally, the actual tipping point? Will we see police reform?
Or will I be updating this post again in 2024?
My original post in 2016 had a video of a version of Sinead O’Connor’s song rewritten with the lyrics posted below it.
As the original song had a whopping 9 views on YouTube (8 of which I’m pretty sure were me) I’ve taken the opportunity to update the lyrics and post a new video.
As before, I don’t put this forward as a piece of good music, I put this forward because we are all now SEEING Black lives being taken, with our own eyes, more than we have ever seen them before.
To those who hate, to those who discriminate, to those who kill… the world is watching you now and, finally, it doesn’t look like anyone will be looking the other way anytime soon again.
Black Boys On Camera
Donald Trump on his Twitter feed
Inciting hatred and bigotry
It’s grown stronger since he was elected
#BlackLivesMatter but now they’re more neglectedWe’ve seen this before now
We said “There’s been progress,” and you’ll say it now.
Remember what I showed you
If you hate and you kill we will film you.America’s not the mythical land of apple pie and baseball
It’s the home of police who kill black boys for no reason at all
And I love my girl and that’s why I’m crying
I don’t want her to grow up in a world with
So many black people dying…George Floyd taken down by police
Laid on the ground, held in place by a knee
In the camera we see a cold body
And his last words were “I can’t breathe…”These are dangerous days
The darker your skin, the closer your grave.
Remember what I showed you
If you hate and you kill we will film you.America’s not the mythical land of apple pie and baseball
It’s the home of police who kill black boys for no reason at all
And I love my girl and that’s why I’m crying
I don’t want her to grow up in a world with
So many black people dying…
* * * * *
Further Reading: The Guardian and The NY Times