Racism

I’m just so upset at this that I need to rant a minute. The attack in Charleston, SC was horrible, but some of the responses to the attack were just as bad. It was racially-motivated, but to have the governor of the state say “we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” just allows racism to continue to be ok with racists. Racism has to be confronted. For anyone to think that we’re beyond racism – institutionally or otherwise – is naive at best but mainly racist (e.g. the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act and Bill O’Reilly’s “open season on Christians and white men” comment). Time for some adult conversation to recognize and stop the racism that still exists and obviously won’t go away because we think it has.

We start today’s podcast with a trio of soul songs from Curtis Mayfield, Charles Bradley and Marvin Gaye. Then we go onto the Jayhawks, Torres, My Bloody Valentine, Bob Mould, John Cale, John Mayall, Maria McKee, Material Issue, Richard Thompson, Linda Lewis and Neil Young.