Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 12-4-20

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or every tumultuous
part of the last 50+ years, there has been a musi- cal soundtrack to go along with the times. This is mainly due to the fact that recording artists of the past were always in tuned with the world around them and used their art form to reflect the energy of the moment.
To people old enough to remember the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War and the social unrest that re- sulted from those two his- toric events, it's hard for them to think back to that era without recalling songs like James Brown's anthem, "I'm Black and I'm Proud," "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix or "What's Going On?" by Marvin Gaye.
These tunes are memo- rable to an entire generation, not only because of their sta- tus as classics, but because they accurately convey the atmosphere in which they were created.
The same can be said for the hip-hop of the crack- laced 1980s. Songs like "The Message" by Grand Mas- ter Flash & The Furious Five, "Love's Gonna Getcha" by KRS-ONE,
"Fight The Power" by Public Enemy and "The Ghetto" by Rakim, will forever be viewed as portals to that decade due to the apt way they documented the struggles inner cities faced while contending with a po- litical structure that helped to exacerbate their problems.
With 2020 being one of the most chaotic years in re- cent history, marred by na- tionwide protests sparked by racial injustice, a global pan- demic and a delusional des- pot as president, you would think that artists of today would have more than enough material to produce songs as prolific in scope as any of those from previous timelines.
But, unfortunately, that's not the case.
With the exception of Be- yonce's "Black Parade" and Lil Baby's "Black And White," the sounds coming from the entertainers who dominate the charts have been, basically, tone-deaf. And that's putting it mildly.
When you listen to the radio it's as if the madness of this year didn't even occur. Instead of hearing deep in- trospective joints expound- ing on how current events
adversely affected life as we knew it, all that comes blar- ing through the speakers are the usual collection party and bull---- lyrics that glamorize pill popping, murder, guns and the appeal of a woman's lubricated sex organ... Con- scious observation be damned.
Of course, I get that it's not a recording artists' job to be the voice of the people and that label executives make more money keeping the masses stuck on stupid. But, damn it man, is it too much to ask for these rappers to, at least, fake like they're aware of what's transpiring outside the walls of their ivory tow- ers?
On the surface I can un- derstand how some could read this column and say to themselves, "what's the big deal? Music should provide some form of escapism."
And that's true. But 30 years from now, when histo- rians document this section of history for educational purposes and have to incor- porate a song like "W.A.P." as part of the audio from this 12-month cycle to accom- pany the video footage of the events that unfolded (includ- ing the brutal murder of George Floyd), that's when the shame of this disconnect will come into clear focus.
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The Great Disconnect
C. Blythe Andrews 1901-1977 (1945)
C. Blythe Andrews, Jr. 1930-2010 (1977)
Don’t Even Think About It Again
The GOP and Donald Trump maneuvers after the 2020 election last month, telegraphed what some of them were thinking.
First of all, all the telephone calls and meetings with Republican governors were ploys to get the governors to cooperate with the Trump campaign’s assertion that there was widespread voter fraud in their states.
The next tactic, the filing of numerous meritless fed- eral lawsuits appeared to be a strategy to end up in the courts of some of the 200 federal judges Trump ap- pointed over the past three years. Bad move.
After the election there was talk of trying to influ- ence the electors from states that Biden won to vote for Trump instead of Biden when the Electoral College meets. There is no doubt Trump expects the Electoral College to vote for him in what would be the death (lit- erally and figuratively) of America.
Both Trump and the GOP attempted to challenge the votes of predominantly Black voting precincts for voter fraud and signature irregularities in states with heavily populated Black precincts/cities (i.e.) Michigan (De- troit), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), and Georgia (At- lanta), a blatant racist move.
Attempts to delay the certifications of election re- sults in key states, was another ploy to disenfranchise Black voters that didn’t work.
Indeed, sane thinking Black Americans would not have voted for Trump as election data shows. More- over, thinking recounts and delayed certification would find 6.1 million questionable votes or more needed for Trump to win was sheer lunacy.
The scary part of the entire scenario was the silent consent of GOP leadership that will make it difficult to trust and respect the GOP in the future. Indeed, the GOP lived up to the adage, “silence gives consent” by not opposing Trump’s baseless voter fraud and Black disenfranchisement.
We would be naïve to think that the Republican-led Senate would do anything to keep the antics from hap-
pening again in the future, especially if a Republican wins. However, we certainly hope the Democratic-led House of Representatives will address the issue during the upcoming session. We don’t believe the American democracy would survive a re- peat of Trumpish behavior of another president.
Therefore, we need to make sure that any future Presidents will not be able to repeat some of the Trump behaviors in the future. Congress owes it to Americans to see that attempts to overthrow the will of voters never happen again.
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