[politics] Strange fruit

So, I'd been ruminating on this earlier today, but a TV show (of all things) got me to actually post this. Yup, Cold Case had a story about a Black Philly teen killed (beaten and lynched) while trying to get to Dr. King's March on Washington. Sad, isn't it? That a TV show needs to deal with something we should be remembering unprompted, yet our corporatist media sees fit to ignore, pursuing dead pontiffs and bullshit he-said/she-said coverage of a poor, brain-dead woman's lingering undeath with an unseemly abandon. The Lorraine Motel ring any bells for anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Any one? You know - the one across from that boarding house? In Memphis, TN?

April 3, 1968

The boarding house where James Earl Ray (probably) fired a single high-velocity round through the neck of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

April 4, 1968

Anyone? So, this white kid, who was only a 6-month fetus when this happened, is blogging about this why? Because too bloody many people forgot, that's why... I know - people want to remember his birth, not his death. They want to remember the positive, not the negative. They don't want to dwell on another murky assassination from the '60's that might raise some truly ugly questions about this country and the way we choose to define 'equality'. But some stories still need to be told... Because not only Southern trees bear strange fruit.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Catgories: politics, race, racism