"A Story to Share..."

My friend, Mark and I have some truly honest and frankly amazing and animated discussions about race and its societal impacts in America. As for me, I love to approach the subject from a historical perspective explaining how even today, race relations in the U.S. are impacted by things that have long since been forgotten in our collective memory. Mark says he really enjoys our conversation about this as I provoke him to think of such things from a vantage point that he never realized he could understand.

We were once having a talk about the term "cowboy" and I was explaining it also has origins in racism and he was left dumbfounded by my revelations. When I pointed out that the Old West and the frontier was not "lily white" like in the movies he at first balked at the idea. But after breaking down the term "cowboy" I think he was encouraged to do a little more study about it.

Although Mark hates rap and hip-hop music and culture, and although I'm not keen on it either, I ran across this song again today and it reminded me of our "cowboy" conversation. I first came to like this song when my son was a little fella in middle school and he smuggled the album with this song on it into the house (I had forbidden listening to Rap music). But when I found it in the CD player, I decided to give it a listen. Almost immediately, this was a track that I realized I actually liked and since it tells its story in a remarkably accurate historical context I thought I'd share it here.

Since Mark visits my blog occassionally, this post is for him, my friend and ally, Mark.

"Fear Eats the Soul"