Welcome to the Underground
Temporada 1
por Nat Emmett Till Turner
As the day waned with numerous complaints into to the night, disparate disappointments spring into view like giddy pimples. Now that’s not the most deft analogy of the way election night 2020 is going, but it’ll do until something more astute comes along. This is the evening’s update regarding the progress of the night of a thousand metaphorically knives for the democrat party.
Morning Edition. The day that many have been looking forward to (or dreading) for nearly four years, is finally here!
In 1971, Carly Simon released a song titled “Anticipation", that peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. In that song, anticipation was a slow delightful teasing of events to come. That song is the exact opposite of the kind of anticipation coursing through the country’s bloodstream. Our anticipation is more like waiting in the dentist’s office; a necessary function in which we wished we could be inebriated.
On an alternate earth, in an alternate timeline, the 2020 Presidential election went Trump’s way, and after three years of his second term, the future is even bleaker than it is now. In this, the one thousandth and ninety fifth broadcast of The Black and Brown Ghetto Underground, the host offers a brief look at what 2023 is like in Trump’s America.
Out of the millions of people we will never meet, are we in some way diminished by not coming in to contact with those lives? Are we less rich in spirit and experience because there are souls out there that will never share their life and light with us? These are some of the many questions that populate my imagination when I think of Elijah McClain. A gentle soul who was killed by the Aurora Police on August 30, 2019.
Captain Frederick Marryat, a Royal Navy officer, novelist and friend of Charles Dickens wrote in his novel "Frank Mildmay" coined the grim wartime description; “butcher’s bill,” i.e. the list of killed and wounded. That gallows nomenclature is sadly appropriate when talking about the number of black and brown bodies that fall to victim to police violence.
This episode is a late introduction to the mind behind the microphone. While it's both late for an introduction, and too early to give a personal retrospective, this episode is a light version of both.
The cost of doing nothing in a time of great social unrest and racial upheaval has never been higher. And the false comfort and ease of apathy has never been easier or more attractive. The seduction of apathy is at times irresistible, but the simple act of voting is the true resistance. And it can bring about the most impactful change in a generation.
With the biggest election in a generation looming on the COVID-19 dappled horizon, I wanted to break down why I think voting for people of color is more important than ever. Between that and showering our "beloved leader" with as much Fleur de sel encrusted shade as possible.
The briefest of mission statement/manifesto/purpose of intent. This is the goal of The BBGU (Black & Brown Ghetto Underground), to bring together all marginalized people, to marshal our power to finally get the change we ceaselessly need.