Bruce Springsteen: What Fear Has Wrought

The Boss

As is abundantly apparent, the United States, after nearly 250 years of existence, still has a problem of racism. Despite all the progress, or maybe because of it, we still have a segment of our society composed of avowed racists and those who claim not to be racists but enable those who are. Unfortunately, as has been well documented, we have racists within the ranks of those who are "to protect and serve" their communities. In light of this situation, I have recalled some observations of Bruce Springsteen.

At one point he sang:

"Some say freedom is free, but I tend to disagree.

I say freedom is won through the blood of someone's son."

Sons like George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery?

And in 1968 Mr. Springsteen reminded us that racism is based on fear: 

"One of the problems in the United States is that “united in our prejudices we stand,” you know? What unites people, very often, is their fear. What unites white people in some places is their fear of black people. What unites guys is maybe a denigrating attitude toward women – or sometimes maybe women have an attitude toward men. And these things are then in turn exploited by politicians, which turns into fear – knee-jerk fear of the Russians or of whatever ism is out there. Or in a very subtle kind of indirect way – like some of our economic policies are a real indirect kind of racism, in which the people that get affected most are black people who are at the lower end of the economic spectrum. And I think somewhere inside, people know this – I really do. They don’t fess up to it, but somewhere inside there’s a real meanness in using things this way."

Let's hope that in 2020 we are ready to "fess up" and deal with our racism and reach the point that "driving while black" does not endanger some son's life.