Listen to 8.11.2018 radio set here
Recorded during the weekend anniversary of last year's communal trauma in Charlottesville. (A reminder about 8.12.2017, the third white supremacist rally around monuments last summer)
The WTJU studios are located next to dorms on the UVA Grounds which currently are housing hundreds (thousands?) of police who came to our city, which pre-emptively declared a state of emergency. (When I arrived at the studio Wednesday night, I had to park illegally in a sea of state police vehicles that spilled out onto sidewalks and into courtyards. By now, I'm having regular small talk with an officer guarding the area as I come and go.)
But as of now, it is still unclear if there will be anyone driving to Charlottesville this weekend to show us just how contemptible and ugly their racist/fascist politics are. The local confederate-sympathizers probably don't want to be publicly associated with last year's debacle or its organizer, and so will stay home. So, we are wondering if there are any out-of-towners who want to celebrate the atrocity of last year.
Our community is still healing from the emotional damage from last summer. We have to learn how to accept the past for what it is. Events related to last summer, but also on a bigger scale, our country seems unable to get past its foundational problems of race and slavery. We need to learn how to accept what happened, without ignoring the ugly parts. Here in Charlottesville, we have the special problem of having inherited the moral paradox of the slavemaster of Monticello, a man at the heart of Charlottesville's historical identity. Jefferson left us with something to explain, and we could start by admitting his influential failures when it comes to racial justice and injustice.
The past is what it is. We cannot change the past.
Who do we want to be now, and in the future? How can we help create a better society?
The lyrics of Bob Marley (pictured) point us in a good direction as we confront our society's problems. The tradition of social criticism in reggae music is an appropriate way to call out injustice without encouraging violence. We can declare war against oppression without taking up arms, and call out evil and lay it bare.
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Crazy Baldhead Dub
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Crazy Baldhead
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Who The Cap Fit
- King Tubby Ragga Muffin Stylee Dub
- Bob Marley & The Wailers War
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock)
- King Tubby, Augustus Pablo Keep on Dubbing
- Bob Marley & The Wailers No More Trouble
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Positive Vibration
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Three Little Birds Dub
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Roots, Rock, Reggae
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Running Away
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Crazy Baldhead
- Bob Marley & The Wailers Get Up, Stand Up
- Nightmares on Wax Survival Dub
- Junior Murvin Police and Thieves
- Gregory Isaacs Slave Master
- Sinead O'Connor Drink Before the War
- Erykah Badu Didn't Cha Know
- Colleen Everyone Alive Wants Answers
- Radiohead Climbing Up The Walls (Zero 7 remix)
- Thievery Corporation, Elin Melgarejo Lose to Find
- Bowery Electric Passages the sampled poem
- King Tubby Take Five
- Bob Marley Mellow Mood
- Bob Marley & The Wailers War / No More Trouble (live)
- Olafur Arnalds Happiness Does Not Wait
- The Notwist Consequence
- Nils Frahm My Friend the Forest
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