#CoolShit 06.04.20
Thursday.
So if I could be really honest with you, I’m at a loss with this email.
I could keep sharing horrific imagery of over militarized police or cities on fire - which is important to expose, but doesn’t show the full context of the moment.
I could keep sharing uplifting imagery & stories of police kneeling with protestors, the removal of racist civil war monuments, or how for the first time EVER the entire world is protesting together - which is important to expose, but that also doesn’t show the full context of moment.
I could share all the super disturbing anarchist activity I’ve seen, like the planting of pallets of bricks in areas of protests, or show people smashing windows & starting fires that obviously are not part of the protests- which is just super fucking scary.
I could ignore it all and get back to sharing “Jeff Bezos one rule to keep Amazon ultra productive” or “How to stay creative under quarantine” - but that feels so SO TONE DEAF.
That being said, I still feel compelled to keep the conversation going with you and keep doing what I do - share.
So along with some more resources, today I’m going to default to what I almost always default to, music.
See you tomorrow.
-Shelby
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For George Floyd
For Breonna Taylor
Understand the differences
“Alabama” John Coltrane
"Alabama" is a composition written by John Coltrane that appears on his album Live at Birdland (1963). It was written in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing on September 15, 1963, an attack by the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four African-American girls.
“I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” Nina Simone
The song served as an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1960s.
“Strange Fruit” Billie Holiday
"Strange Fruit" is a song recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939, written by Abel Meeropol and published in 1937. It protested American racism, particularly the lynching of black Americans.
“Original Faubus Fables” Charles Mingus
One of Mingus's most explicitly political works,[2] the song was written as a direct protest against Arkansas governorOrval Faubus,[3] who in 1957 sent out the National Guard to prevent the racial integration of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American teenagers, in what became known as the Little Rock Crisis.
“Mississippi Goddam” Nina Simone
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
For my sister my brother my people and me
“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” Cannonball Adderley Quartet
You know, sometimes we're not prepared for adversity.
When it happens sometimes, we're caught short.
We don't know exactly how to handle it when it comes up.
Sometimes, we don't know just what to do when adversity takes over. (chuckle).
And I have advice for all of us, I got it from my pianist Joe Zawinul who wrote this tune.
And it sounds like what you're supposed to say when you have that kind of problem.
It's called mercy, mercy, mercy.
“It’ll All Be Over” Supreme Jubilees
One of these old days
We ain't gonna have to cry no more
You see God's gonna wipe away all our tears
He gonna wipe the tears,
