Thursday, October 7, 2010

Music is life. Live a fun one. Listen to...?


Bob Dylan is personally one of my favorite songwriters of this last century. So I am already familiar with both the song and the album it is from. The title, The Times They Are A-Changin’, for Dylan’s third studio album is self-explanatory. Many of the songs are regarding political issues such as racism, poverty and of course social change, hence the title. The song, Only A Pawn In Their Game, speaks about the murder of Medgar Evers, who happened to be the Mississippi leader for the NAACP. Due to one’s ethnic background or even mind-set, one may find it hard to believe how poor white people were victims of discrimination in a different way than blacks were. But if you take a look at my earlier post where I speak about the government being the most influential factor in most if not all of these countries and our own personal issues. The song explains how common poor white people were in a sense, manipulated to enforce white supremacy throughout everyday life alleviating, individual political figures, the government, and the laws passed, from the blame. This song, although hard to imagine, should be able to appeal to both audiences, being whites and blacks. Blacks at the time might have been more understanding about the message than whites at the time or even African Americans in our current time. But the audience who should really listen and critically analyze the message this song is telling are the ones it speaks of, poor whites. The problem is that most of time they are just to brain washed, for lack of a better word, to see things for what they truly are, equal. And if they are taught to hate someone because of their skin color from a young age just the same way we are not given factual information regarding the civil rights movement then they, just as I or better said, we must seek truth on our own rather than confide on someone who we are told, has the credentials to give us “knowledge.” 

2 comments:

  1. Interesting - as you suggest, it's not that poor whites are "ignorant" as people often say, it's that they've been taught something that is wrong and destructive.

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  2. Exactly, the only problem was getting them to realize its wrong. I believe that this is still found today, everywhere. People are still being taught the wrong message and in turn ask the wrong questions or even worse they don't ask questions at all! So much more happy, content, and "unique" in our new UGG boots, watching reality t.v., obese, and over all dumbed down.

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