I got the feeling that’s something’s goin’ wrong[1]Avant-garde saxophonist Archie Shepp initially emerged in the mid-1960s as another John Coltrane acolyte and associate of the Free Jazz movement (similar to Pharaoh Sanders). How he ultimately came … Continue reading
And I’m worried bout the human soul[2]The title-track is a direct allusion to the Attica prison riots of September 1971, in western New York state–the largest prison riot in U.S. history. In flagrant violation of the 8th amendment … Continue reading
I’ve got a feeling[3]And on a side-note to you so-called “Law and Order” types I knew in Church growing up, who always delighted of the suffering of the convicted and kept forwarding me chain-emails in … Continue reading
If I could have had the chance to make the decision
Every man could walk this earth on equal condition[4]We will also not apologize for noting yet again that inequality is the root of the scriptural word “Iniquity”–nor will we ever tire of quoting Acts 2:44 (“And all that believed … Continue reading
Every child could do more than just dream of a star[5]A reminder that we are not to wait till we “high to Kolob in the twinkling of an eye” before we establish a celestial Zion of perfect equality, but are to work on it here and now, in this … Continue reading
Bringing voices to a world that’s gettin’ old…[6]These are the Latter-days, are they not?
Do I worry do I worry yes I worry ’bout the human soul, yeah…[7]“And it came to pass that when they had knelt upon the ground, Jesus groaned within himself, and said: Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of … Continue reading
I hear voices, I see people
I hear voices, I see people[8]What, did you think it was mere window-dressing that President Nelson has lately paired with the NAACP in denouncing racism? Did you think the prison reforms passed in the aftermath of Attica … Continue reading
I hear voices of many people, sayin’
Everything ain’t everything[9]Recall that Satan’s final temptation to Christ in the desert–that he would give him everything in the world if he would bow down and worship him–is also his temptation to us. The … Continue reading
References
| ↑1 | Avant-garde saxophonist Archie Shepp initially emerged in the mid-1960s as another John Coltrane acolyte and associate of the Free Jazz movement (similar to Pharaoh Sanders). How he ultimately came to distinguish himself was by going full-on political, making the subtext of Jazz text in blistering screeds of righteous fury–the most famous of which is his 1972 album Attica Blues. |
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| ↑2 | The title-track is a direct allusion to the Attica prison riots of September 1971, in western New York state–the largest prison riot in U.S. history. In flagrant violation of the 8th amendment of the U.S. constitution, the Geneva Convention, and basic human decency, the overwhelmingly Black and Puerto Rican prisoner population was regularly abused, humiliated, and racially denigrated by the overwhelmingly white corrections officers; as historian Howard Zinn reported, “Prisoners spent 14 to 16 hours a day in their cells, their mail was read, their reading material restricted, their visits from families conducted through a mesh screen, their medical care disgraceful, their parole system inequitable, racism everywhere”. Finally the prisoners were pushed beyond the breaking point, rioted, and took several prison guards hostage, demanding humane prison reforms.
Compounding the outrage was when Governor Rockefeller, in consultation with President Nixon, sent in local police to massacre the prisoners. This action resulted in 43 dead–including 33 prisoners and 10 correctional officers and employees–almost all murdered by law enforcement. |
| ↑3 | And on a side-note to you so-called “Law and Order” types I knew in Church growing up, who always delighted of the suffering of the convicted and kept forwarding me chain-emails in support of Joe Arpaio and Singapore’s caning laws and the death penalty, I would only remind you that:
-Deuteronomy 25:3 explicitly proscribes any punishment that causes “thy brother [to] seem vile unto thee”; -The Savior Himself in Matthew 25:43 condemns those who saw that “I was in prison, and ye visited me not”. -Joseph Smith when he ran for President condemned both solitary confinement and punitive punishment, declaring: “Petition your state legislatures to pardon every convict in their several penitentiaries, blessing them as they go, and saying to them, in the name of the Lord, go thy way and sin no more. […] Rigor and seclusion will never do as much to reform the propensities of man, as reason and friendship. […] Let the penitentiaries be turned into seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism. Imprisonment for debt is a meaner practice than the savage tolerates with all his ferocity. ‘Amor vincit omnia.’” -Both Paul in the 1 Corinthians 13 and Mormon in Moroni 7 unapologetically state that if you have not charity, ye are nothing. Nor (for the millionth time) is it an accident that minorities make up a majority of the prison population despite the fact that white people commit the same percentage of crimes–nor that the 13th amendment fails to abolish slavery among prisoners specifically. These are well-known facts of long-standing provenance–and what Archie Shepp was railing against specifically. |
| ↑4 | We will also not apologize for noting yet again that inequality is the root of the scriptural word “Iniquity”–nor will we ever tire of quoting Acts 2:44 (“And all that believed were together, and had all things common”), 4 Nephi 1:3 (“they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift”), Doctrine and Covenants 49:20 (“it is not meet that one man should possess that which is above another; wherefore the world lieth in sin”), or even Ezekiel 16:49 (“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”) Shepp’s desire for “every man” to “walk this earth on equal condition” is not only his personal aspiration, but per the scriptures, the only state of affairs acceptable before the Almighty. |
| ↑5 | A reminder that we are not to wait till we “high to Kolob in the twinkling of an eye” before we establish a celestial Zion of perfect equality, but are to work on it here and now, in this life. Indeed, per our own scriptures, such has been accomplished at least twice already–by the City of Enoch and the Lehites of the first century–and is what both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were explicitly trying to establish in both the American Midwest and Rocky Mountains respectively (in fact, I think an argument can be made that Young fatally undermined his Utah Zion project via his own racism). It simply will not do to argue that we are incapable of establishing it in our present fallen world–we will also never be able to achieve perfection in this life, nor in the next life without the help of the Atonement of Jesus Christ–but that does not excuse us from still trying to do all we can to establish it anyways, for “it is by grace we are saved after all that we can do.” |
| ↑6 | These are the Latter-days, are they not? |
| ↑7 | “And it came to pass that when they had knelt upon the ground, Jesus groaned within himself, and said: Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel.” -3 Nephi 17:14 |
| ↑8 | What, did you think it was mere window-dressing that President Nelson has lately paired with the NAACP in denouncing racism? Did you think the prison reforms passed in the aftermath of Attica weren’t immediately rolled back in the ‘80s? We have serious sins to repent of still. |
| ↑9 | Recall that Satan’s final temptation to Christ in the desert–that he would give him everything in the world if he would bow down and worship him–is also his temptation to us. The desire to control and dominate others is Satanic in nature. It violates not only D&C 121:37-41, but the sacred free agency that the War in Heaven was fought over–and is still being fought here on Earth. It was being fought at Attica Prison. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36) Everything ain’t everything. |