Since as early as I can remember, I've been a 'Bruce Fan'. Whether we were headed for the local supermarket or a long road trip to PA, he's been there with us. By the transitive property of mother-daughter relations, I've developed my mom's love for the Boss and his music.
However, it was not until tonight, as I watched the televised tribute to Bruce Springsteen with my parents, that I realized his brilliance beyond the world of music. We watched Jackson Brown cover Bruce's "41 Shots" from 1999. His single was inspired by the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo. The familiarity of this case forced me to research a little more about the case itself. This is what I found:
The Shooting of Amadou Diallo occurred on February 4, 1999, when Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss, who fired a combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo, outside his apartment at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of The Bronx. The four were part of the now-defunct Street Crimes Unit. All four officers were charged with second-degree murder and acquitted at trial in Albany, New York.[1]
Diallo was unarmed at the time of the shooting, and a firestorm of controversy erupted subsequent to the event as the circumstances of the shooting prompted outrage both within and outside New York City. Issues such as police brutality, racial profiling, and contagious shooting were central to the ensuing controversy.
Then I found he performed the same song in tribute to Treyvon Martin. Here's what I found on this case:
On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American high school student. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic man,[Note 1] was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily living and where the shooting took place. Zimmerman was accused of being motivated by racism[4][144] and of having racially profiled Martin.
And now, the issue in Ferguson.
Bruce's genius does not lie in the fact that he is conscious of the corrupt system in which racial profiling is the cause of death. Rather, it is in his music that his genius is illuminated. His music, containing beautiful and universal characteristics, alone acts as a symbolic resistance to the forces that divide our community. A master of his craft, Bruce has never failed me. Today, he inspires me to not be passive, and make a splash however way fits me best.
Diallo was unarmed at the time of the shooting, and a firestorm of controversy erupted subsequent to the event as the circumstances of the shooting prompted outrage both within and outside New York City. Issues such as police brutality, racial profiling, and contagious shooting were central to the ensuing controversy.
Then I found he performed the same song in tribute to Treyvon Martin. Here's what I found on this case:
On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American high school student. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic man,[Note 1] was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily living and where the shooting took place. Zimmerman was accused of being motivated by racism[4][144] and of having racially profiled Martin.
And now, the issue in Ferguson.
Bruce's genius does not lie in the fact that he is conscious of the corrupt system in which racial profiling is the cause of death. Rather, it is in his music that his genius is illuminated. His music, containing beautiful and universal characteristics, alone acts as a symbolic resistance to the forces that divide our community. A master of his craft, Bruce has never failed me. Today, he inspires me to not be passive, and make a splash however way fits me best.
Great post Sammy. I think that Bruce's work is somewhat similar to Faulkner's. They both produced timeless classics that are strangely applicable to recent news events.
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