Just a few days ago, Jay Z released a song called Spiritual which seems like an applicable song to all that is going on in the news lately. So how was he able to craft the song so fast? It turns out, he'd been working on the song for a few years now and it was almost released after Mike Brown's shooting in Ferguson a couple of years back. As Jay Z correctly, if pessimistically, said at the time, "This issue would always be relevant."
It is no more surprising that the late Austin Clarke's "Where Are The Men?" published in 2008, also has themes of mistreatment at the hands of racist police and the potential psychological damage it may cause in an individual, of the strength and resolve needed to rise above. It's also a stark reminder for people like me (i.e., white) of the sad, angering, and tragic truth that while I may feel safe and secure in the presence of a police officer, there are plenty of people who do not and cannot; who, in fact, feel the very opposite.
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