Back in Sweet Home Chicago

Last week, I was back home in Chicago. It was a quick visit, I spent a lot of time in Niles, since I was mostly there to see my parents and any other family that were available.

While in town, I was able to see a few friends as well. One friend, Anne Halston, lives in the north side neighborhood of Rogers Park. She took me to see some of the street art there. The first work is a very powerful paste up installation. The work is comprised of numerous small pieces of paper pasted to the wall. Each one has the name of a black person killed by the police. As you can see from the images, there are hundreds of pieces of paper.

The second set of images simply show the mural across the street from the first work. It is part of the Rogers Park street art mural series. Because I wanted to add the visual flavor of Chicago, I included the yellow concrete pillars of the underpass. It’s a colorful moment captured from an archetypical Chicago point of view.

It’s always good to be back in Sweet Home Chicago.

W.M.A. – Pearl Jam

Artist as Rock & Roll Enthusiast (aka ARE) Post: 16

White. Male. American.

This song about police racism was released in 1993. It was inspired by an incident in which Eddie Vedder got into an altercation with a group of police officers who hassled his black friend but ignored him.

“He won the lottery by being born
Big hand slapped a white male American
Do no wrong so clean cut
Dirty his hands, it comes right off
Police man, police man, police man
Police stopped my brother again”

This song is now 27 years old. I’ve listened to it often over the years. Objectively it’s a pretty great song too. The tribal backbeat is hypnotic and it’s message is as vital as ever. Let’s listen to it like it’s brand new because the subject certainly isn’t old. #blacklivesmatter