Which Side Are You On? BORDER (video)

Here is Border, Part 3 of the 8 parts of Which Side Are You On? I’m one of the lucky ones who falls in the “have some” category—white guy, born in Chicago, great family, education, opportunity and now I work as a musician and a writer. Even my lawyer friends with 10 times my income are jealous, at times, of me. It’s the luck of birth—a friend of mine quoted his brother praising their parents by saying, “we won the lottery with who we got.” How true is that. The luck of birth came with a place to live, dinner every night, schools, advice and order. My mother had a line “love and discipline in equal measure.” Even though she was tough as nails, the love outweighed the discipline— but I was the 5th of 5 with a cushier life than #1.

And I look around at the heartache and injustice and it is haunting to think about it. So we go about our daily lives, which in my case is making art, and don’t think about “it” all the time. But “it” never goes away. Because there were many, many people who got up today with trouble spilling over from yesterday…. what are we going to eat, how can we stay safe, how do we take care of children, how can I get some money?

So we divide the world, but it was already divided for us. There are those who are part of the solution, and those who are part of the problem. It is not right to sit in judgement, nor is it right to sit in silence on the sidelines and watch heartache walk by. These times, this troubled world moves me to work harder at what I can do and push for a more equitable and compassionate place. And to reach out to help those in need when and how I can.