Barack, we say Barack, it is allowed, because Bruce, Barack wants to talk about the situation in America. He does this with his wife Michael, daughters and friends. One of those friends was a white boy named Bruce Springsteen from a small town in New Jersey. Barack Thane is a black boy born in Hawaii. What do they have in common? Much. Their belief in the American ideal. Their hope for a more equal, better and more independent America, their love for the country.
At The Boss’s house in big New Jersey, they talk about it in a three-part podcast. Springsteen The Boss, President of Trump, it is July 2020. More than ever on the surface of racist society.
Bruce says that Barrack, who sits between the guitar and the eucalyptus, is actually a shy boy. That’s Barack himself, you wouldn’t say that, but that’s it. They are both outsiders. Bruce chose music as his channel of expression, and Barack chose politics. That provincial hole in which Bruce was born was narrow-minded, tolerant and racist. There were pistols and cars on Main Street, blacks attacked by whites and whites attacked by blacks, yet it was Brusus’ hometown. Wrote it there Named number About Barak singing.
Obama once sang for the whole country at the funeral of Clementa Pingney, a black pastor and politician in Charleston. At the funeral, Barack told 5,000 mourners, “We will lower the Confederate flag (the flag of the southern states in the Civil War), which is the way to God’s grace.” Then it’s quiet for ten seconds, he starts’Amazing grace‘Sing. A wave passes through the crowd. The same wave that the crowd goes through when Bruce Springsteen starts singing. Music connects. Music is the bridge we walk towards each other.
Bruce asks, “Can people be sent to the moon, making a lot of money on Wall Street, while there is so much racism and poverty?” This question is not answered in detail, but Bruce and Barack are coming a long way.
Renigates: Born in the United States, 8 episodes in 40 minutes, High Ground / Spotify
A version of this article was published on March 6, 2021 in NRC Handelspot
A version of this article appeared in nrc.next on March 6, 2021
