The revolution will not be televised
solely on ABC and BBC and CBS and CNN
via twenty-four hour news channels repeating graphic images
Repeating graphic images
Repeating graphic images
The revolution will be reported by bloggers and vloggers and looters and muggers
Twitters, Tweeters, fast-food eaters
hashtaggers and carpetbaggers,
The good, the bad and the ugly
all giving their own perspective on the state of America as, overseen by a bully, a rapist, a racist, a disgrace,
it swallows itself whole,
a blinkered and bloated, unantidoted nation, where institutionalised hatred of non-whites is at its scraggy, entitled core and the police are given free reign to murder whoever they choose, live on camera.
The revolution will not be finger lickin’ good
The revolution will be the real thing
Relying on the appliance of science
To get you all the news that’s fit to print
Because you’re worth it.
The roots of racism run deep and long, particularly in American history and while there’s a general pretence that we’ve all moved on somewhat, that we’re nowadays more progressive, more liberal and tolerant, it’s not hard to debunk that particular myth. They say you’re never more than 6 feet from a rat, and in the same way, you’re never more than 6 seconds away from finding a racist on Facebook or Twitter. Sometimes it’s out and out Tommy Robinson-style hideousness, sometimes it comes wrapped in that old ‘don’t white lives matter too?’ blanket, but it’s all there. Racists walk among us; the man on the street. The cop in Minneapolis – the Minnea Polis, you might say. Even (especially) the inflammatory Twitterer hiding out in the White House. Society’s cancer that refuses to die.
The George Floyd story is, depressingly, nothing new. The reaction has been seen before too. But not like this. Perhaps it’s the pent up release of a country in lockdown, hiding from one epidemic while another rages at its own door, brought to a head by a President who’ll use the situation to rally around the WASPish right as he clings to a job he’s not fit for doing. I don’t know. I’ll never properly ‘know‘. That matters neither here nor there though – I do know right from wrong. We are not all equal, but we should be. That’s obvious, right?
Gil Scott-Heron’s most-famous track, from whence that attempt at politico-prose at the top was inspired was recorded in 1970, just Gil and his firm, quietly assured voice, accompanied by some groovy percussion. The very definition of beat poetry.
Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Small Talk At 125th & Lenox)
It’s an ‘answer track’ to The Last Poets‘ When The Revolution Comes, street-tough, proto-rap that leaves its cards face-up on the table – “When the revolution comes, guns and rifles will be taking the place of poems and essays.” It was written more than half a century ago, yet seems perfectly prescient for addressing America’s white elephant, so to speak, that refuses to leave the room.
The Last Poets‘ – When The Revolution Comes
A few years after recording his response, Scott-Heron re-recorded The Revolution Will Not Be Televised with added funk and jazz musicians. Its roll-call of cultural reference points and underlying message of activism over pacifism now a relaxed, meandering soundtrack, no less hard hitting but presented in soft-focus polaroid as opposed to stark monochrome. It’s a great soundtrack by which to get political. Agitate, educate, organise.
Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Plain Or Pan 