A column in 111 computer counted words.
May 25th, the day after Dylan turned 79, the black man George Floyd is murdered. Floyd dies of breathlessness after being pushed for minutes against the asphalt by a white policeman’s knee at the height of the carotid artery. It happens in Minneapolis, the town where Bobby Zimmerman became Bob Dylan. I want to hear Dylan sing about oppression of black skin freedom by a white policeman’s knee. But probably Dylan is frustrated thinking about Medgar Evers, George Jackson, Hezekiah Jones, Hattie Carroll, Emmett Till and all other George Floyds he sang about. Maybe Dylan sighs despondently: “How many times our cities have to burn before the message finally is heard?”
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