Hopeless Side of Town

In 1971, Johnny Cash wrote and recorded a song called “The Man in Black” that protested the treatment of the poor, mass incarceration and the war in Vietnam.

I have a vague memory of seeing him performing the song on one of the variety shows of the day, which is a bit surprising given how cautious the TV networks were back then.

“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,” the song goes, “livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town. I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime, but is there because he's a victim of the times.”

The song comes to mind now as we get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July.

I’ll be wearing a black t-shirt tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a bright, sunny day, which ordinarily would be a perfect time to wear my American flag t-shirt or the one with the fireworks image emblazoned across the front.

But I’m not feeling terribly patriotic in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade and send abortion rights back to the states.

Two years ago, activists encouraged their followers to wear black to support Black, Brown, and Indigenous populations.

This year some people are donning black clothes to protest the court’s insane ruling that the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to an abortion.

Women are deleting period tracking apps from their cellphones, fearful that the data collected by the apps could be used against them in future criminal cases in states where abortion has become illegal.

'A Rainbow Everyday'

Major corporations are adding abortion travel costs to their employee benefits and a 10-year old girl, who was impregnated by a rapist, was denied an abortion in Ohio.

This is America?

The same medieval fanatics also struck down New York State’s law regarding concealed weapons, sharply curtailed the EPA’s ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and allowed some nutbag high school football coach to pray on the field.

And then there’s Clarence Thomas, who has been named as one of the five worst Supreme Court justices of all time.

Not satisfied with these hideous rulings, Thomas, the longest-serving Justice, wants the high court to revisit cases that established the right to a concept access and same sex marriage.

Interestingly enough, Thomas didn’t say a word about Loving v. Virginia, which struck down laws banning interracial marriage.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact Thomas is black and his wife, Ginni, is white.

And Ginni Thomas, by the way, is a stop-the-steal fanatic who attended the pro-Trump rally that preceded the US Capitol attack, and wrote text messages about the “Biden crime family" and "ballot fraud co-conspirators" being sent to barges off of Guantánamo Bay to face military trials for sedition.

In addition, there’s the January 6th committee’s revelations, where we learned that Donald Trump wanted armed thugs to attend his rally, threw food at the wall of the White House and grabbed at a secret service agent who refused to drive him to his personal Beer Hall Putsch

. What a time to wave the flag and light fireworks.

Johnny Cash ended his song by saying “I'd love to wear a rainbow every day and tell the world that everything's okay.”

I’d love to say the same thing, but it’s not true. So, I’ll be wearing black tomorrow.