Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “Freedom” by Richie Havens:

The United States of America is incarcerating children and their parents at its southern border.  That border became a border in 1848. The United States of America has been systematically separating children from their parents at that border, which before 1848 was just a river in Mexico, since at least 6 April. These are people. They are not monsters, and they are not infesting anything. To treat people systematically in this way is a continuation of a racist and fascist attitude that the current President of the United States expressed when he was a candidate, and has continued to express and enact in various ways since he became President. Nobody should be silent about this atrocity.