Strange fruit

ha, what days passing me by. The last two days i´ve been editing videos for a promo tape for YO! (Youth on Stage) which involved going through tons and tons of unedited video dvs of the last 2 years. Umpf, but finally i did it. Well i came across Hip Hop Cabaret, a show peformed regularly twice a year spring and fall, which obviously combines these two forms of peformance. It´s created out of the idea, that both cabaret and hip hop appeared and spread to deliver political issues in an entertaining way. Each of the shows are different and emerge out of, either relevant political issues or personal statments and points of views of the participants, eventually it emerges out of both. Seeing a girl sing the song 'strange fruit' by Billy Holiday made me shudder. I´ve never heard that song befor and the lyrics are so frightning. Going back home on the A train (this time) a pretty old, black man stumbled into the train, obviously drunk, sitting down opposite to me. The lyrics immediatly came back into my mind. It made me so sad and angry to look at this guy and know that he actually did suffer under racist opression when he was a young man and how probably it screwed his life quite a bit. On the other side of the train was a kid sitting, really trying hard to look scary and gangsterish, staring at this guy. Probably thinking to himself, urgh what a weird dude, but not considering the fact, that if no future plans are made and no step is taken forward one might end up exactly like this. Ah New York...So much input...