Week 2 Response - Nick Roberts

One interconnection I noticed between social movements and art is arts ability to transcend time as well as ethnic or socioeconomic groups and speak to everyone at a personal level. This gives it the unique ability to show others outside the affected group the hardship and oppression faced by that group. In Bag's writing, she brings us bag to that critical time in 1970 to the social unrest brought on by the Vietnam War and an uncaring government. After witnessing the Chicano Power march quickly fall into chaos and the police brutality that followed it she was faced with the difficult dichotomy of the police force. On the one hand "they had rescued my mother from my fathers vicious attacks" and yet after "Reuben Salazar... had been shot and killed" she saw their potential to be both a protecting and oppressing body (Bag 70). This experience seemed to fuel Bag's video "White Justice" in which she sings lyrics criticizing the current justice system while playing videos of the police brutality of that 1970 march. While her writings were important and very moving, there is something about the music and the videos combined that bring on a new human aspect to the tragic event. It becomes impossible to distance yourself from the issue and you feel more a part of it. The art becomes a way to connect people to the plights of others and make them care more than any other form of communication can.