by Mark Epstein

Cornel West, speaking in the Rainier Valley last month, used the analogy of a musical ensemble for the expression of the beauty and the sorrow and blues of the human experience. Yet throughout the Valley, our city, and the country as a whole, the song has been punctuated in the last month by the discordant sound of gunfire. West decried the insufficiency of identity politics, declaring that pharaoh comes in all colors, and called for meaningful, substantive discussion and social and political change. His presidential candidacy is intended to spark that discussion. 

The gunshots provide a strong exclamation point to the socioeconomic, political, and moral crisis which confronts our society at this time. Like the COVID pandemic, the omnipresence of gun violence is affecting all of us, whether we realize it or not. I myself was witness to one of the episodes, ducking for cover for 40 seconds while bullets soared overhead and on both sides.