Edwin Silva: ‘Strange fruit’ becomes strange targets
The song “Strange Fruit” (by Abel Meeropol and sung most famously by Billie Holiday) depicts lynched black men hanging from trees. Now it seems we have “strange targets,” unarmed black men getting shot and killed by the police. Makes one long for the good old days when cops would just beat you with batons and sicced their German shepherds on you.
Perhaps we need a grassroots movement where every American male darker than me (I’m light-brown) forms a Utopian society where one need not fear getting shot by the police for unpaid child support or mistaking your bag of Skittles for an Uzi. Let’s get it together people.
Edwin Silva, Modesto
This story was originally published August 3, 2015 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Edwin Silva: ‘Strange fruit’ becomes strange targets."