It’s clear that the happenings over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, has left many Americans shaken. The “protest” of white supremacists dubbed “Unite The Right” left one woman—Heather Heyer—dead and over a dozen more injured after an alt-right protester rammed his car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters. Videos of the murderous incident of the car plowing into the counter-protesters as well as the images of a group of white supremacists brutally beating a 20-year-old black man, Deandre Harris, among others soon went viral and sparked outrage, creating a new wave of anti-bigotry activism across the country.
Yesterday, Wilco released a brand new song called “All Lives, You Say?”, with the title making fun of the “All Lives Matter” slogan that is largely thought to minimize the importance of “Black Lives Matter”—a movement that seeks to address the racial inequalities within the criminal justice system. The band’s newest single is available for download or free stream, with the download available for a minimum donation of $1. All proceeds from the donation will go toward Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-hate and anti-bigotry organization that tracks and exposes the activities of hate groups, litigates civil rights cases, and teaches tolerance through a free school program.
In Wilco’s post about “All Lives, You Say?”, the band announced that the proceeds would be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center in honor of front man Jeff Tweedy’s father, Robert L. Tweedy, who died earlier this year. The post also contained a quote from Jeff Tweed about his father, with Tweedy stating, “My dad was named after a Civil War general, and he voted for Barack Obama twice. He used to say ‘If you know better, you can do better.’ America – we know better. We can do better.”
You can stream the latest from Wilco, “All Lives, You Say?”, below, or download the track from their Bandcamp after a charitable donation here.
Â
[Photo: Steve Olker]