I have long been a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the United States’ oldest peacemaking organization, and I hold them in high esteem. It was pretty amazing for me to open up the most recent edition of their magazine, Fellowship, and find this two-page spread about my song, Look Away, and the video that Hannah Garrity and I created for it.
My long time friend Ethan Vesely-Flad, who works for FOR, asked me to write a piece about the song, which engages my own personal family history as it relates to race and racial oppression. If you’re interested in knowing more about that song or video, we created a resource to take a deep dive into how the song came to be, and how we made various aesthetic choices to create the video. Follow this link to learn more about the song, the video, and the family history that informs both.
As the controversy surrounding Jason Aldean’s new song continues to simmer, I’m grateful to be able to offer an alternative perspective from a small town Southerner, and I’m moved that Ethan and the good folks at FOR considered this worth amplifying.
Leave a Reply