michael franti
National Gun Violence Day Honors Victims and Survivors, But It’s Not Enough
I started writing this op-ed at the end of March, just days after the Boulder, Colorado shooting took place at a supermarket killing 10 people. As I continued to formulate my thoughts in preparation for Gun Violence Awareness Day, today, June 4, when I knew this op-ed would publish with our friends at SPIN, there have been many more mass shootings, many of which never made the news. The ones that did make the news include the March 31 shooting in Orange, California at an office building, an April 7 shooting by former NFL player Phillip Adams, another on April 15 at a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis, the May 9 Colorado Springs birthday party shooting, and just last week, a shooting just miles from my home in the Bay Area – the San Jose, California railyard shooting. Over 100 people die of g...
28 Musicians Predict the 2020 Baseball Season
Against all odds and the advice of many virologists, the 2020 MLB season is finally underway. Whether that’s a good idea in the midst of a pandemic is beside the point because it’s happening. Baseball is back, albeit in a much stranger fashion than anyone could have imagined when spring training began in February (which may as well have been 1923). With a 60-game season looming and a bunch of bizarre rule changes in effect (universal DH, runner starting on second base in extra innings, expanded rosters, and more playoff teams), the season is set to be the most unpredictable in years. You know who else is stoked about the season finally starting? Musicians. There’s always been a romanticism between artists and baseball that makes perfect sense. Thus, we’ve summoned a panel of baseball...
The First Juneteenth Came at the End of the Civil War, This Year It’s During the Middle of a Revolution
Juneteenth historically has been a series of days, the ‘teen’ days of June, when we celebrate the end of slavery. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union Gen. Gordon Granger read federal orders in Galveston, Texas that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free — even though the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two-and-a-half years earlier. On Dec. 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It abolished slavery in the United States and said that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” So, although we celebrate an end to slavery, the 13th Amendment sti...
