The first track of Heard Not Seen II is called “theReason” and addresses racial issues concerning African Americans. Robinson said that a big part of people’s reactions to social ills need to be related to learning about historical factors that have led to modern day issues. He says it takes a long time for people to reconcile with the trauma that they, their relatives, and their ancestors have faced and to move forward. The following is an excerpt from a speech concluding “theReason.”
“Now since this economy of America completely rests on free labor, after the Civil War it was only a matter of time before it returned to that. Today what has replaced the cotton fields are the U.S. prisons. Plantations producing cotton and rice and tobacco have been replaced with a prison industrial complex. The education system prepares them to march dead straight into prisons.”
Robinson recommends that all people, whether they agree or not, should read “The New Jim Crow” to educate themselves on some of the obstacles that African Americans face.
“Throughout history, as laws changed to make things more inclusive, what took place is just a morphing of certain laws. Slavery morphed into Jim Crow [laws]. It wasn’t like slavery was abolished and everything got better.”
