Floridian: 'American Skin' proves thin for police

'American Skin' proves thin for police

Some in law enforcement find themselves in the unusual role of protester over Bruce Springsteen's song about Amadou Diallo, shot 41 times by police.

By BILL DURYEA

Chased a boy right through the park.

In a case of mistaken identity

They put a bullet through his heart."

-- Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), the Rolling Stones

* * *

It's getting so a man can't strum a guitar and take a swipe at the government anymore without somebody in a blue uniform firing off a press release and yelling 'bout boycotts.

This week, Bruce Springsteen, the New Jersey rocker who has championed society's underdogs and outcasts for 30 years, became the latest American musician to offend the sensibilities of the police. The Boss, so beloved by the mainstream that New Jersey tried to make Born to Run the state song, now joins the likes of rappers Ice-T and N.W.A. on the cops' 10 Most Despised list.

What has the police in New York City so riled this time is Springsteen's song American Skin, which refers to the shooting of Amadou Diallo, the unarmed African immigrant who was killed by four New York officers in a barrage of 41 gunshots. The officers were acquitted of murder, but public anger over the shooting and others like it continues.

Springsteen's mournful song, which includes the lyric "You can get killed just for living in your American skin," is hardly the harshest attack on the police, but it prompted a call from the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association for a boycott of Springsteen's 10 performances at Madison Square Garden. The shows continue through July 1.

"The message (the boycott) sends is that the police are above criticism," says Gil Rodman, assistant professor of communication at the University of South Florida, who specializes in pop culture and freedom of expression. "Part of the premise of the First Amendment is that the people have the right to petition government for redress of grievances, that they have the right to criticize the state."

The question, says Vincent Skotko, a psychologist who works with the Tampa Police Department, is whether the criticism is fair.

"The lyrics (of American Skin) are adversarial, creating an image of the police as the enemy, referring to a tragedy in which the police officers were found not guilty," he says. "I know thousands of people in law enforcement, and I don't know anybody who sees themselves as an adversary of the public."

Nothing pricks the public conscience and stirs the juices of indignation like a good protest song. The tradition of rapping the knuckles of the armed and powerful is a rich one in American popular music; protest songs appeal to the iconoclasm that gave birth to this nation.

Woody Guthrie railed against union busters and railroad dicks. His successors Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan fought similar battles against injustice.

In his 1976 song Hurricane, Dylan accused police of framing boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter for the murders of three people in a New Jersey tavern. Ohio, by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, which immortalized the killings by the National Guard of four students at Kent State University, became the unofficial theme song of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Police and National Guard officials might have fumed over the unflattering portraits of their organizations, but no one attempted to pull Dylan's albumDesire off the record store shelves. In fact, a benefit concert for Carter at Madison Square Garden in 1975 drew an impressive list of politicians and luminaries, including then-Rep. Edward Koch and Coretta Scott King.

Police backlash is relatively new, beginning, it seems, with the advent of sensationally profane and violent rap lyrics. In 1988, the band N.W.A. hit the charts with F-- tha Police. The album sold more than 2-million copies even though the FBI sent a warning letter to the record company, saying it took exception to the song's endorsement of violence against police.

The rapper Ice-T created an unprecedented furor in 1992 when he recorded the song Cop Killer, in which the song's protagonist vows to seek revenge on police who stopped him just because he was black.

The song so enraged the sheriff in Lee County that he asked Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth to charge Ice-T with treason, a request that Butterworth declined. In response to pressure from law enforcement groups, Time-Warner rereleased the album Body Count without the offending song.

In January 1999, police and government officials protested a concert by the band Rage Against the Machine to benefit Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. The show raised $375,000 for Abu-Jamal's legal appeals even after the station that had initially promoted the show withdrew its support.

Though there is evidence that album sales increase when such controversies erupt in the media, Rodman, the USF professor, says police boycotts are far from ineffectual.

When police refuse to provide off-duty security at concerts, promoters may be forced to cancel shows, he said. It may not be classic censorship -- artists are not being jailed, records are not being seized -- but "The end result may be similar," Rodman says.

Springsteen will not suffer financially or professionally because a PBA official called him "a dirtbag," but the intensity of the police reaction indicates how wounded they feel by the song's message.

"Cop Killer was so clearly off the mainstream it could be seen as ranting and raving," Skotko said. "But Springsteen is so mainstream, it's not as easy to dismiss."

-- Times pop music critic Gina Vivinetto and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.

The lyrics

Here, according to the New York Daily News, are the lyrics to American Skin/41 Shots, as Bruce Springsteen performed them in Atlanta on June 4.

* * *

41 shots

41 shots and we'll take that ride

41 shots

* * *

Lena gets her son ready for school

She says now on these streets Charles

You got to understand the rules

Promise me if an officer stops you'll always be polite

Never ever run away and promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight

* * *

(Chorus)

Cause is it a gun?

Is it a knife?

Is it a wallet?

This is your life

It ain't no secret

The secret my friend

You can get killed just for living in your American skin

* * *

41 shots

Across this bloody river to the other side

41 shots they cut through the night

You're kneeling over his body in the vestibule

Praying for his life

* * *

(Chorus)

* * *

41 shots

* * *

(Repeat Lena verse)

* * *

(Chorus)

* * *

41 shots

* * *

(Chorus)

* * *

41 shots and we'll take that ride

Across this bloody river to the other side

41 shots my boots caked in mud

We're baptized in these waters and in each other's blood

* * *

It ain't no secret

Is it a knife?

Is it a wallet?

This is your life

It ain't no secret

The secret my friend

You can get killed just for living in

You can get killed just for living in your American skin

* * *

41 shots