Permanently Under Construction: Blue Scholars "Back Home"

Blue Scholars "Back Home"
dir. by Zia Mohajerjasbi
While much of Zia Mohajerjasbi's video is concerned with the suffering that follows the death of soldiers in a futile war, there is also substantial anger directed at a system which manipulates some young people into making that decision to fight in the first place. It isn't simply recruiters outside schoolyards, but the constant barrage of depressing images which kids growing up in the poorer neighborhoods of America must face on a daily basis. From decrepit environments to institutional racism, these minds are molded to doubt themselves and their ability to transcend their surroundings from day one.

Under these circumstances, the military does seem to provide an avenue for escape - and in many ways it could - but the subsequent illogic of our actions in Iraq makes it all seem like a pointless trap. The cumulative frustration of all this is personified in the simplicity of the title/chorus, and in a single poignant image. As an impressionable young girl walks past a black man being handcuffed against a wall, Malcolm X looks on from a fading graffiti portrait where the word "Sisters" is scribbled to his left. Social justice silenced and forgotten in the alleyways of the city.