But the music and dances at Apollo aren't just stylish, they make statements, raise spirits, lift people up. It must address the concerns of urban America that too often are ignored. Here are some issues for starters. The US now imprisons about 2 million Americans, half a million more than the China's dictators. They are disproportionately black and brown, young and male.
Most states now spend more on prisons than on universities.
Calling for tougher mandatory sentences has become an addiction for politicians in need of a toughness fix. Crack and cocaine come from the same source. Crack goes into poor neighborhoods and cocaine into wealthy ones. Independent experts have concluded that this discrepancy is racially based and have called for eliminating it. The conservative Republican Governor of Illinois just suspended the death penalty, after it was revealed that more people on death row have been released because they were innocent than have been executed.