6/14/00 6:10 p.m.
American Skin, American Ears
Rush to judgment is unfair to Springsteen.

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

fter last week's piece on Jon Corzine, who could have guessed that yet another Garden State boy would be in the news so quickly?

The instant conservative reflex upon hearing that Bruce Springsteen has recorded a song on the Amadou Diallo shooting is to criticize him. "Yet another liberal entertainer going after the cops" would be the predictable refrain. That's also the party line of the local Policeman's Benevolent Association. The head of the PBA urged cops to boycott Springsteen's week-long series of concerts here at Madison Square Garden. The head of the national Fraternal Order of Police called Springsteen a "f---ing dirtbag."

Such critics are off-base, this time around. Now, your columnist admits to not attending any of the concerts in question. He is going from the lyrics as they have been printed in various sources and played over the radio and Internet. But since most of The Boss's critics haven't heard the song — or are urging people not to go to the concert — we're all on equal footing.

It is reasonable to assume that Springsteen is a liberal. He recently endorsed the actions of an anti-death-penalty group. Back in 1984, he took umbrage at attempts by the Reagan reelection campaign to use his "Born in the U.S.A", saying that the song was not the "rah-rah" pro-U.S. anthem that the Reagan people believed it to be. Fine, the guy is not a rock-solid conservative.

On the other hand, he is not an Ice-T slamming the boys in blue. He has, in fact, given benefit concerts for the families of cops killed in the line of duty. One reason why Springsteen's songs are good is that they are more nuanced than either interpreters on the right or the left would regularly accept. That's the case with the song in question, "41 Shots." The words of the song powerfully demonstrate that Springsteen understands the dynamics of the issue better than the average liberal agitprop activist.

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 momma you'll keep your hands in sight.

The song is called "American Skin," not "African Skin" or "Brown Skin." In fact, there is no reference to color at all. The mother is "Lena"; her son is "Charles" — names that give no particular hint of ethnicity. In other words, they are everyday Americans. The words the mother shares with her son are, in fact, nuggets of advice that everyone from the ACLU to New York cops themselves suggest to citizens if they encounter a police officer.

The chorus is just the words "41 shots" repeated over and over. Later, the song asks the question,

Cause is it a gun?
Is it a knife?
Is it a wallet?
This is your life
It ain't no secret
It ain't no secret
The secret my friend
You can get killed just for living in your American skin.

The ambiguity of the question is vividly highlighted in the last verse, which includes words that Springsteen's critics have chosen to ignore.

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.

The person kneeling could very well be a cop. Officer Sean Carroll was one of the Diallo cops. He testified that, after realizing that Diallo had no gun, he felt for a pulse and pounded his chest to give him CPR. Finally, according to Carroll, "He stopped moving ... I held his hand and rubbed his face and said, please — don't die!"

Springsteen is critical of a series of events that led to the death of an unarmed man — as well he should be. But the song's not calling for a retrial of the cops or an excoriation of them. The goal of any artist is to try to show the viewpoints of individual characters and how certain circumstances lead them to become participants in a tragedy. The truth — or the "secret," if you will — is that the cops live in "American skin" as well. They could just as easily lose their lives for living in it. It's clear that that that very fear was likely the precipitating factor that caused the particular tragedy in question.

Has Springsteen invited certain criticism by inviting Diallo's mother and father to his concerts? Perhaps, but only if one believes that honoring the parents of a man accidentally killed is necessarily an anti-police action. Diallo's parents asked to meet Springsteen, and he accepted. Of course, if the heads of the police unions had bothered either to listen to the song or pay attention to its details before automatically pillorying Springsteen, they might have angled a way to get a few cops invited to the concert. Having cultivated an image as a friend of the working class — black, white and otherwise — he would have been hard-pressed to turn down such a request.

Of course, such an idea by the cops' unions would have required something more than just American skin — like American ears or American common sense.