Rockin’ Thursday LIII

With everything going on in the United States—the attempts to disrupt the pillars of democracy and the unique diversity of our people—it feels right to share this song today. I know there are those in this country trying to erase the concept of diversity, equality, and inclusion. And while, for now, they may remove the words from websites and official documents, DEI is a part of our lives, and that will never change.

I found a beautiful song and an amazing video that truly capture the sentiment we need to embrace: living together and accepting our differences if we want a better world. Everyday People is a 1968 song composed by Sly Stone and performed by Sly and the Family Stone, an American funk band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1966. The song reached the number one spot on the U.S. Billboard chart in 1968.1

Here is a portion of the lyrics so you can see just how perfectly this song fits in 2025:

"I am no better and neither are you
We're all the same, whatever we do
You love me, you hate me
You know me and then
You can't figure out the bag I'm in

I am everyday people...

There is a yellow one that won't
Accept the black one
That won't accept the red one
That won't accept the white one
Different strokes for different folks"

I hope you enjoy the video and have a wonderful Rockin’ Thursday!

Sly & The Family Stone – Everyday People

You can access the lyrics here.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyday_People# ↩︎

50 thoughts on “Rockin’ Thursday LIII”

  1. Hi, Edward. Thanks for this uplifting post as well as the great comments it has inspired. I love this song and recently heard an interview with Questlove on “Fresh Air” about Mr. Stone and how influential/important his band, his songwriting, and his production skills continue to be.

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  19. Very timely, I just watched a good documentary about Woodstock last night, of course featuring a clip of Sly and The Family Stone. I feel like I am being drawn back to this music as a sort of counter force against what’s going on in the country right now. Based on someone else’s comment up there and your post, it sounds like I’m not the only one! I tried listening to the congress address a few nights ago and had to switch it off because I couldn’t handle hearing any more lies and distortions. Then once again I took a break from news – which we already discussed I can only take in small doses, and felt a pull toward music such as this. It’s cleaning day in my world and this will be one of the songs I pull up.

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    1. The good thing about these songs is that they remind us that good will always win. I didn’t try watching the address. After what he did to Zelenskyy during the press conference, I’m done listening to him. I cut daily news out of my life a while back and replaced it with The Economist, which I read a little bit at a time throughout the week. At this point in my life, I’m looking for good reporting and actual analysis. I’m done with the soundbites from our U.S. daily news shows.

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  21. Great song! DEI in most cases only gives a person a fighting chance. In doesn’t guarantee incompetent or lazy people a job. I know – I was a mid-level manager at a couple of large corporations.

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    1. Thank you, and you are right. It doesn’t guarantee those individuals a job. But again, this government has placed many incompetent people in charge of running government agencies, so with or without DEI, incompetent people will still find a way to get jobs they don’t deserve. DEI definitely helps break the bias that some people have when selecting the best candidates for a job by expanding the pool of qualified individuals. There was a time when male general officers blocked any attempts to promote female officers to the general officer rank. DEI concepts have solved that problem, and several women are now general officers.

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