Maine's Guilty (Woke) Conscience

Freddie Mercury, my pick for #1.

Maine is the second-whitest state in the U.S., with black and African Americans comprising just 1.39% of its 1,372,559 citizens. As such, it feels very guilty and tries very hard to highlight anything positive about this demographic. 

For example, an article in today's Portland Press Herald about the newly-released Rolling Stone list of the "200 greatest singers of all time" cites only these black artists: Aretha Franklin (#1), Diana Ross (#87), Martha Reeves (#151), Michael Jackson (#86) and Gladys Knight (#101). 

Full disclosure: like many others in the Portland Press Herald, that article is a pickup from the Tribune News Service and written by someone named Myesha Johnson, so we can infer it may originally have been aimed at a black audience. Yet here in Maine, the likely readers are white. They might be interested in hearing about some of the white people on that list. I know I am.

FYI, following are the top 20 from Rolling Stone's list. I had to laugh at seeing someone I never heard of named Celia Cruz besting Frank Sinatra. Was that just to elevate someone of Latino descent? How very woke of them!

1. Aretha Franklin
2. Whitney Houston
3. Sam Cooke
4. Billie Holiday
5. Mariah Carey
6. Ray Charles
7. Stevie Wonder
8. Beyonce
9. Otis Redding
10. Al Green
11. Little Richard
12. John Lennon
13. Patsy Cline
14. Freddie Mercury
15. Bob Dylan
16. Prince
17. Elvis Presley
18. Celia Cruz
19. Frank Sinatra
20. Marvin Gaye