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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Rachel Dolezal and Race Identity
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
From everything that has come out so far I'd say this lady is very confused and that the race/colour element is only part of the issue.
The links to creationism and fundamentalism are worrying and should be explored further.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
From everything that has come out so far I'd say this lady is very confused and that the race/colour element is only part of the issue.
The links to creationism and fundamentalism are worrying and should be explored further.
I don't understand your point - are you saying if she was black this wouldn't be an issue? Can a funamentalist not run a campaign group for minority rights?
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arse
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by art dunce:
I have a large family that has dealt with a great deal of both gender based and racial/ethnic based discrimination and I wonder if Jenner would sign up to be a "woman" if he was to to reduced to powerless chattel or if Dolenzar would choose to identify as "black" during Jim Crow. I think they're tourists.
How many black people do you know who have lived through Jim Crow? I've heard such anger about this woman from black people who say she's wanting to have something without going through the pain. Would you say the same about a modern day American black who wanted some sort of government advantage because he hasn't suffered slavery? Would you say he hadn't gone through enough pain?
I think it really is a can't win situation for many whites who are sympathetic and trying to understand. We can see it right here with Golden Key's well intended remark about hip-hop. Jumped on for naming one small aspect of "black culture," and not including fifty other things in his example. It forces people to walk on egg shells to the point of just giving up and keeping a wide distance.
I'm really incensed that Harper Lee of all people is criticized for her iconic and world changing novel. She wrote a book based on her father. She knew him in a way she couldn't "know," the black experience so she wrote it from his point of view. She gave the white world an example of a fine man who used his education and position to stand against white racists and ignorant prejudice. She also gave the world an example of how an innocent, kind hearted young black man might be falsely accused of a crime and nearly helpless to defend himself. By putting his example in everyone's mind she helped change the whole South and put an end to the heinous crime of lynching.
But now that's all wrong. The book wasn't written from the "right" point of view. The wrong color person was a hero.
Should the publishers only publish Toni Morrison's books from now on?
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Many black people, especially in Amerca, live in Jim Crow right now. it is unofficial, but real no less.
And, for the record, I did not jump on Golden Key. At least that was not my intent. The point was more to how we view each other.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
... I think it really is a can't win situation for many whites who are sympathetic and trying to understand. ... It forces people to walk on egg shells to the point of just giving up and keeping a wide distance. ... I'm really incensed that Harper Lee of all people is criticized ....
I'm afraid I don't understand why it's important for white people to "win" in a conversation about racism. It makes it sound like the main problem with racism is white guilt, not racism. And that it's important to make sure white people' efforts to sympathise and understand are properly acknowledged.
"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
--- Attributed to Lilla Watson, who prefers that it be credited to "Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s
I think it's silly to expect that a conversation about racism and white privilege can or even should be made comfortable for white people. Acknowledging white privilege is uncomfortable, and dismantling it will take effort, not just sympathy and understanding.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Twilight,
To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a seminal work in race relations.
To Kill a Mockingbird is representative of the telling of black stories through white protagonists.
Both are true. I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all. It is a wonderful book. But, as part of a group, it tells a different story. I would not have used that book to illustrate that point, but it is valid.
This is not an attack on the book or Harper Lee. It is an indictment on the system as a whole.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Twilight,
To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a seminal work in race relations.
To Kill a Mockingbird is representative of the telling of black stories through white protagonists.
Both are true. I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all. It is a wonderful book. But, as part of a group, it tells a different story. I would not have used that book to illustrate that point, but it is valid.
This is not an attack on the book or Harper Lee. It is an indictment on the system as a whole.
It strikes me that the problem is not the telling of black stories through white protagonists. Rather the problem is a lack of telling of black stories through black protagonists. Not that such stories don't exist, of course, but that they aren't given voice in the same way that stories like Harper's are. The solution is to find means to elevate those stories and give them a hearing.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
That is part of what I meant, cliffdweller.
But it is deeper than that.
The Color Purple lost best picture to a postcard. A postcard about white people in Africa, no less.
11 nominations and not one win. Might be coincidence. And it was 1986. Things have changed since then, but it still illustrates the point.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
... Dolezal and the white priest get to choose. Not so the folk who live in the township or the racist society.
Dolezai and the white priest aren't the same.
If we go back to the question I was asking, Dolezai happens to have the complexion that with careful make up and the right hair stylist, she can pass for coloured. I gather that in the US, that makes her black. Public opinion is saying that is reprehensible.
If a person with black or coloured parents, embedded in those communities, whether those are legally constrained or not, happens to be born with a fairly pale complexion, there is a long tradition of their seeking to pass for the next ethnicity up the social scale.
Most of us, I hope, don't regard that as morally reprehensible.
There is a difference of course. In one case a person is seeking to put themselves up a social grade, and in the other, there isn't. But that's no more than Hyacinth Bucket was doing.
I agree that there's something that sounds a bit phoney about Rachel Dolezai, but I'm not sure that we can condemn her too far without surreptitiously accepting intellectual understandings of race that go with old South Africa and 1930s Nuremberg.
I'd suggest that the only moral ground on which we can really criticise her is the same one that goes with bluffing your way into jobs which you aren't qualified for. But even that involves agreeing with the idea that 'race' should be as legitimate a job requirement as being qualified as a medical doctor, say.
Hi Enoch.
My initial reaction was that anyone who judges people based on the colour of their skin deserves to be lied to.
I'm not happy with that as a position; it seems like it's selling honesty short. But there comes a point where giving an honest answer is in effect collaborating with the assumptions behind the question. And there are situations where declining to answer is admitting that your answer isn't the one that the questioner will be impressed with and thus has the same effect as answering truthfully. The only way to avoid validating the assumption that they have the right to ask seems to be the outright lie...
Where some will disagree with me is that I see the process as being very much the same whether the categories of judgment are probable criminal vs presumed upright citizen, industrious professional vs feckless slacker, or oppressor vs victim. As soon as you let the colour of someone's skin determine how you view them - which class or category you put them into - you're in that place that the human race should be (and increasingly is) trying to get away from.
The idea that the good guys can break all the rules seems very prevalent these days.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
... I think it really is a can't win situation for many whites who are sympathetic and trying to understand. ... It forces people to walk on egg shells to the point of just giving up and keeping a wide distance. ... I'm really incensed that Harper Lee of all people is criticized ....
I'm afraid I don't understand why it's important for white people to "win" in a conversation about racism. It makes it sound like the main problem with racism is white guilt, not racism. And that it's important to make sure white people' efforts to sympathise and understand are properly acknowledged.
Of course I wasn't using "win" in the sense of a contest but in the sense that whatever they try to do to help seems to only make black people angry. This was never a discussion about white people's efforts not being recognized, it's about white people's efforts being hated. Racism works both ways you know. I don't care whether black people like or appreciate, "The Help," or not, but I do wonder why they hate a book that shines a light on the poor treatment of domestic help in the south.
I think it's silly to expect that a conversation about racism and white privilege can or even should be made comfortable for white people. Acknowledging white privilege is uncomfortable, and dismantling it will take effort, not just sympathy and understanding. [/QUOTE]
Right. Just what I was saying. There is all this disdain for white sympathy and understanding and anger that white people haven't dismantled racism through some undefined effort that can't be named. It's so easy to keep hating us when we don't wave a magic wand and make racism go away.
I don't expect black people to make me feel "comfortable," about racism. I didn't say anything like that, what I'm saying is that I'm finding it harder and harder to have black friends because they're all angry at me for things like "The Color Purple," not getting an Oscar (when has the most worthy movie ever got the Oscar?)
But unlike Rachel Dolezal I'm not all torn up with the guilt you seem to think white people should feel. I don't believe in a philosophy that visits the sins of the fathers on the next generations. I am only accountable for my own actions. My ancestors were starving in Ireland under British rule, while the plantations of the American South were going on. I don't hold any grudge against the English nor any guilt toward American blacks.
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It strikes me that the problem is not the telling of black stories through white protagonists. Rather the problem is a lack of telling of black stories through black protagonists. Not that such stories don't exist, of course, but that they aren't given voice in the same way that stories like Harper's are. The solution is to find means to elevate those stories and give them a hearing.
Thank you. This is the point I have been trying, With little success, to make.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
James Baldwin's writing was very illuminating, and much of it still strikes me as having current relevance. YMMV. Has he been forgotten since his death? It would be a shame if he had.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
There is all this disdain for white sympathy and understanding and anger that white people haven't dismantled racism through some undefined effort that can't be named. It's so easy to keep hating us when we don't wave a magic wand and make racism go away.
No one is asking for a magic wand. A recognition that the goal may be in range, but the ball has not past the goal keeper. That complaints of injustice are valid. Perhaps not in every case, but in the system.
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I was told recently that one of the problems is that white people need to stop trying to help. We need to stop trying to solve racism. We can't solve it. We just need to let PoC be themselves. I'm still thinking, but it seemed right.
Not sure I understand this. Letting everyone be themselves is grand. Truly. But the hands holding the reigns of power are still white. How does letting everyone be themselves change this?
White people still have the control, still actively and passively discriminate. How is this to change without white people participating?
Because making things right is not merely stopping discrimination. To make things right, a lot more needs to be done and a lot of the people with the power to do this are white.
Perhaps it would be better to say everyone needs to participate, regardless of colour.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Right. Just what I was saying. There is all this disdain for white sympathy and understanding and anger that white people haven't dismantled racism through some undefined effort that can't be named. It's so easy to keep hating us when we don't wave a magic wand and make racism go away.
Do you really encounter a lot of people who hate you for not being able to wave a magic wand and make racism disappear? Huh.
quote:
I don't expect black people to make me feel "comfortable," about racism. I didn't say anything like that, what I'm saying is that I'm finding it harder and harder to have black friends because they're all angry at me for things like "The Color Purple," not getting an Oscar (when has the most worthy movie ever got the Oscar?)
But unlike Rachel Dolezal I'm not all torn up with the guilt you seem to think white people should feel.
Interesting. My experience has been the opposite. Granted, I’m coming at the discussion from a weird angle - my aunt is black and I grew up with mixed cousins and black people at family events without thinking anything of it. And for reasons beyond my understanding, black people (even those who don’t know about my family) have a habit of calling me Sarah Jane (a character from the movie Imitations of Life who is black but passing for white) and/or telling me that I must have black ancestors somewhere back in the line. And, no, no one has ever been able to tell me what that means - what it is that I say or do or how I act that make people think I’m black passing for white (I mean, I listen to some Hip-Hop and rap but not much and it’s not like I have dreadlocks or dress or act in any stereotypical manner).
But black people have never gotten mad at me for things like “The Color Purple” not getting an Oscar, or To Kill a Mockingbird being popular even though it presents black experience as filtered through white eyes. In my experience it tends to be college educated white people - those who benefit from systemic racism and classism but who don’t want to give up the advantages they have - who go on and on about privilege and seem to be primarily interested in making people feel guilty for what they have instead of attempting to change the system. Because as long as you acknowledge and feel guilty about your privilege, you’ve done your part. (These also tend to be people who have a habit of speaking on behalf of groups that they’re not members of and insisting that their interpretation is true and right and people who don't share it just need to be educated).
But maybe that’s just the people I know.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
To Kill a Mockingbird is representative of the telling of black stories through white protagonists.
I'd be interested in unpacking why it's a "black story".
As opposed to a story of whites interacting with blacks.
I think a later post has actually kind of touched on this issue, by observing that the problem is a lack of black people telling "black stories".
But I think the whole notion that Mockingbird is a "black story" risks buying into the whole notion that for something to be a "black story" it just has to have a decent amount of black people in it.
A bit like the Bechdel Test being misinterpreted to mean that a story is okay from a feminist point of view so long as you manage to create a scene - any scene - that manages to have two female characters conversing. The original point was that such scenes are so goddamn rare, not that such scenes were the goal.
We are slowly beginning to see more stories that are more genuinely "black". The TV show Empire is basically a glitzy soap opera, but it's a black soap opera.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
To Kill a Mockingbird is representative of the telling of black stories through white protagonists.
I'd be interested in unpacking why it's a "black story".
As opposed to a story of whites interacting with blacks.
Harper Lee has said it was a love story, primarily. But it has been received in a much larger fashion as a story about race relations. What you write and what your audience reads are not always the same thing.
Objectively, it is a story about people, some of whom are black, some are white.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I think a later post has actually kind of touched on this issue, by observing that the problem is a lack of black people telling "black stories".
But there isn't a lack of black authors. It is that, for the most part, stories from a black perspective don't receive the same audience as stories from a white perspective.
White people have, IME, watched shows and read books from other white cultures rather than from the black sub-culture within their own. This is changing, but not amazingly quickly.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But I think the whole notion that Mockingbird is a "black story" risks buying into the whole notion that for something to be a "black story" it just has to have a decent amount of black people in it.
OK, first we might have to define what exactly is a "black story". Mockingbird addresses very real issues black people faced at the time.
So how is it not, at least in part, a black story?
James Patterson's Alex Cross novels are not black stories. They are detective novels that have a black main character and black supporting characters.
Walter Mosely's Easy Rawlins books are. They are detective novels, but the black experience is very much part of the story.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I was glad to see Toni Morrison got an honourable mention in the link to black authors everyone should read. She's very good.
On principle, I tend to resist arguments which foster guilt. Does the ethnicity of the author really matter more than the author's ability to illuminate? Good authors have the ability to write both from their own suffering and from a sensitive empathy with the suffering of others. They are able to walk a mile or two in someone else's moccasins. Isn't that what really matters?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Guilt is not a good word in these discussions, but it might be an inevitable one.
not that it should be the focus, but I dant see how it can be avoided.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
James Patterson's Alex Cross novels are not black stories. They are detective novels that have a black main character and black supporting characters..
Not enough black humour ?
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
It seems to me that the problem here is not these novels, but the cumulative effect of the narrative: black people very often have victim, subservient, ignorant, crime or other negative stereotypes in popular culture.
Atticus Finch is indeed an inspirational character and Mockingbird is a powerful book. I don't think anyone is saying anything otherwise - but the trouble is when society never moves on from the depiction of black people in Mockingbird. Even today there are few positive images of black people in the popular white consciousness outside of sport. If you consider black Muslims, there are even fewer.
Of course, it is not a total monolith, but the overwhelming direction of travel by the powers-that-be is to belittle and put down black people.
Acknowledging the greatness of fiction like Mockingbird does not change the fact that society constantly reinforces the second (or third) class status of black people in particular in the USA (but also in many other developed countries).
[ 23. June 2015, 07:55: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I think a later post has actually kind of touched on this issue, by observing that the problem is a lack of black people telling "black stories".
But there isn't a lack of black authors. It is that, for the most part, stories from a black perspective don't receive the same audience as stories from a white perspective.
White people have, IME, watched shows and read books from other white cultures rather than from the black sub-culture within their own. This is changing, but not amazingly quickly.
Yes, I agree with this. You're right, the issue is really on the 'demand' side, not the 'supply' side.
Music is the artform I most connect to, and recently I've been conscious how little black music there is in my collection. What is this due to? I would hope it's largely due to unfamiliarity, rather than conscious prejudice. I am in fact something of a musical explorer, but only by gradual degrees and there is so much music out there. I don't instinctively hear styles like R&B and think "oh, that's the kind of music I like". It takes something exceptional to grab my attention and signal that this is the artist who is going to be my way in to a different style.
(FYI, Janelle Monae is the artist who really made me sit up and think "I need to hear more of this", not least because she demonstrates an astonishing grasp of musical history. Also, Beyoncé's last album turned me into a Beyoncé fan, something I never anticipated happening.)
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Atticus Finch is indeed an inspirational character and Mockingbird is a powerful book. I don't think anyone is saying anything otherwise - but the trouble is when society never moves on from the depiction of black people in Mockingbird.
And I agree with this as well.
[ 23. June 2015, 09:04: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
orfeo: Music is the artform I most connect to, and recently I've been conscious how little black music there is in my collection.
LOL, I think the vast majority of the music in my collection is by black artists. I could point you to some very good African music, if you want to.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
orfeo: Music is the artform I most connect to, and recently I've been conscious how little black music there is in my collection.
LOL, I think the vast majority of the music in my collection is by black artists. I could point you to some very good African music, if you want to.
See, I don't know whether I want pointers or not! And it's not because I'm not interested, it's because I already have a listening queue that is several years long.
This isn't an exaggeration. I can tell you that the classical half of the list currently has 25 composers on it. In the last year or two I've only managed to cross 4 guys (yes, they're all male, and white, and almost all dead) off the list.
The pop half of the list isn't well organised enough to give you a precise figure.
And this is new stuff, for exploration, not stuff I already own. I have to listen to that from time to time as well.
Sigh. Alright, give me a few names in a PM...
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
I'm a big Dusty Springfield fan. As most of you probably know, she was a middle class white Brit who was very successful in the 1960s performing songs largely in the style of black American singers. She adored these singers, dated a few of them (very much under cover, as lesbians were in those days) and got thrown out of South Africa because she refused to let her audiences be racially segregated. She said she wished she'd been born black, although she didn't go so far as to try and fake her appearance that way.
Many of the black singers whom she emulated were unsure about her or even outright hostile. Back in the day, I got annoyed about this and thought "ffs what does Dusty have to do to prove herself to these people?" but then later I realised what was going on.
Dusty was in a massively privileged position. She was catapulted to fame as a nice respectable white woman who could sing all these songs coming from black people in America. Britain wanted those songs, but they wanted a white person to sing them. When there was a Ready Steady Go Motown special, Dusty had to be brought in as the Nice Respectable White Host in order to let the show go ahead. Singers like Baby Washington who would throw their heart and soul into a record that never got anywhere, would have it picked up by Dusty (an uberfan) and turned into a hit. As much as she might have identified with black people and felt at home among them, she didn't have to deal with one percent of the crap that a black person in the 1960s went through.
Dusty Springfield was simultaneously an antiracist and advocate for people of colour, AND a massive symbol of white privilege in the music industry. These two things can exist alongside each other, and that makes things complicated. So when I was asking "what were they expecting from Dusty" the answer was "this isn't about Dusty as a person, and by focusing on Dusty and her feelings I'm putting her ahead of the experience and frustration of millions of less prominent black people." I don't suppose there was much more that she personally could have done. That doesn't mean that everyone has to be happy about what she represented.
[ 23. June 2015, 09:54: Message edited by: Liopleurodon ]
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Liopleurodon, I love you. As usual.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
Steady on, my good chap ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
James Patterson's Alex Cross novels are not black stories. They are detective novels that have a black main character and black supporting characters..
Not enough black humour ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Dusty Springfield was simultaneously an antiracist and advocate for people of colour, AND a massive symbol of white privilege in the music industry. These two things can exist alongside each other, and that makes things complicated.
Isn't this in the nature of power more generally ? I guess wanting the powerful to do something for the powerless and when they do then resenting them for having the power to do it is just human nature. But some days human nature seems pretty screwed up...
(Sorry about repeat post above - poor Internet connection...)
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Liopleurodon, I think a major part of Dusty Springfield's appeal was as much that she was local and not an import, as also now are Leona Lewis and many others.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Liopleurodon,
Excellent post.
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Liopleurodon, I think a major part of Dusty Springfield's appeal was as much that she was local and not an import, as also now are Leona Lewis and many others.
Then how do you explain Springfield's popularity in the US where she was decidedly not local? BTW, she had more top 20 singles in the US than her "local" UK.
Some white singers sang black music because they loved it. Some where hired to sing black songs so that white teens would be listening to white singers. Straight up racist.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Dusty Springfield was simultaneously an antiracist and advocate for people of colour, AND a massive symbol of white privilege in the music industry. These two things can exist alongside each other, and that makes things complicated.
Isn't this in the nature of power more generally ? I guess wanting the powerful to do something for the powerless and when they do then resenting them for having the power to do it is just human nature.
No, that isn't it. It is that the same effort is not recognised as the same.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But some days human nature seems pretty screwed up...
Damn skippy.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Do you really encounter a lot of people who hate you for not being able to wave a magic wand and make racism disappear? Huh.
No, no, I was describing the feeling I get form opinion columns, message boards, etc.
Unfortunately, since retiring to this small town I don't meet that many three dimensional people at all. I did actually have the one black member of my book club get furious at me for not liking, "Beloved," even after I explained that I thought Toni Morrison was brilliant, but I just didn't ever like magical realism.
quote:
Some white singers sang black music because they loved it. Some where hired to sing black songs so that white teens would be listening to white singers. Straight up racist.
Straight up mercenary. I don't think Col Parker (Elvis's promoter) cared about race relations just money.
[ 23. June 2015, 19:41: Message edited by: Twilight ]
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Mercenary is in there, no doubt. But so is racism. Look up the history of "race" music. It is really clear.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Well, a random piece of information to throw into this discussion...
There's a certain period of music history where, if you hear an old black man wordlessly wailing the blues as a piece of background atmosphere, it's highly likely to actually be Australian singer Renee Geyer.
As the wikipedia article relates, when she tried to build a career in the USA the record company didn't want people to know she was white.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, a random piece of information to throw into this discussion...
There's a certain period of music history where, if you hear an old black man wordlessly wailing the blues as a piece of background atmosphere, it's highly likely to actually be Australian singer Renee Geyer.
As the wikipedia article relates, when she tried to build a career in the USA the record company didn't want people to know she was white.
Really? Because a lot of white singers still make a good living doing blues music. The audience don't seem to care. Go to a blues concert and you are sometimes hard-pressed to find the black people. Be it on stage or in the audience.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, a random piece of information to throw into this discussion...
There's a certain period of music history where, if you hear an old black man wordlessly wailing the blues as a piece of background atmosphere, it's highly likely to actually be Australian singer Renee Geyer.
As the wikipedia article relates, when she tried to build a career in the USA the record company didn't want people to know she was white.
Really? Because a lot of white singers still make a good living doing blues music. The audience don't seem to care. Go to a blues concert and you are sometimes hard-pressed to find the black people. Be it on stage or in the audience.
Yeah, Bonnie Raitt, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page, George Thorogood, among many many others, never made any secret of being white.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, a random piece of information to throw into this discussion...
There's a certain period of music history where, if you hear an old black man wordlessly wailing the blues as a piece of background atmosphere, it's highly likely to actually be Australian singer Renee Geyer.
As the wikipedia article relates, when she tried to build a career in the USA the record company didn't want people to know she was white.
Really? Because a lot of white singers still make a good living doing blues music. The audience don't seem to care. Go to a blues concert and you are sometimes hard-pressed to find the black people. Be it on stage or in the audience.
Yeah, Bonnie Raitt, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page, George Thorogood, among many many others, never made any secret of being white.
The question is, though, did they ever sound black?
As I understand it, that was the issue Geyer was faced with. Maybe audiences are fine with white people playing/singing the blues, so long as they sound like it's a white person doing it?
People who heard Geyer's voice without seeing her often made inaccurate assumptions about her identity (and having heard her do the "old black man wailing" routine, the assumptions are not crazy ones to make). It might be that disconnect that is the issue. I could well imagine in THIS day and age, Geyer might face accusations that she was trying to "sound black".
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I thought Mousetheif's point was that those people do "sound black." I thought Bonnie Raitt was black when I first heard her.
Now. Is it okay for black people to sing standards written by Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin? Do singers have to research the history of every song to see if it was written by someone with similar pigment? It's all just nuts to me. More reasons to be divisive.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
No, my point is that white people sing the blues. Black people singing the whites is irrelevant, when considering racism as oppression of a minority group (which is an essential part of the sociological definition).
As for white people "sounding black," I never heard Bonnie Raitt that way, but I thought for years that Joe Cocker was black, before I saw him on an album cover. It never turned me off his music (to learn the truth) but maybe I'm not a representative sample.
[ 24. June 2015, 14:28: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Black people singing black music were only allowed to sing on black radio, record on black labels and play for black folk. They made very little money. Then white people began to sing black songs. The white people could sing black music to white people. The white people made a lot of money. To further the insult, even after the race barrier was, sort of, lifted; white musicians built major careers with the same music the black authors were eking by with. White guitarist = arena tour, black guitarist = church halls and juke joints.
Funny story about Cole Porter. After he gained success, he bought a home in a very nice area of Los Angeles. One of his neighbors invited him to a party.
When he arrived, he was shown to the piano.
Being a gentleman, and much better person than I, he raised no fuss. He played.
And then, after, sent them a bill.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Black people singing black music were only allowed to sing on black radio, record on black labels and play for black folk. They made very little money. Then white people began to sing black songs. The white people could sing black music to white people. The white people made a lot of money. To further the insult, even after the race barrier was, sort of, lifted; white musicians built major careers with the same music the black authors were eking by with. White guitarist = arena tour, black guitarist = church halls and juke joints.
And all of this has to be further viewed within a history that including things like blackface - white people acting out caricatured depictions of black people for the entertainment of white audiences.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Black people singing black music were only allowed to sing on black radio, record on black labels and play for black folk. They made very little money. Then white people began to sing black songs. The white people could sing black music to white people. The white people made a lot of money. To further the insult, even after the race barrier was, sort of, lifted; white musicians built major careers with the same music the black authors were eking by with. White guitarist = arena tour, black guitarist = church halls and juke joints.
Don't we all know these things? Isn't it brought up in countless movies and biographies? What is your point? Do you think it would have helped the situation if someone like Elvis had refused to sing what you are calling "black," music? Or did he bring the music to white audiences and begin the cross over which led to the many successful black singers of today?
Why does this particularly concern you? It would be like me getting upset that NBA players are mostly black. The entertainment industry, like the world of sports has always been ahead of the mainstream culture in integration. When I was growing up in the sixties, I saw black singers on television and black actors in movies and black athletes playing major league sports but I never saw a black person working in a bank. I never had a black doctor or nurse I the hospital.
It's not the rarefied, talented singers and basketball players that concerned me but the thousands upon thousands of black people working in factories and coal mines getting paid less than the white men beside them.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I don't think a lot of people do understand the racist basis for much pop music, at least in the UK, I can't speak for people in the US. But the analysis above of Dusty Springfield may well surprise some Dusty fans.
Some white singers and musicians were basically parasitic upon black music, either by doing cover versions, or by imitating the sound. I would not usually blame the individuals, but it's a question of a wholesale sub-culture of theft and appropriation. Why would one stay silent about that?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Recent posts got me thinking of this bit of "cross-over" singing by the incomparable Nina Simone of a BeeGees song. What's wrong with a bid of blending, particularly when, as in this case, it demonstrates supreme talent? I think it's possible just to enjoy, and sometimes stand in awe of, genuine artistry.
Nina Simone - To love somebody
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Recent posts got me thinking of this bit of "cross-over" singing by the incomparable Nina Simone of a BeeGees song. What's wrong with a bid of blending, particularly when, as in this case, it demonstrates supreme talent? I think it's possible just to enjoy, and sometimes stand in awe of, genuine artistry.
Nina Simone - To love somebody
Well, I agree, but I don't think it's either/or. I'm in awe of Elvis, and Eric Burdon and Mick Jagger, and Dusty, and Tom Jones, but at the same time, I think they were part of a wholesale appropriation of black music. As I said earlier, I tend not to blame the individual artists, but to overlook the sub-culture of music theft is to erase and condone it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't think a lot of people do understand the racist basis for much pop music, at least in the UK, I can't speak for people in the US. But the analysis above of Dusty Springfield may well surprise some Dusty fans.
Some white singers and musicians were basically parasitic upon black music, either by doing cover versions, or by imitating the sound. I would not usually blame the individuals, but it's a question of a wholesale sub-culture of theft and appropriation. Why would one stay silent about that?
Parasitic? Why not, Dusty helped bring the music of African Americans to the forefront of popular music? No one owns music. Not any kind of music. Bob Dylan wasn't Woody Guthrie's parasite. Was Nat King Cole a parasite when he sang standards written by whites? What in the world is Mariah Carey supposed to sing?
This whole conversation just reinforces (to me) the original point by some of us that it's time to quit defining people or things (or music) by race. The amount of pigment in someone's skin shouldn't mean diddly. Ever. Whether deciding who to hire for a job or whether or not he can sing a song.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Well, that's kind of saying that ignoring racism will make it go away. I doubt it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Well your way hasn't worked very well.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Well your way hasn't worked very well.
How do you know what my way is?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
No one owns music. Not any kind of music.
Leaving aside copyright, I think this might be the heart of the matter. Music can help to break down barriers, simply because we discover that at its very best it can both celebrate and transcend any particular culture. It can be a universal language.
There's a world of difference between the Black and White minstrel show and Joe Cocker, for example. The former shows were self-conscious imitation, whereas Joe was simply, inimitably, himself. No theft there. He "got" it.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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