[78-L] Race observations

[simmonssomer]

And yet there were hundreds of 78rpm records issued with songs about that 
Dear Old Southland and Alabamy etc.

Al S.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <fnarf at comcast.net>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Race observations


> From: bruce78rpm at comcast.net
>
>> Jolson started out in Minstrelsy and milked the sentimentality of it
>> right up until the end. Does that make him a racist or a bigot?
>
> Yes, of course it does. I can't see how a sentient person could possibly 
> believe otherwise. Not only is his racism obvious on the face of it, it 
> would have been impossible for him not to be.
>
> Does that make it wrong to listen to it? No, of course not. Jolson was a 
> product of his times, just like everyone else was, and in fact an 
> understanding of minstrelsy, and the way it addressed race, is essential 
> to understanding how America and American music got to where they are 
> today.
>
> All American music, ALL of it, is a dialog between black and white. And 
> America, lest we forget, was an astoundingly racist place in Jolson's 
> day -- more so than at any time in its history. The 1920s were, after all, 
> not just the decade of jazz and flappers but the decade of the Ku Klux 
> Klan. Jolson's time was the time of Jim Crow as well, when the social and 
> political gains of blacks were being erased left and right.
>
> If you're not hearing those echoes when you listen to that music, you're 
> not hearing anything. Pretending it didn't happen is a poor way to 
> understand history. And extreme defensiveness about racism -- "well, I'M 
> not one, that's for sure!" -- is evidence to the contrary, I'm afraid. If 
> you want to understand American culture, you have to meet it on its own 
> ground, though.
>
> I strongly recommend Nick Tosches's book "Where Dead Voices Gather" to 
> learn more about how the conversation between black music and white music 
> has taken place over the years. It's largely about minstrelsy. There are 
> black vectors into white music and white vectors into black music all over 
> the place, and the fact that these took place under a cloud of 
> all-pervasive racism doesn't make them less important; it makes them more. 
> Minstrelsy is in fact one of the ways we got OUT of racism -- sort of.
>
> To call America a "post-racial" nation, though, is ignorant. We will never 
> be post-racial, nor should we aspire to be. More inclusive, yes, but race 
> is not something to banish from our understanding. Attempts to do so, as 
> we have seen here, fail horribly.
>
> -- 
> Steve
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