Blue bird writes:
What I take away from this diary is that segregation isn't just something Black people created to get away from us - it's something we do to ourselves by not caring and not being involved, and not listening, and not reaching out, and not having the guts to reach out. Most people visiting another country will prepare themselves before travelling by learning about that country's culture.fascinating diary (9.00 / 1)
and great question, too - does the tree make a sound if no one is around to hear it? Because functionally that is what U.S. culture is like - see no Black people, hear no Black people - What Black people? Where? Is the door locked? (to me it's pretty fucked up that it's possible for a white person to go YEARS without ever SEEING a black person except in various pop culture media and news - yet this is how white opinions about black people are formed.)
Since, as the drive-by rating game is evidence, there are still some folks out here who are not getting the point of this piece, I'm going to offer a bit more backstory here. You, Blue, have obviously understood the intent.
I repeat: this piece has been accepted for publication three times, by three separate editors-two of whom happen to be "heavy hitters" in the field of "race studies," one of whom, Gloria Anzaldua, unfortunately died before she had the chance to complete the project, so you're obviously not alone in "getting it." And I am not alone in contending that it contains an important message--one that extends far beyond the issue of the specific traditions discussed in the essay.
As I said, I've been taking the heat on this essay for a decade now. And hey, way I see it, when you write something that meets with that much resistance, it's a good sign that you are "on to something."
As I also said, my first encounters with West African drumming occurred in Europe, in an environment where race was not an issue (mostly because almost everyone doing it was white anyway; the few "Black folk" who were involved were native Africans, many of them from the "source culture," a culture in which there's really no such thing as a "nigger.") What mattered was knowledge of the tradition. Skill level. Thanks to a large degree to the efforts of my first teachers-two white teachers from Berlin-there was a pretty well-informed audience to work with: people could tell the difference between a "trained drummer" and someone who was just "banging a drum." People knew that there was no such thing as "African drumming"-there was Malinke drumming, there was Ewe drumming, there were Sabar drums from the Wolof tradition, there was a completely distinct Bata tradition, and other Latin traditions, etc. -all of which had their own "rules" and "guidelines." So there was little room for charlatanism and "faking it": either you knew the shit or you didn't. And if you were "faking it," no matter what color you were, you fell off the map and off the radar in pretty short order.
So I came over here, the day of the LA riots, in fact, with 300 lbs of authentic, hand-made-in-Africa-by-Africans African drums in toe, and a whole stockpile of accurate, from-the-source information in my head and my hands.
I returned to America, with the experience of Africa and of Europe in my rearview mirror. To my surprise, I could no longer see the African Americans with whom I'd more or less grown up in the same light. Suddenly, America looked to me like "little Africa," and the people who had previously been African AMERICANS in my mind were now AFRICAN Americans. I had quite a bit to learn on that subject-believe me-and I'm still trying to wrap my head around a lot of it.
(The fact that 3 of my Black adult students and one Black child seeking to attend a workshop by a master drummer from the source culture in Africa that was staged in a filthy rich white suburb-a place where the only "coloreds" who dare to tread are folks like Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan-were turned away at the door, and when they refused to leave "peacefully" the cops were called...yo-that's a little detail I'm still tryin' real fuckin' hard to wrap my heart around! Imagine: you're a kid, and you witness the way your father is "criminalized" in a filthy rich white suburb for attempting to attend a workshop in African drumming: his crime, he didn't pre-register. The master drummer from Africa could have intervened. He didn't. One ringy-dingy! Anyone still wondering about concerns expressed by the African American community with regard to the way non-native born Blacks might be "instrumentalized" to function as token minorities to once again screw the fuck out of native American Blacks?!?) :(
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the first thing someone in my position might do would be to seek out collaborators (and students) in the African American community. But the response was not unlike the response Paul Simon got when he did the Graceland album: how dare you white motherfucker come along and "appropriate" Black music in this way? Now, of course, without Paul Simon's efforts, the concert with Ladysmith Black Mombazo and Sweet Honey in the Rock I saw this summer would not have been possible; without Paul Simon, the predominately African American audience in attendance at that concert would not have had that experience. Paul Simon, of course, was nowhere in sight-nor do I think he'd had any vested interest in standing on that stage. He knew what the hell he was doing when he began collaborating with these musicians, and he was willing to take the heat for doing what he had to do-in the spirit of serving the greater good. Yeah, Paul Simon is my HERO. He represents the polar opposite of what's going on in this other "scene."
So, while I'm busy running around, just trying to "get back to the Hood," more or less with an attitude of "hey, come on, guys, I went down to Africa and `got the goods'. Really, believe me, I got the goods!", two separate phenomena were underway that served as huge obstacles:
A) a number of charlatans from Africa who were NOT from the source culture of this tradition were running around selling themselves as "experts" on something they knew nothing about. Because of the racist tradition in this country, these charlatans who were exploiting the African American community's deepest desires to "connect" with their "roots" were of course taken at their word. A Brother wouldn't lie to us now, would he? One of these men in particular spread-throughout the entire country-the myth that women in Africa were forbidden from playing these drums-I recently told the story of the ramifications of this on children (girls) in the inner city.
The truth of the matter is that the Djembe drum was in fact created by a woman, and legend would have it that the rhythms also originated from the women, who taught them to the men, so that the men could play these rhythms while the women danced. There never was an outright ban on women playing these drums. There are, in fact, some traditions in Africa, in which MEN are forbidden from participating-but this particular tradition never had any gender restrictions placed upon it. These charlatans were teaching rhythms that did not even exist in the source culture. Or, they were teaching "mish-mash" rhythms, attaching names to them that were incorrect. Disinformation and mis-education was the name of the game. It was a fucking MESS.
B) At the same time, there were these things called "drum circles" cropping up all over-as described in this essay. These drum circles were facilitated by and catered to a predominately white audience-and it cost a lot of money to participate. At the drum circle that inspired this essay, there were at least 100 people in attendance. One of them was Black.
Here, too, from a strictly formalistic musical perspective, the scene could be described as nothing but a mess. WHITE NOISE in the truest sense of the word, and it was burgeoning into a major profit industry. It was a sham: as I said, the primary motivation was sales, sales, sales. It exploited the spiritual impoverishment of WHITE communities. At the time, the facilitators and manufacturers were still billing it as "African drumming." This essay contributed substantially to putting an end to that, along the lines Bluebird suggests in another comment on the originall thread (I paraphrase): "If you are going to do this, then at least call it what it is: "African-inspired" or derivative or whatever, but this is NOT any form of authentic African tradition.
So here I am, here I come-I've got the "goods"-the real ones. Culturally, I am "native to the Hood"-ethnically, I am not quite white (indeed, returning to this country was for me, as a person of Native American descent, something akin to a Black person returning to Africa in search of his "roots"), but I have white skin privilege and therefore look like I'm white. The expectation-on the part of African Americans and others alike-was that I put myself in my proper place in this whole big mess: with the white folk, of course. Just go along to get along. Take your drums out to the suburbs, let the white folk pay you and pay you well for the "goods." I could have made a killing in this country with the knowledge and materials I brought to this country in 93-had I simply been willing to play along with this segregationist game.
Nopity. It was not an option. And believe me, I had the door slammed in my face many a time. I paid, dearly, and am still paying the price for that. As I said, it pretty much cost me my career-and then some. Still to this day, there is often great skepticism directed at me in the Black community. And I know as well as anyone that there are some African Americans who will never accept what I do and will never accept me. But I don't need everyone on board. I have since managed to attain the "critical mass" needed to do what I gotta do. And the white boys? Well, they're still busy hating the fuck outta me. Most of them anyway. I'm an "ethno-fascist bullshitter." As my African American elder said: If you're not willing to make any enemies, you may miss the opportunity to make a few friends. So be it. Look at the pictures. Those are the friends I've made. I do believe I got the better end of the deal in the end. I'm not making any money at it, but I've picked up a helluva lot of friends along the way.
Now, I wonder sometimes. Were it not for the history of racism in this country, which is precisely what allowed for these developments to occur, if it might have been easier to be taken seriously by African Americans. Would the knee-jerk negative reactions to Paul Simon's extremely important work with South African (later with Brazilian) artists have been as vehement? Would I have had my ass kicked around the block to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of heartbreak were it not for the perception created by these "appropriators"? Would I have had to sacrifice my career to this shit? I don't think so.
And that is the travesty involved here: white people who just tromp in like this with absolutely no regard for the culture and community they are trampling over to get to the "goods" and/or to "paint their own wagon" make it very difficult for anyone with white skin color to be taken seriously: and this dynamic is operative not only in this particularly touchy and sensitive field (i.e., music, particularly authentic "back to the roots" African drum traditions!), it is operative in every area of endeavor in this society. As long as these appropriators are out there doing their thing, those of us who are doing a completely different thing will be viewed with suspicion, derision and deep, deep resentment. Understandably so. Any teacher who has sought to go into predominately African American schools-as just one example-knows exactly what I am talking about.
As long as the liberal lip-service-to-diversity brigade is allowed to spew its half-assed, inarticulate (!) blah-blah-blah-bullshit, the rest of us who are seriously interested in really `getting along' will be faced with additional hurdles. Obstacles that make an already difficult task nearly insurmountable. Nearly, but not quite. Yeah, unbeatable odds that we must render beatable. And that is not an easy job.
There was one more thing going on in this country that I was completely unaware of-call it the "African American drum circle". Perhaps one of my biggest mistakes was not to acknowledge the validity of this tradition-a tradition which is distinct from the traditions I brought with me from Africa and Europe-but one which is equally as powerful, equally legitimate, and very much serves the same "spiritual" purpose as these other traditions. The images I have now added to this essay for the first time are from such an event. Again, the existence of these "white drum circles"-a very recent phenomenon-stood in the way of understanding history. Black history. In America. The event from which these images are taken has been in existence at the same spot on Chicago's south side since sometime in the 1930s (according to local lore). It is not the same thing as the drum circles I posted in the comment "what's wrong with these pictures?", but it took me a while to figure that out and make the distinction. It is an event that exists in the spirit of the New Orleans "Conga Square" tradition which-as I now know, but did not then-is a valid, long-standing tradition in its own right.
I don't know whether my job would have been easier if I'd seen this from the get-go. No clue.
It's interesting, though, to see what happens to this piece with the pictures added. Really interesting.
What we need is a BLACK PRESENCE MONTH, not a "Black History Month." All of us would be better served, imo, by a "White History Month". How about a "White Absence Month"-one month in which white people, across the board, just shut the fuck up and LISTEN? Yeah, everyone-myself included-who is in possession of White Skin Privilege just shut up. Shut UP. Let the other people talk. Listen. I wonder what we'd hear?
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
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