His artistry- the music, the dancing, the expression, the spirituality, the Wailers, his wailing- all showed the world his soul, and his soul was blue.
Could you be loved?
He was blue. He looked at the world and realized that only way that he could reconcile what he perceived was to amend reality, to help others raise their consciousness. For a man with the blues, there is no dichotomous, ignorance/depression, set of realities in which to exist. Rage is but one way to respond to inequality. For the Blues man, he walks the line: All his sadness reeks with joy. All his pain oozes with ecstasy- salacious and divine, simultaneously. And, his tenderness is as undeniable as his rage: His ability to speak from a voice of compassion skirts the two, hence both, rage and tenderness are vibrant and strong, pervading the erotic and the conscious: Could you be loved? The Blues man is unafraid to face his own fallacies for he is willingly vulnerable. His despair, ridden with hope:
His belly full but we hungry/A hungry mob is a’ angry mob/ Rain a fall, but the dirt be tough/ Pot to cook, but da’ food not ‘nough/ We gon’ dance to the music
Bob Marley always spoke to the oppressed, and therefore spoke for us. He was never berating, nor boatful of his success. His primary audience were not the millions of whites who filled the stands of his concerts in America, but those so disenfranchised that they could not bear to look him in the face, and could not accept his music- that primal ‘jungle’ beat. Staring at his dreads, the nappy Negro knows not the fate he suffers; he looks in mirrors and struggles to see a Black man, refusing to be a Nigger. Yet Bob, like many, says that unless you resist, you’re a Nigger nonetheless. Success in itself is insufficient for this transformation from a Nigger to another, since a rich Nigger, an educated Nigger, a well-mannered Nigger, and a nice Nigger, are all Niggers just the same. Sadly, for this blue’s man, much of his US success came from the colonial view, the seductiveness of the Other, despite Bob’s message of One Love.
War.
‘Tyron Greene and His Reggae Band’, One of Eddie Murphy’s signature characters from his tenure on the cast of Saturday Night Live is the knotty dread-head, faux Rasta voice of youth. He and his group of wannabe Rasta back-up singers chant ‘Kill the white people, but buy my record first’ to the tune of a standard/ized Reggae riff. The entirely white audience abandons the gig as the announcer stumbles through: I thought they were gonna do Day Oh (a more heavily chant song of resistance from a long time resistor). As if comment on the life and times to come, the white audience members quickly and quietly filed out of the gathering, disgusted by Tyron’s rage; that one Black child, the only Black in that audience, stayed on to jam with the band and learn his lesson: Play the tune of transgression and your bills will be paid. Like the film version of Toni Morrison’s book Beloved, the rage against racism is grotesque to see (hence the relative lack of commercial success), yet concordantly an expected and rationalized response to brutal oppression an inequality, and thereby - it forces viewers to face their own culpability. Oprah’s hand in bringing the story to light is highly lauded amongst a different audience- those not afraid to hold on for the Blue note.
One consequence of racism is the expectation that the victimized will eventually respond with the type of raw rage used to establish enforce the staid position of power. Many people fear the unabated display of undistressed devaluing of life, as played out on many urban streets. This is the modern lynching of the Negro- the hate turned inwards if not for lack of any form of expressions and void of means to alleviate conflict when scurrying to survive. Inner city crime is hegemonically a consequence of life in America. Many seek solace in having MORE than some someone else; we struggle to be fabulous because its polar opposite must be the ghetto. Bob rejected this mentality and this made his image grotesque, if not exotic. Many people have the Blues.
Black-on-Black crimes are a rudimentary form of the violence that pervades our society, rules our policy, and polity; violence absolutely pervades the rich history discussed here. In stark contrast to the grotesque rage expected from those lashed, the Blues does not end with anger and blame, but with responsibility: the Blue note is colored and always signifies (the possibility) of change, no matter how blue. The Blues is humanity stripped of all norms, a Blues individual harnessing the ability to feel blue, freely, facing reality head on, and stall any propensity towards fear: Again, it wears its vulnerability in each falsetto, strained note. The Blues is what separates humans from animals and higher form lower beings: It’s compassion. Even Bob knew that at times we must forgive ourselves for our weakness precisely in order to move on. Toni Morrison has the Blues. Mos Def has the Blues. ‘Pirate Jenny’ Nina Simone definitely had the Blues. Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu and Marvin Gaye all got the Blues, and of course there are other. Alice Walker and bell hooks also got the Blues.
Tyron Green and His Reggae Band present then, raw Black rage, after all, the most comfortable stance for a Black man before a white audience: Everyone knows where he stands. This itself makes many of us blue. Tyron’s Green’s refrain, ‘We sing of freedom and equality/But we really don’t care, we just want money, money…’ clearly characterizes popularized Hip-Hop- the reigning cult a transgressive/progressive youth. Few whites, and Blacks for that matter, responded to Bob’s acknowledgement that we are, in fact, at war.
Black people everywhere live in relative poverty as compared to their white counterparts. This is the case throughout the Americas, Africa, Europe, Australia and Asia. In most of the new world, Cuba notably excluded, this fact is literally just black and white. Blacks fall short on virtually every health indicator in the United States from susceptibility and severity of both lifestyle and chronic diseases, as well as a greater likelihood of death when treating disease even when corrected for income and education disparities. Bob, paraphrasing Haile Sellasie, reminded those who would rather not know, that: Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned everywhere is war. Me say war.
Eracism.
In India, the caste system has been confounded with subjugation at the hands of conquerors from the north, either Persians or Romans, to create and uphold a system of oppression, with all of the typically ensuing ramifications that give birth to the color code (that equates fair with beauty and prosperity, darkness with dread and destitution). If fair is lovely, then, what is dark? If fair implies wealth and success, even and especially in the popular culture, then were do the dark citizens stand? If fair is marriageable, and ‘wheatish’ a virtual apology, then what words are used to describe the Others? Given white/fair-skin privilege in India and encapsulating the globe, dark skin is unfair. Racism hurts, is persistent and cannot dissipate without action. Oh won’t you decolonize your mind.
For the Blues man, the fact that we are at war with racism does not preclude us from enjoyment. Suffering under the tyranny of racist regimes in, for example, “Angola, Mozambique, South Africa- subhuman bondage,” does not disallow the experience heaven and hell on Earth for any and all involved; both are facets of life, a verity that especially the oppressed must see. This Blues man reminds us of the imperativeness of taking the opportunity to “forget your weakness and dance.” There’s hope, and this is the Blue note. MLK obviously had the Blues.
Could you be loved?
He was blue. He looked at the world and realized that only way that he could reconcile what he perceived was to amend reality, to help others raise their consciousness. For a man with the blues, there is no dichotomous, ignorance/depression, set of realities in which to exist. Rage is but one way to respond to inequality. For the Blues man, he walks the line: All his sadness reeks with joy. All his pain oozes with ecstasy- salacious and divine, simultaneously. And, his tenderness is as undeniable as his rage: His ability to speak from a voice of compassion skirts the two, hence both, rage and tenderness are vibrant and strong, pervading the erotic and the conscious: Could you be loved? The Blues man is unafraid to face his own fallacies for he is willingly vulnerable. His despair, ridden with hope:
His belly full but we hungry/A hungry mob is a’ angry mob/ Rain a fall, but the dirt be tough/ Pot to cook, but da’ food not ‘nough/ We gon’ dance to the music
Bob Marley always spoke to the oppressed, and therefore spoke for us. He was never berating, nor boatful of his success. His primary audience were not the millions of whites who filled the stands of his concerts in America, but those so disenfranchised that they could not bear to look him in the face, and could not accept his music- that primal ‘jungle’ beat. Staring at his dreads, the nappy Negro knows not the fate he suffers; he looks in mirrors and struggles to see a Black man, refusing to be a Nigger. Yet Bob, like many, says that unless you resist, you’re a Nigger nonetheless. Success in itself is insufficient for this transformation from a Nigger to another, since a rich Nigger, an educated Nigger, a well-mannered Nigger, and a nice Nigger, are all Niggers just the same. Sadly, for this blue’s man, much of his US success came from the colonial view, the seductiveness of the Other, despite Bob’s message of One Love.
War.
‘Tyron Greene and His Reggae Band’, One of Eddie Murphy’s signature characters from his tenure on the cast of Saturday Night Live is the knotty dread-head, faux Rasta voice of youth. He and his group of wannabe Rasta back-up singers chant ‘Kill the white people, but buy my record first’ to the tune of a standard/ized Reggae riff. The entirely white audience abandons the gig as the announcer stumbles through: I thought they were gonna do Day Oh (a more heavily chant song of resistance from a long time resistor). As if comment on the life and times to come, the white audience members quickly and quietly filed out of the gathering, disgusted by Tyron’s rage; that one Black child, the only Black in that audience, stayed on to jam with the band and learn his lesson: Play the tune of transgression and your bills will be paid. Like the film version of Toni Morrison’s book Beloved, the rage against racism is grotesque to see (hence the relative lack of commercial success), yet concordantly an expected and rationalized response to brutal oppression an inequality, and thereby - it forces viewers to face their own culpability. Oprah’s hand in bringing the story to light is highly lauded amongst a different audience- those not afraid to hold on for the Blue note.
One consequence of racism is the expectation that the victimized will eventually respond with the type of raw rage used to establish enforce the staid position of power. Many people fear the unabated display of undistressed devaluing of life, as played out on many urban streets. This is the modern lynching of the Negro- the hate turned inwards if not for lack of any form of expressions and void of means to alleviate conflict when scurrying to survive. Inner city crime is hegemonically a consequence of life in America. Many seek solace in having MORE than some someone else; we struggle to be fabulous because its polar opposite must be the ghetto. Bob rejected this mentality and this made his image grotesque, if not exotic. Many people have the Blues.
Black-on-Black crimes are a rudimentary form of the violence that pervades our society, rules our policy, and polity; violence absolutely pervades the rich history discussed here. In stark contrast to the grotesque rage expected from those lashed, the Blues does not end with anger and blame, but with responsibility: the Blue note is colored and always signifies (the possibility) of change, no matter how blue. The Blues is humanity stripped of all norms, a Blues individual harnessing the ability to feel blue, freely, facing reality head on, and stall any propensity towards fear: Again, it wears its vulnerability in each falsetto, strained note. The Blues is what separates humans from animals and higher form lower beings: It’s compassion. Even Bob knew that at times we must forgive ourselves for our weakness precisely in order to move on. Toni Morrison has the Blues. Mos Def has the Blues. ‘Pirate Jenny’ Nina Simone definitely had the Blues. Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu and Marvin Gaye all got the Blues, and of course there are other. Alice Walker and bell hooks also got the Blues.
Tyron Green and His Reggae Band present then, raw Black rage, after all, the most comfortable stance for a Black man before a white audience: Everyone knows where he stands. This itself makes many of us blue. Tyron’s Green’s refrain, ‘We sing of freedom and equality/But we really don’t care, we just want money, money…’ clearly characterizes popularized Hip-Hop- the reigning cult a transgressive/progressive youth. Few whites, and Blacks for that matter, responded to Bob’s acknowledgement that we are, in fact, at war.
Black people everywhere live in relative poverty as compared to their white counterparts. This is the case throughout the Americas, Africa, Europe, Australia and Asia. In most of the new world, Cuba notably excluded, this fact is literally just black and white. Blacks fall short on virtually every health indicator in the United States from susceptibility and severity of both lifestyle and chronic diseases, as well as a greater likelihood of death when treating disease even when corrected for income and education disparities. Bob, paraphrasing Haile Sellasie, reminded those who would rather not know, that: Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned everywhere is war. Me say war.
Eracism.
In India, the caste system has been confounded with subjugation at the hands of conquerors from the north, either Persians or Romans, to create and uphold a system of oppression, with all of the typically ensuing ramifications that give birth to the color code (that equates fair with beauty and prosperity, darkness with dread and destitution). If fair is lovely, then, what is dark? If fair implies wealth and success, even and especially in the popular culture, then were do the dark citizens stand? If fair is marriageable, and ‘wheatish’ a virtual apology, then what words are used to describe the Others? Given white/fair-skin privilege in India and encapsulating the globe, dark skin is unfair. Racism hurts, is persistent and cannot dissipate without action. Oh won’t you decolonize your mind.
For the Blues man, the fact that we are at war with racism does not preclude us from enjoyment. Suffering under the tyranny of racist regimes in, for example, “Angola, Mozambique, South Africa- subhuman bondage,” does not disallow the experience heaven and hell on Earth for any and all involved; both are facets of life, a verity that especially the oppressed must see. This Blues man reminds us of the imperativeness of taking the opportunity to “forget your weakness and dance.” There’s hope, and this is the Blue note. MLK obviously had the Blues.
2 comments:
I afraid I have heard this all before but few have so elegantly said these bitter truths
I afraid I have heard this all before but few have so elegantly said these bitter truths.
Well done you
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