Category: Whose Country?

Here’s an all-white award-winning Gospel choir in St Louis. It really is a mash-up nation. (Which might as well be the subtitle for my recurring End of Gay Culture Watch. It’s also a gaying of straight culture watch. I.e. the usual American cultural and multi-cultural churn.)

Perhaps the best retort to Buchanan is Ellison:

Whitman viewed the spoken idiom of Negro Americans as a source for a native grand opera. Its flexibility, its musicality, its rhythms, freewheeling diction and metaphors, as projected in Negro American folklore, were absorbed by the creators of our great 19th century literature even when the majority of blacks were still enslaved. Mark Twain celebrated it in the prose of Huckleberry Finn; without the presence of blacks, the book could not have been written. No Huck and Jim, no American novel as we know it. For not only is the black man a co-creator of the language that Mark Twain raised to the level of literary eloquence, but Jim's condition as American and Huck's commitment to freedom are at the moral center of the novel.

In other words, had there been no blacks, certain creative tensions arising from the cross-purposes of whites and blacks would also not have existed. Not only would there have been no Faulkner; there would have been no Stephen Crane, who found certain basic themes of his writing in the Civil War. Thus, also, there would have been no Hemingway, who took Crane as a source and guide.

Without the presence of Negro American style, our jokes, our tall tales, even our sports would be lacking in the sudden turns, the shocks, the swift changes of pace (all jazz-shaped) that serve to remind us that the world is ever unexplored, and that while a complete mastery of life is mere illusion, the real secret of the game is to make life swing. It is its ability to articulate this tragic-comic attitude toward life that explains much of the mysterious power and attractiveness of that quality of Negro American style known as "soul." An expression of American diversity within unity, of blackness with whiteness, soul announces the presence of a creative struggle against the realities of existence.

Without the presence of blacks, our political history would have been otherwise.

No slave economy, no Civil War; no violent destruction of the Reconstruction; no K.K.K. and no Jim Crow system. And without the disenfranchisement of black Americans and the manipulation of racial fears and prejudices, the disproportionate impact of white Southern politicians upon our domestic and foreign policies would have been impossible. Indeed, it is almost impossible to conceive of what our political system would have become without the snarl of forces—cultural, racial, religious—that makes our nation what it is today.

Absent, too, would be the need for that tragic knowledge which we try ceaselessly to evade: that the true subject of democracy is not simply material well-being but the extension of the democratic process in the direction of perfecting itself. And that the most obvious test and clue to that perfection is the inclusion—not assimilation—of the black man.

I just came across Saul Bellow's 1952 review of "The Invisible Man." Check it out.

A reader writes:

The reader who wrote about the banjo should check out the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a string band out of North Carolina that formed after meeting at the 2005 Black Banjo Conference. They gave a rousing concert for a (mostly-white) Minneapolis audience, and also pitched this book, which tells the story of how "Dixie", the anthem of the South, was originally written by a pair of African-American brothers born to slave parents. (NPR summary here.)

If that makes "Dixie" a sort of flagship for what the multicultural string-band tradition became, then it's no surprise that,

"For the past fifty years, with precious few exceptions – Leon Bibb, Josh White and Taj Mahal come to mind -, African American musicians have paid very little attention to the formidable wealth of multiracial culture which permeated the South between the Civil War period and the Civil Rights era, ata crucial time when poor Blacks and poor Whites had every reason to share a similar vision of life." (Sebastian Danchin, in the liner notes to "Heritage" by the Carolina Chocolate Drops.)

The Carolina Chocolate Drops say their first commitment is to making music they enjoy; "It is an added bonus that it is a part of our culture that we are spearheading new interest in Black string band music."

Here they are with a fantastic cover of "Hit 'Em Up Style".

Dreher, who grew up in a heavily black town in the Deep South, contributes to the conversation:

Living for five years in New York City made me understand deep down how Southern I am, and that means to an unmeasurable but undeniable extent, black. Every now and then, I'd meet a black person from down South, and … I'm not quite sure how to put this, but let's just say there was an ease of discourse between us that I didn't have when talking to white (or, obviously, black) Northerners I just met. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was a food thing.

I've told the story here before about a black co-worker a couple of years ago coming upon me microwaving a bowl of turnip greens and roots for my lunch in the break room. She was genuinely shocked, and stammered that she thought only black people ate that stuff. I couldn't believe that, but it turns out she's from Indiana, and never knew white people who like what used to be called "soul food." I told her how most white folks where I grew up ate greens, cornbread, grits and the same stuff black folks ate. It's the legacy of rural Southern poverty culture. I can still see her kind face now, struggling to comprehend that she was talking to an actual white person who ate greens.

A reader writes:

One cultural aspect that shows how just how deep that multi-racial mixture goes is too often forgotten, and that is: The banjo is an African instrument. Yep, the signature hillbilly instrument, the key to bluegrass (and by extension, white country), the sound that conjures up "Deliverance," corn liquor, and high-speed backroad getaways, was brought over here on slave ships.

Take a look at one sometime — it's damn near a percussion instrument. It's essentially a snare drum with strings. There's a reason why the first marching jazz bands in New Orleans used banjos — one, they can be loud, and two, you can get a nice percussive snap when you play one right. And since you can't easily carry a drum kit as you march, the banjo filled in nicely, and remained a jazz rhythm instrument until guitars — especially amplified electric guitars — came around in the late '30s.

Sure, everybody knows how white people co-opted blues to create rock and roll (and black musicians like Jimi Hendrix and George Clinton swiped it right back to make psychedelia and funk). But not many people realize that when they see "Deliverance's" Banjo Boy tear up Dueling Banjos (or heck, when Earl Scruggs and Steve Martin — one of the whitest guys alive — do Foggy Mountain Breakdown), they're seeing an art form that has its roots in Africa. Even the (supposedly) whitest of white music is inextricably linked to black culture and our history of slavery, and we're richer for it.

A reader writes:

The essence of Buchanan’s fantasy might appear in two words he so breezily flings into a laundry list of alleged societal woes: “rising crime.” After two decades of across-the-board falling crime in the country, these white Americans invariably spot “rising crime.” Count among them my own white mother, who would adore the Buchanan column and who always thinks crime rising to the point of disbelief in official statistics. When I think about it, it might be the essence of this illusory mindset.

A reader writes:

My husband and I adopted an African-American infant 7 years ago. It has been a revelation. But the moment, and I can pinpoint it to the day, I internalized that our nation is black as much as anything else, was the

day I went to a family reunion.

My maternal ancestors are the descendants of the owners of the Middleton Plantation in South Carolina. Several years ago they had a reunion of all the Middleton descendants, combined with a reunion of all the descendants of the slaves of the Middleton planation. At first we were going to take our daughter, but the dissonance of the descendent of the slave owners taking his descendent-of-slaves daughter to that reunion was too much. I went alone with my mother.

I met and became friends with a distant cousin, descendant of slaves and a slave owner, and I learned a lot about the history and genealogy of the slaves and a more nuanced history of my own ancestry. I had moments of deep reflection, pain and confusion. That reunion has set me on a journey that has made it quite clear to me that we (and I) are black, and white, native and much more. We are not half, we are all of each.

Today, on our wall, is our family map. On it are arrows, originating in Western African, Eastern North America, Central America, Northern Europe, Southern Europe and several other places, with way points along their trajectories of Massachusetts, Virginia, Mexico, Utah, Arkansas, South Carolina and several others, all ending at our house in San Francisco.

Because, like America, that is what our family is.

The emails keep pouring in. A reader writes:

Consider how long one of America’s chief exports has been its culture. Now think about what form that culture takes: Music, art, consumer goods, movies, all have huge “black” influence. If we were simply following the Western European lead, do you think that people would line up to hear/taste/see that? I think not. They want our stuff because it isn’t bland, because homogeneity is boring.

Another adds:

To the "southern white man" who wrote in today: I felt the same way when I visited southern Africa a few years ago and was wondering whether my hunch about the cultural similarities was right. I'm originally from Mississippi, and there's a warmth in Africa that feels very much like the American South.

A reader writes:

I wanted to add, music is one of this country's greatest exports; American music is the most popular music around the world. And the types of music that are so well loved around the world are African-American origin: jazz, blues, rock, hip-hop, soul, ragtime, on and on. And beyond American forms, probably the other most popular musical sources are latin: Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, etc. Again, all black African originated and influenced. And of course lots of good African music. Our popular culture is profoundly black, and so well loved by us and the rest of the world that nobody can get enough of it.

As a white jazz player I am profoundly respectful of the great cultural gifts we have all inherited.

A reader writes:

Like most young Americans (and Obama voters), I certainly agree that Pat Buchanan is a nut, and I wish he had not added all the bizarre racialism to his essay. But if you strip out the "whiteness" part, a lot of what he says makes a lot of sense. In fact, it mirrors some of the things you have been saying. Unwinnable wars? Huge bailouts that help Wall Street without helping the little guy? Out of control spending? Horrible problem with illegal immigration? A lot of reasonable people think these are serious issues. And Pat was saying a lot of this stuff a long time before it was fashionable.

Pat Buchanan may be a racist, he's certainly tone-deaf, and he's never getting my vote. But, while I hate to say it, his essay really resonated with me. One of the pities of the Republican party is that people like Buchanan, who seem to have legitimate and important conservative points to make, allow themselves to be marginalized by ridiculous discussions of what white people are feeling, whatever that means.

I too was complaining about spending when Fox News was ignoring it. I too am deeply concerned about nation-building in places that require long term colonialism to rescue. I don't see why the border cannot be secured. Or why corporate welfare continues; why it requires professionals to do my taxes; why wealthy seniors keep getting entitlements while poor working families cannot get health insurance; and I too oppose affirmative action and hate crimes laws.

But isn't this the Republican problem? The party has lost the capacity to convey its ideas with humor and good will or in a way that includes and speaks to non-white and non-Southern voters. (Reagan was rarely angry, always good-humored, civil, adept at arguing, and counted the West as his base. Now think of Huckabee or Romney and wince.) The GOP insults our intelligence with farces like Palin, idiots like Steele, bigots like Inhofe and lunatics like Beck. It expresses anger far more readily than reason or optimism. It rationalizes the evil of torture and the cruelty of discrimination. And its hero worship of the last president would make the most hardcore Obamaphile blush. 

I'd like to support a party of the right that made its case with reason and care to the next generation. It doesn't exist. And it seems further away now than ever.