LET'S DO THE UNTHINKABLE

It is always a pleasure to watch Alicia Keys on a video, and it would be even better if part of my course grade depends on writing about her and her music.

As I said, stunning.

The relation between the course and this video is evident: At first, an African American lady (stunningly beautiful) whose music has obvious African American roots, and who has been influenced by several African American artists. Then, the video: the environment, the neighborhood, her family, the guy who causes the controversy, the fight between her brother and the White guy, etc.

Yes, I know, I'm in love.

This song lyrics are perfect for the video, because she is trying to do the unthinkable, and black people, very probably risen being racist and discriminative, couldn't stand the fact that one member of the family is getting closer to a white guy, because she is supposed to follow the tradition and get along with a black fellow, member of a black family, and it would be even better if they are part of the neighborhood where this video takes place.

It is actually funny how we always think about racism as a one way behavior against black people, even the fact of saying black people is considered as racism. But, is it completely accurate? We need to see the other side of the story: why do they feel insulted when we say black, but we just don’t feel anything when the say white? I mean, aren’t you a black guy? What’s the big deal? Racist behavior is a completely different state of society, racism can be considered and shown in the motion picture Django unchained, where white people treat black guys as animals, literally.

I think black people is even more racist than white people, since they are always acting like they are being discriminated, insulted, etc., even though they are not [1]. This video is a sample of this theory (the black card), and racism (racism from white people and racism from black people as well) has become so deep in America, that entire neighborhoods are completely inhabited by black people, and they can’t stand a white person who breaks in their space. The white guy gets punished because they had fallen in love with a lady who was part of a black family, a black neighborhood, a racist neighborhood.  The lady’s brother, who beats up and threatens the white guy, is a clear sample of a black guy who hates white people (for no reason, I mean, slaver people has been gone long time ago) and is trying to get back at them committing acts of pure racism.

It's actually difficult to concentrate on the video when we are watching her as the main character!

I want to apologize if you can’t stand the term black, but I find it really helpful to shorten my ideas, and I don’t find it racist at all, I am not a racist guy, I swear.

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[1] I used to work for a customer care center which provides a free cellphone to American people who need it, and once I had to talk to a black guy who wasn’t eligible because he didn’t have a valid address to register him. His reaction was: I am not getting a phone because I’m black, right? SAY IT! So we can clearly see how black people act as victims even if white, Latin or Asian people are not doing anything racist.

“YOU CAN SING BLUES, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE IT”

Maybe we can think about any other musical genre and simply affirm that this fact is actually accurate and easy to explain.

Maybe we could think about a rapper, a rock singer, even a tropical music artist, and easily check on their story, in order to make sure that the artist's life has nothing to do with their musical genre: we can eventually think about some other genre they could sing, and there would be no problem there. Now I have to think about blues, and the main idea that keeps rounding my head is: "be careful, this is not completely true..." but, why?

It's simultaneously easy and hard to explain, because we could think about a black man who can make great blues and we can easily think that (even though it was his parents, or his grandparents) has lived the terrible slavery times there. I think it's important to clarify that we are thinking about the context of the Cadillac Records movie, around mid-20^th Century, when the musical industry was still making its first steps.

19th century blues had their roots on a tangible fact: sorrow, suffering, depression; even though the musical industry was taking all the original intentions of the composer, and was making the artists make their pieces in order to get rich, and bring their work to an audience, instead of a story and a feeling.

Therefore, it depends on the context and the time we put this sentence on, because it is always important to make this kind of clarifications, we have to analyze all the facts which surround a topic, and even more if we talk about something regarding culture and music. So, if we take this sentence, and put it before the mid-20^th Century, I wouldn’t agree, because blues were a way to express all the important feelings that surrounded black people lives during that time, and it’s just inaccurate and even not correct to say you can sing blues without feeling it during that time. Now we can think about the boom of the musical industry, when that enormous monster began to feed on the talented artists: that time changes everything, because seemingly nowadays the only thing that matters is the audience, and the money it would bring with a musical hit. That sentence will get all the sense here, because you only need to sing fair, get good lyrics, and that’s it.

I think this sentence: you can sing blues, but you don’t have to live it, should work with the fact that the musical industry has been taking advantage of the audience, and music has a different definition nowadays, which was possibly born there, with the good music, with the real blues. 

THE PAST, THE ROOTS, THE ORIGIN

This is just another day on the road, and maybe this guy is just thinking. Maybe he thinks about what he has left behind him, and what did his father, his mother and all of their friends left behind them, when they embraced freedom.

As he walks down the road, he put his memories in front of him, and he remembers how her mother used to serve to an elegant, wealthy white guy who treated her really bad. He also remembers how his father used to work hard every day, with no right to rest a little. His father and all the black adults he lived with used to be treated like beasts, humiliated and discriminated. He lived a very traumatic childhood, since he wasn’t able to play, or enjoy the company of some friends. He didn’t even had the right to be educated, or even orientated in order for him to grow spiritually. They suffered a lot there, they had miserable lives and they were extremely sad, they felt humiliated, discriminated and constantly threatened: they just used to feel blue.

The night comes, and the insane person who treats them like beasts goes to sleep, they are allowed to get some energy during the night. All the slaves used to sleep together, and they took advantage of the night to gather and share some feelings with all their fellows. They had nothing to celebrate, they used to gather and share their sorrow, their sadness. The kid watches his dad singing some chants about how he feels, and how sorry he is about being in captivity, suffering and losing his strength day by day. They gathered every night and sang, they started to enjoy it, and it became a usual thing to do when they used to get some time for them.

This kid grew up listening to his dad’s lyrics. This kid grew up with the sorrow, but at the same time the emotion and the faith his dad used to put on his songs. This kid developed a musical taste, and he tried to sing then. Time went by, and everything changed for black people in America: they were supposed to be treated fairly, without any kind of discrimination or threatening: they were finally free.

They were finally allowed to have their own home, their own jobs and their own outfits. They were allowed to sing in public, and they were finally allowed to play some instruments. This guy kept developing his musical taste, and he was more than happy to sing along with his father and their folks. They still kept the sorrow and the suffering they had to face in the past, and the indelible stings of a terrible experience.

This guy lost his father because he got week and sick, and his dream was to become a great artist. He started walking the road by playing some unknown music, which gained some field and was becoming popular. He continued, he followed the road and he became an elegant man, with the skills of a remarkable artist. He keeps walking down the road, and he never forgets the sorrow, he never forgets what made him follow his dream, he never forgets feeling blue. 

RELIGION AND MUSIC

Does religion affect the kind of music I listen to? I don’t think it does, or at least in a radical way. I have been analyzing this question and I am completely sure that there are kinds of music that I am never going to enjoy at all, like all these satanic, dark, aggressive bands and all that stuff.

I could consider myself as a Christian, even though I have some doubts on going to an organized church every Sunday in order to listen to a person who reads for me things that I can read for myself and make deep reflections on my own. However, I read the Bible and I try to follow its canons in order for me to grow as a human being and follow my metaphysical beliefs. Whit all of this taken, I would never see me listening to music which talks about Allah, Ganesh or anything like that. However, if we analyze all the canons that the Bible suggests for a complete human being, in order for them to save themselves and have a pure life, there’s a lot of behaviors which wouldn’t allow us to listen to some kind of additional music in addition.

I checked at my playlists and I found Wakeup call by Maroon 5: “6 foot tall, came without a warning, so I had to shoot him dead…” – As we know, the Bible states that NOBODY besides GOD can take another person’s life out, so if we were really strict, I would have to avoid this song.

Another canon that would be violated is the fact that we are forced to HELP and SUPPORT the other people, friends or enemies by equal. Santiago Cruz says fuiste mi Verdugo y la culpable de que hoy me alivie tu fracaso (…) No vengas a pedirme que te abrace y que recoja los pedazos. No vengas, porque así me sentí. These lyrics states that this guy is feeling good after his ex’s failure, and he is not going to give her the support she is looking for. Bible is clear, and he would be forced to support her, or at least avoid that betrayal behavior (me sabe bien tu pesadilla).

The last canon, and probably the most relevant and violated is the sexual behavior. Bible FORBIDS ANY KIND of sexual encounter between a man and a woman unless they are already married, so if we take that to music, we will see that a large list of songs should be eliminated: Esta noche haremos el amor bailando; I know you see me looking at me and you already know I wanna f** you; Girl I got you so hot and I know you like. We can go on, because sex is the topic with the widest reach in music, and almost every artist use sex at least in one of their songs, even if it is not explicit there. If we were strictly compliant with the Bible, I shouldn’t be listening to any of the Reggaton, Hip-Hop or Salsa artist, because they use sex in almost every song.

Religion does not affect my musical taste, and if I were forced to modify my playlists in order to be coherent with the Bible, there would be a really serious change there, because there is a touch of SIN inside almost every song.

IS THERE COLOR IN MUSIC?

I know this is going to look really out of any academical but my answer is going to show how sure I am about this thesis: Sure, of course, no doubt! There’s color in music, and there’s color in everything until black people stop using racism as an excuse to feel abused, threatened and hurt. Why am I so sure about the color in music? Let’s use a really problematic word: the N-word. I know this word is a really delicate term, and I am aware about all the repercussions about this topic, however, I feel it is necessary to get over it and analyze the color in music, using this word as an example. Before my analysis, I want to clarify that I am going to take that word out from the lyrics, and every time I use it, is because I am going to quote the song, even though I am not feeling uncomfortable with it, because it’s just a word, and its power is measured with the power you give to it.

Why do black people feel so comfortable using the n-word EVEN IN THEIR SONGS? What would happen if a white rapper use it in a song? Here are some examples:

I WANNA F*CK YOU (Akon) – You ain’t lonely, handful of niggers and they all got cheese…

DILEMMA (Nelly) - I know how niggers start actin trippin out here about their girls…

P.I.M.P (50 Cent) - I ain't that nigger trying to holla cause I want some head, I'm that nigger trying to holla cause I want some bread…

YOUNG, WILD AND FREE (Wiz Khalifa) - Keep it real with my niggers, keep it playing for these hoes

As we can see, they are COMPLETELY COMFORTABLE using that word, they use it in order to talk to a friend, to themselves, even to unknown people. So, if they sing and the use that word even in MOVIES (Bad boys, with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, to put just one example: they use that word 10 TIMES in one single scene) without any harmful purpose, why do they feel bad when a white person use that word, even when they don’t want to be offensive or discriminative? They are getting the right to use the n-word just because they have an African lineage?

Unfair, and that’s a clear example of why I think there’s color in music, because black people keep feeling discriminated when a white person use that word: Can you picture Eminem using the n-word in one of his songs? What would happen if he goes I got a gang of niggas walking with my clique (Jay-Z)? Can we even picture it? I’m sure we can’t, because that would be racist, but if a black guy goes and say it in a hit of the size of Empire State of mind, that’s completely okay: double standard.

This word is making people get the wrong concept about race, and the music itself is affected by their own discrimination. Can you picture a white guy listening to this kind of music, and singing it in front of black people? That would be racist, even if the record has been made by a black guy? White people avoid this kind of music, because they have fear to this word, and it has become too powerful nowadays.

THE AUNT JEMIMA ICON

I really did not know anything about this controversial product logo, I only know this mix makes really good pancakes. When I got the message, stating that “In 1989, the image of Aunt Jemima was updated by removing her headband and giving her pearl earrings and a lace collar” I thought that was some kind of racial thing against black people and their traditions. But I always get surprised when I read something about race in America: this time, black people felt that the image of Aunt Jemima was being offensive and stereotypical, and they pushed Quaker until they finally changed the outfit of this lovely and worldwide recognized lady.

The Aunt Jemima topic is really deep, and I think this is a great opportunity to know even more about the American society. The evolution of the logo has shown how race is extremely delicate in America, and a harmless product can make such a controversy, even though the brand members didn’t want to.

The image of the “mammy” was created by the owners (RT Davis Milling Co), when they hired a freed slave lady to dress like a mammy, and offer the product with the flavor and tradition they needed, in order to get people and customers all over America. The image of the mammy, with the overweight, the dress, the bandanna, etc. was used for a very long time, and the product became famous nationwide: They succeeded, and the product got into every American household. After Quaker bought the brand (1926), the stereotype became more aggressive, and I think the problem began when they used language the way they did: Time fo’ dee-licious Aunt Jemima’s (…) ready-mixed fo’ you! Or Folks sho’ cheer for fluffy, energizin’ Pancakes! I mean, it’s really good that the product image is a black loving lady, but why do they have to write the ads that way? I think they were really offensive, and black people reacted, stating that they feel offended by the product image. The Aunt Jemima concept was getting offensive, and people were using it as a stereotype, so the brand needed a change, in order to stop race conflicts between the American cultures.

There's no need to put this kind of written language there

Black people were heard around 20 years later, and Quaker put some earrings and an elegant outfit on Aunt Jemima, removing some extra weight, the bandanna, and all the stereotypes. Some people didn’t understand the change, because they were used to the stereotypical image, even if they didn’t picture her that way. The important result here is that black people were quiet, and they felt completely comfortable with the new Aunt Jemima, and I think that’s the important thing: to get all the society to feel good with the brand, and to eliminate stereotypes which aim to any race, or any kind of people who are different, think different, act different, etc.

This is the current Aunt Jemima icon

I think I’ll keep the brand the way it is, because we can see an elegant black lady, who makes her pancakes with love and warmth. In addition, the brand logo is not showing any stereotype and everybody feel good and comfortable with it, so the last update works, and that’s the only thing that matters.

Source: Aunt Jemima: Negative Stereotype or Iconic Brand? Through Zena’s eyes, 2011.

http://zmblackhistorymonth2011.blogspot.com/2011/02/feb-13-aunt-jemima-negative-stereotype.html