Notes on a Dying Culture #666 (The Whitney Houston Funeral Telecast)
by Bob Davis | special to NewBlackMan
As I watched the Whitney Houston funeral services, as broadcast on American cable TV yesterday, several things struck me.
Here was the root of the mid 20th century Black American culture on full display for the American public to see. Of course this should come as no surprise, because this was indeed the culture that had produced Whitney Houston.
It is also the very same culture that had produced Michael Jackson, Julian Bond, Magic Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Julius Erving, Jessie Jackson, Richard Pryor, Berry Gordy and many others.
This was the culture that had provided the fuel for the American Civil Rights movement. Up until about 1990, this genius of a culture had produced nearly 100 percent of that which was considered a contribution of Black Americans and probably 75 percent of the American culture, exported to the rest of the world. It was a culture built upon simple notions of "sacrifice today, so that future generations can be better off."
Then around 1990, a very curious thing happened to this culture. It was rejected, lock, stock & barrel by its own children. This rejection is sometimes expressed by Black Americans themselves when they describe this rejection using terminology like "Old School" vs. "Hip Hop." Because of the terminology that is used, it is easy to think that somehow this is an inter-generational dispute about music.
Of course, the dispute isn't really about music. The dispute is really about what is the correct path and set of behaviors that Black Americans should take as they march into the future. The people at the heart of this dispute fall roughly into two categories
1. Black Americans who are old enough to have first hand knowledge of the American Civil Rights Movement, who are committed to those inherent set of values.
2. Black Americans who are too young to have first hand knowledge of the American Civil Rights Movement, who have committed to a set of values that have little in common with the values inherent in the American Civil Rights Movement.
One of the things that is clear about culture is that it will decline and eventually disappear if younger people do not embrace it and carry it forward. In fact over the past few years, it feels like that Civil Rights culture is being destroyed at an accelerated pace, because people seem to be dying at an accelerated pace. I discuss these two categories of Black Americans in more detail in an article I wrote for Elmore Magazine back in 2008 which you can read at the following link: http://www.soul-patrol.com/bd_elmore.pdf
I have spent much of the past 15 years doing is documenting the decline of the mid 20th Century Black American culture, here online and elsewhere, as its creators pass on and the younger group imposes its own culture and expands it out into the mainstream. Documenting this decline is especially painful for me, especially since I am also product of the American Civil Rights Movement and am clearly a person who has brought into its values "lock, stock and barrel."
In watching Houston’s funeral services the thought occurred to me that this could very well be the last time that this great genius of a culture might be on display to the mainstream American public for the very last time, at a nationally televised funeral for Whitney Houston.
I remember the first time that this culture was on display for the mainstream American TV audience. It was in 1968, at the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King. I remember watching it on TV, one of the artists who performed was Aretha Franklin. She was also supposed to perform at Whitney Houston's funeral, but we were told that she was too ill. However there was another person who was a key figure at Dr. King's funeral, who was also a key figure at Whitney Houston's funeral.
Reverend Jessie Jackson of course first came to the national spotlight in the aftermath of Dr. King's Assassination. He was the young and fiery "street preacher," out of Chicago. At Whitney Houston's funeral Reverend Jesse Jackson, sat front & center for the entire service. Not only was he no longer young and fiery, he never uttered a single word. He looked tired and worn out, as I suppose an elder statesman should? However I wondered if he looked that way because he knows that the battle for the hearts, minds and values of Black America has been won by the hip hop generation?
I have wondered that very same thing myself.
Will the values of Lil Wayne, XXL Magazine, etc become what Black Americans are known best for in 20 years, once all of the people who have first hand knowledge of the American Civil Rights Movement are gone?
Or is there still a possibility that younger people—as illustrated by the "blood on the floor," killer performances by two artists (R. Kelly & Alicia Keyes) who are too young to have any first hand knowledge of the American Civil Rights Movement—will suddenly wake up and understand that they have a responsibility to sustain/advance a culture that seems to mostly be on "life-support."
Perhaps this nationally televised funeral can prove to be a watershed event not only for Black Americans, but for White Americans as well? For example, I thought that Kevin Costner's story of his friendship with Whitney Houston was one of the best cases for the notion of having an integrated society that I have heard laid out in many years.
Time will tell.
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Bob Davis is co-owner/creator (with his brother Mike) of the award winning Soul-Patrol.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kozmicfunk
