A Response to “Notes on a Dying Culture”

A Response to “Notes on a Dying Culture”

by James Ford III | special NewBlackMan

Whitney Houston’s unexpected passing shocked me. I mourn for her and her loved ones who feel her recent passing more profoundly than I ever will. I thought Bob Davis’s recent post would help me consider the impact of this loss. Sadly, his post repeats the same Civil Rights vs Hip-Hop generation storyline. As a member of the generation he criticizes, I see his post as an invitation for further discussion.

Davis says the culture of the American Civil Rights Movement was “rejected…by its own children” and two camps sprung up: one upholds the Civil Rights Movement’s values and another doesn’t. The latter group may erase black culture altogether. This decline storyline sabotages communal self-reflection, which is only effective when every generation is accountable for its strengths and weaknesses. I learned this from listening to hip-hop, in the rawness of the Rza’s beats, the low-end of 808s, Big Crit’s bluesy production and lyricism or Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Sometimes, rawness refers to uniqueness; it’s not wrong, just different. At other times, rawness points directly to what is detrimental and must be overcome. How does this relate to Davis’s post? Davis doesn’t want to deal with all that is raw withinthe Civil Rights Movement and those who witnessed it. He scapegoats hip-hop to avoid facing this issue.

First, Davis doesn’t identify the “values” of the Civil Rights Movement or the hip-hop generation. He says “sacrifice today, so that future generations can be better off” is the “simple notion” for the Civil Rights movement. But in Why We Can’t Wait, King treats the Civil Rights Movement as the culmination of political currents, perspectives, and movements in the US and around the world, rather than a single notion. Everyone across the political spectrum uses the “we sacrifice for future generations” slogan because it grants immediate legitimacy. Ironically, it is even used to support agendas that directly hurt the youth. This is great for political power plays, but not critical self-evaluation. In sum, Davis is unclear about the value differences between generations, so how can he be so sure the younger have betrayed the older?

Davis doesn’t consider that some in the older generation have betrayed—or, at least, are highly inconsiderate of—the younger. Was Jesse Jackson an “elder statesmen” fatigued from guiding rebellious youth when he said he’d castrate President Obama? Was Ice Cube betraying the values of the Civil Rights Movement when he, a rapper, said Jackson’s words were deplorable, considering the history of lynching in the US? My point is that, in Davis’s account, there’s no room for Jesse Jackson to make such a terrible, selfish decision or for Ice Cube to be appropriately critical of it. He makes criticism a one-way street, when it should always go both ways.

But there’s more. Was Kanye betraying Civil Rights Movement values when he publicly critiqued racism and Hurricane Katrina? Or when David Banner volunteered along the Gulf Coast? Was Mos Def betraying the tradition of Civil Rights Movement public protest when he was arrested outside the Video Music Awards for his impromptu performance of “Katrina Clap,” his song critiquing the Bush Administration? On another note, what about Common’s recent performance in the White House or Lupe Fiasco’s critiques of Obama in “Words I Never Said”? On yet another note, there’s Pharoahe Monch’s album W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), an epic album placing black culture amongst the anti-war movements. I mean, Monch has a song called “Let My People Go” on the album. What more can he do to draw on Civil Rights culture? We can’t understand the continuities and discontinuities between these eras with Davis’s antagonistic perspective. More importantly, why don’t these examples of hip-hop and politics show up on his radar?

Perhaps he misses them because they don’t fit his image of black “culture on display.” Davis says America first saw it with Aretha Franklin’s performance at King’s funeral. Davis sees glimpses of it in R Kelly’s and Alicia Keyes’s “killer performances” at Whitney Houston’s funeral. I wholeheartedly oppose the idea that R Kelly, of all people, can reinstitute any morality. Kelly counts on people conflating the beauty of his performance with moral virtue so he can get away with abuse. It’s hard for me not to ignore the misogyny that links Jesse Jackson to R Kelly, Davis’s potential “elder statesmen” to come. I wonder, can spectacle truly make up for everything? Is the Civil Rights Movement all spectacle? Connect his focus on Kelly’s performance to his emphasis on witnesses of the Civil Rights Movement and to televised events, and it seems that spectacle is what counts most in Davis’s post. It’s not a difference in cultural values. It’s a difference in spectacles…King’s or Houston’s funerals vs XXL magazine.

But maybe that’s it. The best (or even just decent) hip-hop interrogates and displays the shortcomings of seeing the Civil Rights Movement as spectacle. Hip-hop discusses King’s activism, speeches, relationship to Malcolm, and assassination—the latter being the element that no spectacle can or should be able to supplant. Hip-hop also focuses intently on the complexities of the drug abuse that troubled Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, Gil Scott Heron and, yes, Whitney Houston. Noting this does not condemn these brilliant artists. It condemns a world that pushed them to despair and profited from their momentary escapes from pain. But it also means that in the 80s and 90s, when Davis blames hip-hop for rejecting the Civil Rights Movement, the hip-hop generation could see the pain and frustration of their parents and other community members who witnessed the Civil Rights Movement. Why wouldn’t this encourage the younger to seek alternatives to what didn’t work out in the previous generation? Indeed, hip-hop culture inherited some of its deepest issues from its immediate predecessors, who witnessed the Civil Rights Movement. But few will admit this because it shatters the image of the Civil Rights Movement that has replaced the complexity of what actually happened, good and bad.

Whitney Houston did amazing things. Her angelic voice literally unified a nation with the 1991 Superbowl. In her recent interviews she gave all the right answers about overcoming drug abuse. She knew the exact scriptures to quote when Oprah asked if she finally believed in herself. Millions of fans loved this. But none of us saw she was still doubting herself, still hurting, still feeling anxious about the future. Admitting this should not take away one iota from her artistry, because these are troubles we all face to some degree. But it should challenge us to consider the relationship between spectacle and substance, which is not always easily understood. Hip-hop is just one of the artforms in black culture that participates in and questions the spectacles in American popular culture. I’d like to think that if she answered interviewers differently and acknowledged she was still struggling, that we would have listened. Then again, I fear that we, whatever our generation, have been so caught up in the spectacle that we call “Whitney Houston” that we might have missed her calls for help. This, and not hip-hop, is the sign of a dying culture.

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James Ford is Assistant Professor of African American Literature at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. He is currently working on two book projects. The first book, Thinking through Crisis: Depression-Era Black Literature, History, and Politicsexplores the insights that Black Radical writers from the first Great Depression can teach about the current depression. The second book, Hip-Hop’s Late Style: Liner Notes to An Aesthetic Theory, uses aesthetic philosophy to consider what post-Golden Era hip-hop can teach us about living after America’s Golden Era has ended.

Notes on a Dying Culture #666 (The Whitney Houston Funeral Telecast)

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