Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 So many are back. Um, we took a week off, which is probably good because, uh, you said you had a little weather event out there, right.
Speaker 1 00:00:16 Had quite a weather event. Yes. Um, as many of you I'm sure have been following the news, that was a really huge storm that hit the South, um, in the United States for, I don't know, the last week or so. And I say in the United States, cause I'd like to point out that we have listeners worldwide. Um, but in the United States, that's correct over 20 different countries. Um, but we had a really big storm and it hit Mississippi and it hit Texas. And I think Texas was mostly in the news because they lost power and such, but we were in pretty bad shape here. Um, because there's just no infrastructure to handle snow. So no snowplows, no salt. Uh, it was really dangerous to get out and drive. So we had a ton of fun playing out in the snow and the kids loved it, but we were kind of stuck inside in terms of not being able to go to the grocery store and stuff for about eight days. So it was quite an event. And in true, I would say Mississippi fashion this time, last week, it was below zero degrees. And now it's 67 degrees, I think. So really, really abrupt temperature shift and all the snow has officially melted. So we're back to normal, normally scheduled programming in Mississippi.
Speaker 0 00:01:31 Did the, is the snow gonna mess with the azaleas?
Speaker 1 00:01:35 Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. Um, I'm, I've been waiting for the daffodils to bloom and I haven't really seen many yet, so I also don't get out as much as I used to because of the pandemic, but it might, it might affect all the blooming we'll see.
Speaker 0 00:01:50 Hmm. Well, uh, not much to report here, low seventies, sunny clear skies. That's just typical. So cow weather, how
Speaker 1 00:02:00 Do you Mark the passage of time,
Speaker 0 00:02:02 Particularly during a pandemic? I don't, I don't know. Like I get up in the morning and I have to think I'm like, am I teaching today?
Speaker 1 00:02:11 What day is it? And then
Speaker 0 00:02:13 If I'm teaching, I was like, okay, what am I teaching exactly today? What class? Like what's and like, yeah. Um, I don't know. And it's odd, right? I mean, not being able to get out really kind of interferes with it. Um, but uh, you know, there's light at the end of the tunnel for this now. So maybe,
Speaker 1 00:02:37 Yeah. I'm looking forward to vaccine time. I think that that's so that's really exciting, but we are going to finish off, I think today our series on black history. Um, not that we don't incorporate it in every podcast really, but, um, I think our special series that we decided to do, um, we'll be rounding up today.
Speaker 0 00:03:01 Yes we will. And uh, you know, yeah. I, I counted wanted to make that point, even though we kind of have this month's episodes dedicated to black history month, that's not to say that we don't incorporate the experiences of black Americans throughout what we do. In fact, I think Hillary and I both agree that it is. I think we both disagree with American exceptionalism, but at the same time, we do agree that there is something that makes the U S experience a little particular, and that is this kind of forced mingling of cultures that happened and kind of the product that came out of it. And I think to understand contemporary America, you have to understand things like the experience of black Americans, um, civil rights movement, the experience with Jim Crow, the experience with kind of emancipation, the experienced with the middle experience, with the middle passage, all of that stuff. You need to understand that. Um, but yeah, let's, let's jump into it. Welcome to an incomplete history. I'm Hillary and I'm Jeff and we're your hosts for this week?
Speaker 2 00:04:14 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:04:37 So there's a little glitch there. Uh, they changed the interface on us, on the service we use to record our podcasts. So now, but it seems like it's it's problems. It's fancy, but it's also like no notification, they were changing it or anything. It's like, let's change it. So black history month, um, or they're going to talk about posts of Oregon interact. Talk about Jim Crow. And I know there are two things I want to talk about you and I have discussed this previously, and I know you have some things you want to talk about, but I, where I'd like to get a couple of times, I think is best summed up by a 2018 song, um, by a Donald Glover childhood, uh, you know, to notice childish Gambino. This is America. And I remember when that video came out, um, the song and video came out the same day and I remember watching it and I was like, wow, he's done an amazing job of summarizing these kind of two threads of black America's engagement with white America. And on the one hand, um, one of the lines of lyrics is we just want a party party just for you. So the hand you get black Americans that are the object of entertainment for white America. And on the other hand, you have the classification of black Americans, particularly black men, but black women, as well as innately criminal.
Speaker 0 00:06:17 Do you think that's a fair assessment of that song and video
Speaker 1 00:06:21 The song and video? I mean, I think, yeah, you definitely see the juxtaposition of the black experience in America in the video and in the song. And I think that, like you said, it kind of does a good job of summing up the, um,
Speaker 1 00:06:41 I guess like the lines that are drawn that kind of put people on one side of the fence or the other of like white Americans obsession with consuming black culture and, you know, the buzz word for it now is appropriating of, of black culture. Like Americans, white Americans are really, really into black culture from fashion to music, to R to poetry, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, they're really inter interested in consuming it and appropriating it, meaning like kind of taking it over, but then there's on the other side of it is like black Americans are also seen as dangerous or criminal or, you know, categorize in these different ways. So it's like either entertaining or not. And I think that the video is really good at kind of making you feel uncomfortable about it, right? Like you, you kind of see exactly what he's getting at. And for those of you who haven't seen it, you should Google and listen to, I'm sure it's on YouTube.
Speaker 0 00:07:44 You should watch the video Theo
Speaker 1 00:07:46 And listen to the song that we're talking about, but you do get that juxtaposition in that discomfort with realizing maybe two things that you didn't realize about black culture, but that black Americans have lived with and recognized and been very aware of from the start. I think white Americans are finally going, Oh wow.
Speaker 0 00:08:08 We have, so Donald Glover throughout the video, he strikes these poses. And if, and if you're not familiar with the history of minstrelsy, something we've talked about previously, and I'm going to touch on a tiny bit today, he strikes these poses that hearkened back to kind of stock minstrel characters. Um, and I just think it's amazing. I use it now when I teach, um, us history, when I teach kind of, uh, the post civil war era, because an argument I make when I teach this and I, and I would make it today too, is we don't have American culture as we recognize it today without a huge amount of black culture being both appropriated, but also kind of, hopefully at times, particularly more recently, a little more willingly brought in with intention.
Speaker 1 00:09:05 One celebrated in a, in a more real way, I would say in resize. I hope, I hope that that's what
Speaker 0 00:09:13 I mean. Maybe we're living in a fool's paradise, but, um, but, uh, so I want to talk about that and I particularly want to talk about music and movie or music and kind of movies and movies emerging out of kind of stage entertainment. And I want to kind of mention some specific people, but I know that you have something you want to talk about. That's kind of the flip side of this, which is, um, has to do with the particular situation black Americans find themselves in after the civil war.
Speaker 1 00:09:48 Yeah. Um, I'm really interested in considering, um, activism and the, you know, kind of grassroots movements that take place in the post post reconstruction really where, um, black Americans come together to form organizations and, um, you know, that are related to family church school, um, that are political in nature in the, and also the entrance, um, more fully into media and publishing of stories. And, um, you know, so it's kind of connected a little bit to, to literature and the arts, but just like social activism and, um, organized organizing that takes place in the wake of reconstruction for black Americans and how that kind of solidifies. And I think overlaps with what you're talking about with, you know, I'm sure you're going to want to go into the Harlem Renaissance, right? I mean, some of these things are just so intertwined, um, where you see the emergence of black culture, that's predicated on shared experience and that can come through in activism, in literature, in music, in fashion. Um, it can come through in so many different culturally relevant ways, this shared experience that black Americans have of being formerly enslaved people.
Speaker 0 00:11:05 Yeah, I think it's, you know, so let's start with childish Gambino's this is America and kind of move backwards. Um, so we do not get contemporary music. And I mean, by contemporary, I mean kind of music in the eighties and nineties arts and the 2000 teens, we do not get that music. I would argue without a very important black entertainer whose performance at the Monterey international pop festival in 1967 blew people away. That's Jimmy Hendrix.
Speaker 1 00:11:47 It's still considered the greatest guitarist of all time, perhaps
Speaker 0 00:11:52 You and I both love music. I mean, I kind of lived it. You were like either not born or a child, just a babe, but you love grunge music.
Speaker 1 00:12:04 I mean, the
Speaker 0 00:12:05 Line from Jimmy Hendrix, Turner Ivana is so straight and like not twisting at all.
Speaker 1 00:12:11 Yeah. And Kurt Cobain actually references that and also references the, you know, extreme influence that 1930s black music had on him. Like he was so into lead belly. Right. So,
Speaker 0 00:12:27 Right. So now we move backwards and we look at Jimmy Hendrix's influence and we, and we go to early Motown recordings and people, um, Barry Gordy Jr. Founds Motown in 59. But even before that, you get Chuck Berry. Um, but if we go back even further, we get jazz and blues music. So we get people like Louis Armstrong who arguably becomes the most famous jazz musician in the United States. And he brings jazz music up the Mississippi out of the deep South, out of the cotton belt out of new Orleans, particularly jazz is so close to related to new Orleans, brings it up to Chicago and kind of reinvents it and repackages it. Um, and he plays in King Oliver's Creole, jazz band, and Louis Armstrong famously plays the trumpet. And what he does is incredible and it captures people's imagination. And this period during the twenties, during the roaring twenties, um, I know we've talked about this book before, but there is a book called slumming.
Speaker 0 00:13:37 It, which you need to go read if you're interested in this about white appropriation of black American culture. Um, because what it is is during this time, particularly in places like Chicago and New York, you would have well-to-do white people who would go either down to the Bowery, which was where many immigrants in New York, it was where many immigrants, uh, kind of, uh, gathered, but it was also a place for kind of, um, nascent, um, queer communities in the city. They, you would either go down there or you would go up to Harlem and in both places you would partake in culture that was kind of forbidden for you to engage with in, on your own, as a kind of a white middle-class or up across person. I mean, is that a fair, would you consider that a fair kind of summary of this funnel?
Speaker 1 00:14:35 Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we see parallel so that today, I mean, there are certain places you go to seek out. Uh, I don't know, I guess like illegal activity, right? Cause you'd go to the Bowery, which is also known as like a skid row sort of a place you're looking, you're looking for maybe a prostitution you're trying to, you know, hang around with sex workers. You're looking for in the 1920s, you're looking for alcohol, right. We have prohibition raging at this time. You're looking for drugs are looking for a good time. Um, recreational fun, good time. And this is happening. Like it kinda think about it as like, pardon me again? This is my, like growing up in the nineties Titanic, right? Like where you see at the upper, the first class people who are having like this really dignified dinner and it looks boring, you know, and everyone's all dressed nice.
Speaker 1 00:15:26 And then Rose goes down to third class and she's having a fun time at the party. Like that's kind of how I see the Bowery. And I see this moment in the early 20th century with the jazz clubs and prohibition and, um, you know, seeking out a good time would happen in lower class circles of people. And oftentimes, you know, it was immigrant communities, but a lot of black communities too, like white people would go kind of like you're saying the slumming, it sort of thing to go and have a good time, but then they'd be able to shift right back into their, you know, upper white middle-class life after they've left that behind. And we see that still to this day where that is the case where people will appropriate or kind of put on a costume temporarily to enjoy some sort of cultural phenomenon, but then they're able to just shimmy right back into their regular life, um, their regular clothing, their regular, you know, middle-class upper class existence.
Speaker 0 00:16:27 Well, so here's the, here's kind of our first intersection with the things I think you want to talk about specifically as well, while going to a place like Harlem and, and keep in mind the person I'm going to talk about. She doesn't just perform in Harlem. Uh, she actually, um, goes overseas. She performs many places across New York city itself, but across the United States, but you might've seen Billy holiday, you might've heard Billy holiday sing. And what's really fascinating as I find that you're going there to have a good time. You're a white middle-class American, and you're kind of going there to have a good time. And Billie holiday is kind of entertaining you with this jazz music, but also blues. She, she kind of occupied a nebulous space between the two, but then she starts singing a bluesy song. And before, you know, it, you're sitting there listening to a song called strange fruit that while you might not realize what it's not about, initially it is an anti-lynching song, which I find really kind of wonderful in a way that she's using this opportunity of, of performing for white people to actually protest what's happening at the very same time to other black Americans.
Speaker 0 00:17:54 And just, I mean, let me read you a couple of lines of the lyrics out here too. So you kind of get the pointedness of the song. And again, I'm going to try to link this as well. Cause I think you need, if you've never heard Billy holiday perform strange fruit, you need to, yeah. These lyrics are incredible and trees, bear strange fruit blood on the leaves and blood at the root black bodies swinging in this Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the Poplar trees. It's, you know, white Americans are being entertained by black entertainers in these urban places, but at the same time in the deep South, but not only there lynching is occurring in other places as well. You have black Americans who, who are providing another form of very McCobb entertainment for white audiences.
Speaker 1 00:18:45 Yeah. And allowing a message to be relayed through music in a way that they'll listen, perhaps, uh, because I think a lot of times I think music is the great unifying force in this whole conversation because you can have black writers, black newspapers, you know, journalists, um, black writers writing novels, right? You have like Zora Neale Hurston, you have, um, James Baldwin, et cetera, et cetera. And it it's kind of like maybe white people might listen to it or read it, but it's music that white people are consuming in mass and that they do want. And so it's like, this is a way to relay a message to white people while also entertaining them. And this is kind of right along the same. I think what you're talking about with childish Gambino's this is America. It's like, I'm an entertainer with this fun song, but I want you to listen to what I'm saying here.
Speaker 0 00:19:47 Right. And what I find so interesting is that, although there have been critics of childish Gambino's this America, um, and there were some critics when Billy holiday performed strange for it. It wasn't the Thai same type of criticism that somebody like Colin Kaepernick receives when he took a knee during the national Anthem.
Speaker 1 00:20:11 That's a really good point. I didn't think about that. That people, maybe aren't so pumped about the music, but they don't see it as an outright protest, but really, I mean, strange fruit especially is just like, yeah, there's no, there's no subtext there. Right?
Speaker 0 00:20:30 Yeah. You cannot pretend that it is about anything else. And I think, I don't know. I mean, I think that's an interesting conversation is why does Colin Kaepernick taking a knee basically end up ending Colin Kaepernick's career? Whereas Billy holiday stinging strange fruit becomes quickly becomes one of our most famous songs.
Speaker 1 00:20:51 I hadn't thought about that before. I mean, it's maybe has something to do with entertainment, right? Like, well, I'm not entertained by Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, but I really enjoy this music
Speaker 0 00:21:02 Maybe. I mean, but it, but it gets us to another point, which is young black men participating in professional and collegiate level athletics for largely white audiences is a continuation of this phenomenon.
Speaker 1 00:21:17 Yeah. And the entertainment and entertainment at the expense of their own bodies, their own minds really. I mean, you have so many people with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE brain trauma of that they're risking life and limb kind of in order to put themselves through college and entertain white audiences and then going into the NFL and my husband and I talk about this all the time about, you know, who are coaches, who are team owners and you can just see the massive racial disparities between who's playing the sport. Who's leading the sport. I mean, even down to a discussion of the vast majority of quarterbacks in the league, right. And the quarterback is the player who's least hurt on the team. And it's, it's really a can you're right at this continuation. And so related to this is America about entertainment versus not. And so when Colin Kaepernick stops the entertainment of, you know, even though he would go play the football game after he, no, but like when there was a political protest, it's like, well, we just want to be entertained right now. We just want to watch sports. We don't want politics involved, but how does that not translate to music? I think that's fascinating. I never even thought about that.
Speaker 0 00:22:39 It just, it doesn't feel like it does. It just it's. I don't know why it is. And the meantime, you know, we, these young black men are out there and I mean, very few of them succeed to the level that they're getting paid millions of dollars to play. Um, but the price of even having a chance to do this is continuous injury to your body, including CTE chronic traumatic and cephalgia and in cephalopathy, um, which is kind of repeated concussions of the brain. And I don't know, like I have wrestled with this, it's an, you know, it's, you know, this is, we're probably lose some listeners over this. I stopped watching football because of this. I grew up loving football. I grew up in the South. I grew up loving football. Um, I cannot watch it anymore because I think it is abusing bodies, the entertainment of people in a very obvious way.
Speaker 1 00:23:48 Yeah. It's it really does. Once you realize that it smacks you in the face and you can't unsee it. And I feel the same way. I was really interested in football through, you know, like my high school and college years. I mean, arguably, it was just like a way to go hang out and like, you know, go watch the game or something like that, but I really did end up becoming interested in it. And then I couldn't, I couldn't unsee that. And then particularly working in universities and seeing, you know, student athletes and the schedules that they're forced to have and, um, you know, in order to get through school and then, you know, the workout schedules that they have. I worked at the tutoring center for, um, college athletes at one institution I worked at. And I mean, they're just completely worked to the bone.
Speaker 1 00:24:40 They're not compensated for their entertainment. I mean, because that's what it is every Saturday, these college kids all get together and get plastered drunk and go get entertained watching the football game. And once you realize that and you see it and you see that it's black and Brown students entertaining them, you really have, it's very hard to look away from that for me too. And so I've not been to a single football game at this institution I'm currently at, and it's a huge football school. Um, and I've not been to a single one at previous institutions and I've, you know, worked in the big 10. Um, and now I'm in the sec, but I've never been to a football game because I am pretty disgusted for the same reason you are. And I don't judge people who watch it or enjoy it, but you have to think about this.
Speaker 0 00:25:31 I think lobbyists issue, right? I think, I mean, you and I both were in San Diego in 2012 and I think junior say I was death in 2012. I think that really suicide well, who yes is suicidal suicide, but he kills himself because of the CTE. And they said, you know, when the autopsy happened, they said, you know, the damage to this poor guy's brain. Um, but I think that suicide really shook me and I decided this was not maybe something I wanted to see. And then, um, it just kind of evolved from that. But I mean, it's interesting. I wonder why sports people of color in general cause junior sales, uh, some odd descent, but I wonder why in sports, people of color are not permitted to kind of protest that that's, that's looked down upon and we can't even go back to like the Mexico city Olympics where there's a protest that's takes place on an awards podium. And it sparks a lot of anger back in the U S amongst white America.
Speaker 1 00:26:50 It's possible that it's gendered component to it.
Speaker 0 00:26:54 That is true. I mean,
Speaker 1 00:26:56 Audience of the NFL's white men is that
Speaker 0 00:27:02 No, I mean, yeah. I would say, well, I don't know if they're the, are they still the dominant audience? I don't know, in the South
Speaker 1 00:27:09 Men are dominant audience. Is that okay?
Speaker 0 00:27:12 Yeah. More men than women, but I think it's a lot more balanced than maybe it was 30 or 40 years ago.
Speaker 1 00:27:22 I've heard people make an argument because I've had conversations with people, not about the music versus sports. Cause I've not even thought about that in my mind is just like reeling from that thought. But I've had conversations with people who are, you know, upset that Colin Kaepernick ceiling. And I asked why, you know, and I've had more than one person tell me, well, because I watched sports to escape. I don't want to see, you know, I don't watch the news. I don't like the news. I don't like politics. I don't vote. I've had people say that to me before. So I don't want to see politics when I'm trying to watch a football game. But what they don't understand is how intricately intertwined the football game. They are watching. It is it's steeped in decades, centuries of race relations in centuries of oppression to black and Brown people. Like they don't even understand how that game is strictly rooted in that. I mean, but they don't want to think about it. I mean, that's the thing is like, people don't want to think about it.
Speaker 0 00:28:26 Yeah. I, I don't know. It's like I, who, you know, I think this is an area that has to be examined. Like why, why sports are, is this way? Why kind of black athletes in sports aren't supposed to do this? I mean, there's a lot of messed up messaging for black people participating in sports as well. I mean, look at the Williams sisters in tennis. I mean, look how they've been treated. Um, as far as being women, right? I mean, they're, it's, it's like, um, they're kind of held out and pointed to and say, well, that's not an appropriate form of femininity. Um, and it's just, I think it's a continuation of this thing of, of white Americans want black bodies as spectacle, but anytime it doesn't quite fit with what they think it should be doing, they get very antsy about it.
Speaker 1 00:29:35 Well, and that can be said, so what I will say, people do get antsy about black entertaining entertainment and music when it comes to sexuality. Um, I wasn't even expecting to talk about any of this, but this is really like, my mind is just like going in all these directions now when you mentioned that. So, um, I think people were really, really upset about Cardi B's latest or not her latest, but one of her latest, um, hits, which is abbreviated WAP and it's, you know, it has very raunchy lyrics. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:30:07 The video is really raunchy too.
Speaker 1 00:30:10 The video. Yeah. I think it's hilarious. Yeah. And, but you know what, this is a really long tradition, you know, I've heard a lot of people saying, well, this is just disgusting. You know, people, these days are just saying the nastiest things and like getting away with it. But in the 1920s and 1930s, this is a part of black culture too. And about music making in the blues. Like if you look back, there's a recording artist. Um, she's one of the very first people recorded actually in the 1920s, Lucille Bogan, um, she's a black woman. She was born in Mississippi. Um, she dies in 1948, pretty young she's four 50, one years old when she died. But she recorded many songs that had the raunchiest lyrics in like the 1930s. Um, so Lucille Bogan has this song called till the cows come home. And the lyrics are like rival Cardi B's WAP, I think.
Speaker 1 00:31:08 And, um, she talks about, you know, sexually transmitted diseases. This is in the 1930s. Um, she talks about big penises. She talks, talks about, you know, actually like having sex. She has, I mean, just it's the lyrics are hilarious. You should look them up. Um, and so the idea that like, Oh, this is a brand new thing and we're very upset by it. Like it has deep roots, I think in, um, traditional like blues, jazz, uh, black entertainment and culture stemming all the way back to the very first recording artist. But I would say that's where people get uncomfortable, um, where you have that line between entertainment and going off the rails is when sexuality comes into play. Well, I mean, look at my Railey. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:32:00 My rainy has got this, prove it to me, song where she says, they said I do it. Ain't nobody caught me. Sure. Got to prove it to prove it on me. Went out last night with a crowd of my friends. They must have been women. Cause I don't like no men. It's true. I wear a collar and tie makes the wind blow all the while. I mean, here's a song about sexuality that is any sexuality, right. This is about her transgressing socially kind of approved lines at the time. And I mean, she does this in 1928, this is a 1928 song. Um, right. So I think there's that. But I also think, I mean, the reason love the Cardi B thing is all she's doing is turning around what male musicians have been doing for years. And instead of right, instead of being the object, that's sexualized, she's both sexualizing herself and sexualizing men in the process. Yeah. I don't think men like to be sexualized.
Speaker 1 00:33:06 And so we don't like that. It's a shame that the song came out during quarantine because man, it would be really fun to be, you know, in the club with that song by doing that now rifle the age of 32. But yeah, I mean, it's, it is a long tradition though that goes back to women. Women are sexual and women do talk and write and sing and rap about their sexuality. But I think that that's always a line that people don't want crossed
Speaker 0 00:33:40 Well and, and black people are sexual and, and black sexuality has always been a point of contention for white America. Um, you know, we've talked about Thomas Jefferson before and we got a lot of comments that on our conversation about, um, Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson as abbreviated as that conversation was. But I think it's always been this kind of, we have a very specific double standard for the sexuality of black entertainers. If you are a black woman, um, popular culture says the highest thing you can aspire to is to be with a white man. And I would point to a whole host of movies that back that up like the bodyguard with Whitney Houston, think about, um, Halle Berry, uh, when she was in lots of movies, hardly ever was she paired with a black band was almost always a white man.
Speaker 1 00:34:48 Okay. So let me turn this a little bit. I don't think it has to do with that black women should aspire to be with white men as much as it has to do with white men hold power and dominion over all women and white men have access to any woman that they want.
Speaker 0 00:35:07 Right. Could it be a little of both?
Speaker 1 00:35:09 Sure, sure, sure. I liked that. You said that because I agree, but I also think that it there's the flip side of it and it relates back to our like Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings argument, and it relates really strongly to somebody I wanted to talk about today too, is Ida B Wells. And what she writes about lynching
Speaker 0 00:35:30 That, you know, the outrage
Speaker 1 00:35:33 And the accusations for why many people are lynched black men are Lynch's because there's an accusation of rape, but it's not rape that actually bothers people because white men raped black women and women of color all the time. And there's no repercussion for that. It's actually, they're upset that black men are having have sexual access to white women or any women and that sexuality and domain over women rests solely in the hands of white males. And so white men can just have access to any woman that they want. Um, and so when I seek things like, I like the examples you gave, but I don't know if it's like, that's the pinnacle for black women to be with white men or if it's just white men get to choose whoever they want. I don't, I'm kind of just thinking through it right now. I'm sorry. I wasn't prepared to talk about this, but I'm kind of just like working my way through it.
Speaker 0 00:36:33 Well, so here's, I mean, and let me clarify a little about what I meant by, I think at least one thread is that white popular culture is saying black female characters. If they, if it's romantic at all, they need to aspire to be with a white man. That that is what they should actually be doing. And, and I think it is under Penn by kind of the whole thing that white men control sexuality of everybody around them. But I think that what really kind of threw this under sharp really for me was name black men who have been romantic leads in movies with white female.
Speaker 1 00:37:20 Well, that's the whole issue though, is that culturally and like our society is built on this idea of splitting up black families, right through slavery, that the idea that black love black people can not be in love and be stable. That isn't, that is a myth that's perpetuated again and again and again and again. And so even, even moving past like interracial discussion it's you rarely even see a black man and a black woman who are married and like following the nuclear family kind of American tradition kind of stuff. It's, it's rare to see instances of that outside of say bet.
Speaker 0 00:38:05 Yeah, I think it's, it's very, it's funny. I had to think about BHC that I was going to talk about, but we're not going to have time to get to that, but cause I want to get back to the Ida B Wells stuff, but yeah, I think it's, it is white Americans see this very rarely. Um, and even a show that as a kid was very important to me. And I know you, and I've talked about this before. Uh, there was a sitcom in the seventies called good times and it was about a black family living in the projects in Chicago. And
Speaker 1 00:38:41 It was like the precursor to the Cosby show and to family matters and stuff.
Speaker 0 00:38:45 Uh, kind of, yeah, I mean it was the first kind of that had a black family. The problem with that as the father, the, the seventies, when it comes out was a period of economic crisis in the United States, there was stagflation was going on and it was pretty awful and the father is not there. He's mostly, he is sometimes present. His name was James. Sometimes he was present. Sometimes he was absent because he was out trying to get work. And it was very much about, um, uh, the mother kind of holding the family together. And what's interesting is, is if you study kind of the history of the projects and the way the government ran them and the way they were able to get kind of congressional support for funding them was to remain in this government housing. Oftentimes the father had to leave because if the father was present, suddenly they would no longer be eligible for the housing.
Speaker 0 00:39:50 And so there's kind of this, and there are a couple of books that have been written about this, but there's this whole kind of tension between, are you allowed to kind of maintain the nuclear family or do you have to break it up so that you can kind of get the housing to live in a place that you can't otherwise afford to because wages are so low and it's a very kind of damned if you do damned if you don't, because if, if the father goes away to make it, so the rest of the family can remain in the housing, he's categorized as kind of an absent father and that's a failed family unit and no wonder the children are in trouble with the law. I mean, it's such a self-reinforcing kind of system that's current gets created,
Speaker 1 00:40:34 And I've not seen that show, but just you describing it. It really does set the stage for shows. I grew up with, um, you know, TGF was huge and we would watch fresh principal air, um, which was a very successful, wealthy black family living in Bel air. Um, Cosby shows a little before my time, but I have seen it. Um, and you have like a successful doctor and I know that that she's a lawyer. Right. But that was what was so crushing, I think, to the black community, when Cosby comes out that, you know, he's not who he, he's not cliff Huxtable, right? Like there was this portrayal for once of us, you know, stable, black family with two successful people at the head of it. And now, you know, and personally like as a real person that he's being, you know, um, all these allegations about him as a person are coming out, but you know, it set the stage. I watched family matters growing up. That sounds like good times kind of set the stage for actually showing black families. Um, maybe not it realistic, um, I don't know, displays of what it was like to be a black family in the United States, but it definitely is like an aspirational thing, much. Like a lot of television is right. Like most families aren't leave it to Beaver. Right. It's like television is calmness aspirational thing I would say. But, um, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 0 00:42:00 Jackson was on there as a child was on what good times? Good times. Oh, she plays penny. Okay. Um, penny is abused by her mother. Oh geez. It's I mean, it's, it's the good times I think is an amazing show because it is in many ways, not aspirational as much as it is keeping your family close. We'll help you get through a lot of crap in the world. Um, it might be about resilience might be the way to categorize it, but, but what I find is interesting is this all kind of ties back to this. The 1920s and thirties is a really kind of formative moment for black entertainment that filters in and becomes kind of broader entertainment in America. But a lot of the stuff we talked about, like strange fruit as a reaction to lynching, and you had wanted to talk about this kind of development of a new kind of journalism and kind of, uh, maybe not the journalism so much, it's just kind of this specific person in what she does.
Speaker 1 00:43:10 Yeah. So I want to mention Ida B Wells who was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, which is just about 30 minutes away from my, where I currently live. And there's an Ida B Wells museum nearby and everything. Um, so a little bit about an hour South of Memphis and she is an investigative journalist and she's, you know, kind of the first of her kind, uh, you know, to be first of all, a woman who's working in journalism and then a black woman who's working in journalism. Um, she's born in 1862. So the same year the emancipation proclamation is signed. And, um, she is arguably one of the most famous, I think, black women in history in America. And it's because of her role as an investigative journalist and writing about the horrors of lynching that are taking place in the South and her newspapers, she creates a newspaper to report on lynching.
Speaker 1 00:44:11 Um, and she wrote, she co owned and wrote for Memphis free speech and headlight. Um, and she, she writes about lynching, racial segregation, equality, um, you know, black issues in a black newspaper. Um, and for the first time you really start to see, okay, there's another side to the story about what's happening here. And she's really intentional about intentional, about pointing out the inconsistencies in stories about why lynching even occurs. And she points it out with regularity. You know, that people are being accused. There's no evidence, things are being planted. And one of the really radical things that she does. So many of the accusations against black men for lynching was for having sex with white women. And the idea was that, well, they must have been raped and she starts writing that, you know, maybe they're in a relationship.
Speaker 0 00:45:14 Well, and, and I mean, this is, well, I mean, this is where you start to get sexual violence visited on both. Right. Um, and this is, you know, lynching is lynching. The results in death is not the only violence being visited on these people. And, and a lot of times the violence wasn't reserved for just the black man, although the, the most extreme forms of violence were reserved for them. But even a white woman caught with a black man would often be, uh, she would be raped by white men because it was like open season, right? It's like, she's already fallen. We might as well do this. Um, genital mutilation was common as well. Um, and I think what she does is she uncovers this open secret. Um, everybody in the South knew this was going on
Speaker 1 00:46:20 When she radically announces to everybody, like you say, it's an open secret, but she writes openly. There are black women being raped all the time. You don't actually care about rape. There are white women who are raped all the time. You don't actually care about women. You care about yourself and your masculinity and the propping up of white supremacy. And the idea that white men have dominion over any woman that they want. And that on the other side of that is that black men do not. And that even the idea that a white woman would willingly consensually enter into a sexual relationship with a black man, it was just beyond there beyond the realm of their imagination. Like they couldn't even imagine the possibility of something like that. And Ida B Wells, I think kind of fearlessly writes this, you know, she writes Southern horrors, um, and she, she covers all the time.
Speaker 1 00:47:29 And she's saying, you know, there's, there was one instance that I'll, I'll go into really quickly where a black man was. Um, he was not lynched, but he was incarcerated, which, you know, it's not, that would not happen to most people. Most men who are accused of raping a white woman would have been lynched and murdered. This man was incarcerated and spent several years in jail. And then finally four years after he was in jail, the white woman recounts and says, we were actually in a relationship with one another. And this happens all the time. And we still see instances of this today. And she kind of just uses her space as a writer and a journalist to say, let's consider the realm of possibilities here. Let's really get to the bottom of the fact that you're not trying to protect white women. You're trying to protect your masculinity, white men. You're not interested in their safety. You're trying to stop, you know, any sort of relationships, interracial relationships, number one, and then just going and blaming black men for it. And, you know, black women were lynched to black women oftentimes were accused of crimes related to hurting children, or if they defended their husbands who had been lynched. So it there's a large spectrum there.
Speaker 0 00:48:53 Well, I mean, and th and the black women being a danger to white children, that goes all the way back. I mean, the Salem witch trials
Speaker 1 00:49:02 Covered that very early episode. Yeah. That, that black women are dangerous. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:49:07 Was, she was, she was physically dangerous for the children, but she was more importantly, spiritually dangerous for them because she's the one who introduces them to kind of witchcraft and Satan. Um, but it's, yeah, I, I it's, it's,
Speaker 1 00:49:30 There's almost too much to say here. Right.
Speaker 0 00:49:33 It's you look at it and you hope you're like, we've come a long way. Right. And then you say, no, we haven't actually
Speaker 1 00:49:41 Some ways yes. And another ways, no. Right. I mean, we see all the time that people, black people and Brown people were incarcerated for crimes that they didn't even commit or put to death for crimes didn't even commit. But in popular culture, I would say we're seeing some, some shifts. And most recently I was going to bring it up earlier. But now I think it's important to bring it up to like bridge Horton. I don't know if you've seen it in revolutionary. It is a revolutionary portrayal of interracial love between multiple characters in the show. And it's set in a time period where that just, it's almost disarming when you watch it, you go, wait a minute. There's an 18. I think it's 18. 13 is when it's set in Eaton one, what is going on here? It's, it's, it's disarming when you first watch it. And then you go, Oh my gosh, this is revolutionary to see a black man and a white woman as main characters in, in a television show. That's huge. I mean, I think it's one of the most watched shows on Netflix, currently politics revolutionary.
Speaker 0 00:50:56 I, you know, I have my issues with it. My issues are mostly it's treatment of class because the vast majority of people in London during that period are not living that way
Speaker 1 00:51:06 At all. That's not who it was about Jeff.
Speaker 0 00:51:09 I know that's not who it's about. And it's, you know, it's, you know, it is, I think it's important because we have so few moments where a black man is allowed to be a sexual being, um, in a dramatic work. It just doesn't
Speaker 1 00:51:33 Happen very often in a period piece.
Speaker 0 00:51:35 Right. Um, much less with a white woman as his counterpart. Um, it's yeah. I think it is. It's interesting. I mean, it's yeah. I could see, I could see why people like it. I don't personally care for it. No, I just, I just want to talk about this off-air okay. Um, but I, I, but it reminds me, I mean, there was another series that came out on Netflix earlier this year called Hollywood, where they kind of did the same thing. They re-imagined Hollywood, if had been a little bit different in the post-war period. And you end up with, um, a guy who is Asian-American, although he passes with a black woman who becomes an actress and a very, and she was an Academy award. Meanwhile, this movie is being written by a young black man from the South who's gay. And he ends up in an openly, in an open room. I don't mean open relationship. He ends up with a publicly visible relationship with a fictionalized version of rock Hudson. And a lot of critics of that were like, well, this didn't happen. And it's like, well, that's not the point
Speaker 1 00:53:02 Things we watch on television didn't happen.
Speaker 0 00:53:05 It's not telling you, this is a history of what Hollywood looked like in the late forties. This is what if it had been this way instead, what would, what would happen? Um, but I mean, we CA we actually, I mean, getting out of the realm of fictional back into actual people, I mean, we have, um, and that, that series, I just referenced deals with this. How did McDaniel wins the Academy award for best actress in 1940? And this is for her portrayal of a problematic character in gone with the wind. Um, but Hattie McDaniel wins best supporting actress Academy work. Um, she's not allowed to sit in the area they're holding the ceremony.
Speaker 1 00:53:53 Yeah. That is just one example. I think of that wine that we started the episode talking about, and I'm glad we've been able to thread it through it's like entertainment or danger, right. And when non entertaining, not a part of regular events or society, or, you know, not able to ride on a bus together, drink out of a fountain together, go to a restaurant together, but you can entertain me. I will allow you to entertain me. And that is, that thread is so consistent. That's the one I think, very consistent thread that we can see in the development and, um, creation of American distinctly American black culture from, you know, early on, but particularly in the post-reconstruction South onward is that you get this fine line between entertainment and danger. And, and it's one that people I think are still, uh, you know, it's a line that people are still walking finally along.
Speaker 0 00:54:56 Yeah. I think that's a good wrap up there. I th you know, it's, it is heartbreaking. I think, to realize how little progress has been made on many of these issues at the same time you bring up things like British. And I think it does point to maybe things are starting to change a little more rapid,
Speaker 1 00:55:17 But I think it's important to know that the, you know, the history behind all of it, we can talk about this even more in other episodes at other points. It's like, you have to understand the history of it, that this is just a consistent theme throughout, right?
Speaker 0 00:55:30 Yeah. This is, I mean, you have black actors who are blacking up during the period of minstrelsy to play these caricaturists of black Americans. Um, and you know, there are a couple of books that have been written on that, and there's this kind of really fascinating kind of process, um, of why they decide to do this. And for many of them, it becomes a way to kind of eke out a little bit of success in a society that wanted to consume black culture, but didn't want to have to deal with black Americans outside of that.
Speaker 1 00:56:12 Right. And pointing out the oppression and disparities for sure.
Speaker 0 00:56:19 Well, I spent a great conversation. I think it ended up in place. We didn't, it kind of went places we didn't initially plan, but I think it's an interesting kind of moving quickly through giant Jim Crow in the 20th century, into the present day of like, what's remained constant. Um, but yeah, uh, this has been really great. And now I, now I'm just obsessed with trying to figure out why people react to Colin Kaepernick the way they do, but they don't react to kind of Donald Glover in the same way. I, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:57:01 Drop us a note in the comments and let us know, send us an email. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thank you for joining us. I'm Hillary and I'm Jeff <inaudible>.
