Tag: black culture

Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

Hughes was one of the first black authors, who could support himself by his writings.


Today would have been the 110th birthday of James Mercer Langston Hughes, “an American poet, novelist, playwright, and columnist.” When he died on May 22, 1967, I wasn’t that familiar with his work, but I knew that someone important had passed. He was born into abolitionist stock, had both black and white critics, but eventually became a leading light of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.


Here’s the text of Let America Be America Again, which starts:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

Here’s a reading of the poem.
***
From Bizarro Books the GOP Reads (that’s print title Newsweek used), Paul Begala wrote: “Poor Rick Santorum has struggled with literature as well, taking his initial campaign slogan, “Let America Be America Again,” from Langston Hughes. But he later disavowed it after learning that the African-American poet was pro-union and reportedly gay. Should have Googled it, Rick.”

Black History Month

As an introit, they did a staggeringly magnificent staggering arrangement of Don McLean’s Babylon.

Back in December (or maybe mid-November), I had called a meeting for people at my church interested in working on Black History Month to come to a meeting; no one came. So decided just to do it (largely) myself.

One of the pastors had recommended this series A History of Racism in the United States from an entity called the Thoughtful Christian way back in May of last year, and it looked OK to jumpstart a discussion.

The Adult Education Committee, which I’m on, decided to try an experiment with two different offerings in January. On January 30, it would be my BHM part 1 v. the last piece of a study of the gospel of Mark. People wanted to do both, but ultimately, Mark won out and I had three or four people. My ego wasn’t affected, of course. Of course, it wasn’t. My ego wasn’t affected. Yeah, right. Still, it was an interesting discussion.

It was fortunate that February 6 would be a joint FOCUS service, albeit at our church, so there would be no adult ed programming. So, since I knew I’d be going down to Charlotte, I asked someone, Annette from the choir by name, to get some folks to bring in some artifacts for a display, and she/they did.

February 13, I was scheduled to lead class #2 about racism. I had come back from Charlotte only a couple of days before and the wife, the daughter, and I were still all EXHAUSTED. Somehow, did adult ed while Lydia did Sunday school, then we all went out to eat.

I had secured the speaker for February 20, who sent me an URGENT message that I needed to meet with him the Thursday before that Sunday at 6 pm. So I did, and he decided he wanted me to “interview” him for the Adult Ed class he was leading.

The drag was that, since I was with him on Thursday evening, I couldn’t be at choir that night. Thursday evening has a particular ritual that I’ve been enjoying of late. I take the bus from work to downtown, buy and eat a gyro, go to the library and look at the books for sale, then go on one of the computers and work on my blog for an hour, the only practically guaranteed blogging window I have each week. Then I go to choir. Interrupting the ritual, while ultimately useful, and arguably necessary – face-to-face DOES work better than e-mail – it really, as they used to say “harshed my mellow.”

The morning of the 20th, the speaker, Donald Hyman, was great in the sermon at the 8:30 service, the 9:30 bit on Fredrick Douglass, and again at the 10:45 service’s sermon, which was somewhat different.

There is this presentation of something called the kente cloth each year, and there had been folks lobbying me that a certain older member of the congregation gets one as well. I don’t generally pick the person, but I might have forwarded these e-mails to the folks who do, had I not been…distracted by the month’s events. The cloths were presented to Donald and to the choir director, Michael Lister.

Now, because I missed both Thursday night rehearsal AND Sunday morning rehearsal, I couldn’t sing in the choir; just didn’t know the music. It’s always strange for me to be in the congregation when the choir is singing. As an introit, they did a staggeringly magnificent arrangement of Don McLean’s Babylon, which I had talked about with Michael before I went to Charlotte. It’s based on Psalm 137, one of Donald’s suggested texts; the music was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard in my life. Later, the choir did a version of Wade in the Water, with a guest soloist from the College of Saint Rose; Donald said the group compared favorably with the Fisk Jubilee Singers; I had the strong sense that most of the congregation didn’t know who the Fisk Jubilee Singers are. The offertory was some song I did not know. But it had lyrics about “my mother going home to glory” and I sobbed.

February 25, I had ordered a cake, and folks, including my wife, cooked. Again I led Adult Education. I also sang, and I was fine until the recessional, which was Lift Every Voice and Sing. It must be that I associate it with my home church, or maybe it’s the part about ancestors, and I have no direct living forebearers. In any case, my voice cracked. Afterward, I just wept uncontrollably.

Since Lent is so late this year, on March 6, I led the fourth segment of the workshop.

This particular BHM was PARTICULARLY draining. And I’m not going even get into the conversations about race and racism, except to say this: I’m now convinced more than ever that the discussion about race in America is NOT finished.

C is for Cosby

Bill Cosby saved the American situation comedy.


Bill Cosby is an iconic individual in my life. It started out with three albums that I listened to so often that I could cite dialogue as well as I could Beatles lyrics, which is to say, quite well.

The problem with describing comedy, though, is it involves context, character development and timing. As the cover of I Started Out as a Child (November 1964) notes, “Cut left at the black Chevy” (from Street Football) is not inherently funny, except as described by the Cos. The album also featured Oops!, a brief bit about the fallacy of the perfection about doctors; and The Lone Ranger, about the masked man and Tonto getting drunk, with the Ranger’s horse Silver telling him, “Get off my back!” But the album also deals with serious topics. Medic is about him being one; “zonked means dead”. And Rigor Mortis, about American funerals, along with my preternatural reading of The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford, helped formulate my preference for cremation over the casket at an early age.

On Why Is There Air? (January 1965), in Driving in San Francisco, he discusses Lombard Street so accurately that it shows up in the Wikipedia description:
“They built a street up there called Lombard Street that goes straight down, and they’re not satisfied with you killing yourself that way—they put grooves and curves and everything in it, and they put flowers there where they’ve buried the people that have killed themselves. Lombard Street, wonderful street.” (audience reacts with knowing cheers and applause). So the one time I went to San Francisco, in 1988, you KNOW I had to go there.

That album, in $75 Car, has one of the few actual jokes. After Bill has hit a tree, he realizes he has a bunch of tickets in the glove compartment, “Which are like Savings Bonds; the longer you keep them, the greater they mature.”

But arguably the best, and in any case, my favorite album, is Wonderfulness (May 1966), with Tonsils (lies about “all the ice cream in the world”), The Playground (conspiracy by the adults to knock off all the kids), Go Karts (900 cop cars!), and the radio drama The Chicken Heart. This album is so good that when we were driving down to Charlotte, NC in April 2010 and I saw this on CD at a convenience store in Virginia for $5.99, I had to buy it and give it to my 19-year-old niece.

Other albums had great bits. 8:15 12:15 (1969) has a routine about not using the Lord’s name in vain; “I have a friend Rudy; he ain’t doin’ nothin’. Call on him,” which is why I say “Rudy dammit”. To the degree I am funny at all, it is with the situational humor, rather than jokes, a la Cosby.

At the same time as those early albums came out, indeed because of those albums, producer Sheldon Leonard teamed Cosby with Robert Culp in a show called I Spy (1965-1968). Not only was it the predecessor of the “buddy” cop shows and movies, I Spy was the first television show to feature a Black actor in a lead role. Bill Cosby won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1966, 1967 and 1968. Robert Culp was also nominated in the same category for all three seasons of I Spy. One can find old episodes of I Spy on Hulu, at least in the United States.

I watched Cos on The Bill Cosby Show, about a school teacher, then the kids’ show, Electric Company – an example here – even though I was in college.

Bill Cosby did films, worked on a cartoon series, and did Jell-O commercials – which he’ll be doing again in 2010. Cosby earned a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Massachusetts. “For his doctoral research, he wrote a dissertation entitled, “An Integration of the Visual Media Via ‘Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids’ Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning”.

Then he saved the American situation comedy with The Cosby Show. Don’t believe me? Check out Ken Levine, writer for the TV shows MAS*H and Cheers, among many others. The 1984-1992 show revived a moribund format in the U.S.

The program portrayed black American life as normal if, by “normal”, you mean having a doctor and a lawyer as the parents. It regularly displayed African-American art, music (especially jazz, a Cosby love), and culture as a normal part of everyday life. Here’s a piece of Night Time Is The Right Time.

I always loved the changing theme songs myself:

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Seasons 6 and 7
Season 8

He’s best known recently for his controversial call for black Americans to take more individual responsibility, for which some have castigated him for blaming the poor. His book Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors is a New York Times bestseller.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

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