Talking About Race

Lately the issue of race relations in America has been popping up all over the national dialog like mushrooms after a fresh rain. The last time we've had such a concentrated discussion of race was in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when a startled world saw a sea of broken, abandoned black faces on their televisions. This was a side of our country that few - even over here - knew existed.

In the middle of last month, Barack Obama delivered an incredible speech that struck a chord with many Americans: moving away from the fiery rhetoric that has defined the public lives of many prominent black politicians of the previous generation, Obama acknowledged that the problem of racism was real, but also that it went both ways. He articulated a "post-race" society, in which the issue of skin color is made ever more invisible, while also speaking out against turning the blind eye to endemic problems in a mad, idealistic race towards Utopia. According to the chattering classes (and a viewpoint I happen to share), Obama's speech will be remembered as a great moment in the American race discussion.

No doubt our readers have seen the speech and have been following the issue of race as it makes its appearances across the American cultural landscape. I don't want to use this post to rehash all the things that have been said in the media over the last two weeks. Rather, I want to write about a recent incident in my own life that underscores many of the points Obama made.

One of my big projects right now at work is the managing editorship of a large collection of classical, folk, and world traditional tunes arranged for string orchestra. It is targeted at young students (beginner - 2nd/3rd year), so will be used primarily at the elementary and middle school levels. It's a really innovative concept and an exciting project to be working on.

One of my tasks is to compose brief blurbs that provide historical and cultural context of the music for the students. The composers sometimes give me their own texts with specific information they want me to mention in the notes; for example, the fact that Haydn was warmly referred to as "Papa" by his orchestra at the Esterhazy court. I tweak these, add my own stuff, and make them publish-worthy.

One of the songs in the collection comes from the tradition of 19th century minstrel shows. Minstrelsy was a mid-19th century popular musical theater form that involved white actors putting on blackface paint and imitating black people onstage. Characters were usually of a stock variety, including Jim Crow, Gumbo Chaffs, and Tambo; and true to their stock personalities, they acted in a manner of stereotyped exaggeration of how 19th century whites viewed their black peers. 150 years before Eminem, whites were trying to "act black" onstage. For a more complete description of this problematic piece of American music/cultural history, see the Wiki article in the link.

In and of itself, publishing a minstrel tune isn't a problem at all: many classic tunes in the American folk songbook had their origins in minstrelsy ("Dixie," "Oh Susanna!," and "Camptown Races" for instance). It was also a very influential movement, leading to vaudeville and the modern American musical theater. Indeed, no story of American music is complete without discussing minstrel shows. However, presenting a minstrel song in a collection aimed at fairly young kids presents challenges in terms of how to properly contextualize it. In the notes prepared by the arranger, I was surprised to read not one mention of the racial element of minstrelsy. Focusing entirely on the music, race seemed to be erased from the picture.

I struggled with this for a few days before consulting my senior editor, who agreed that we should definitely rewrite the blurb to provide accurate cultural context for the movement. Leaving out the issue of race almost struck me as a deliberate whitewashing of history. It pained me imagining a hypothetical black student (or any student for that matter) getting curious about the tune and typing "minstrel show" into Google, only to be confronted with demeaning images of grinning, dancing Jim Crows. If provided with at least some warning that this was a complicated and troubling aspect of American music, the student would be able to sort out the issue on his/her own and with help from teachers and parents; however, not mentioning race at all in the little introductory essay seemed to be doing this hypothetical student a big disfavor. Furthermore, it would open up a potential legal/PR liability for the company. I decided to talk about race.

However, when asked, the arranger strongly disagreed, arguing that talking about race in the context of student music books isn't appropriate. Certainly, this view has merit: students are using these books to learn how to play music, not to be given a lecture on the darker aspects of American history. I could also understand that, coming from an overwhelmingly white area, the arranger honestly didn't consider race to be a huge problem: the friction brought about by racial diversity (no stranger to residents of New York, Johannesburg, or Miami) wouldn't be felt as acutely in areas with little diversity. Nevertheless, it is truly impossible to even reference minstrelsy without referencing America's "original sin" of racism. I rewrote the essay with a brief, non-polemical mention of race, and the issue seems to have been dropped.

I bring this little story to our blog pages because I think it underscores a significant split in the way many Americans view the problem of race, a split that was perspicaciously observed by Obama in his speech. On the one hand, you have people who are fatigued by carrying the weight of history on their backs and are so eager to turn the page that they don't even want to talk about race. To many people, denying race a place at the dinnertable of American conversation denies it power, neuters it - not talking about racial problems quells the selfsame problem. On the other hand, you have individuals who carry the weight of history in a different way - by being vociferous about it. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are fine representatives of this; so too are many university undergrads straight out of their sociology courses with a bone to pick with society. To this camp, talking endlessly about race is the only way to solve deep divisions, even though this sort of talk alienates many from the healing process. It's a bit like Krushchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN - who wants to negotiate with someone who has clearly already made up his mind?

This is partly what makes Barack Obama such an exciting candidate. Many critics (read: Clinton) claim that Obama is all words, just a lot of feel-good air; but this speech, and his whole political approach and persona in general, indicate that he truly wants to find a middle way between silence on the one hand and righteous anger on the other. We are in a transitional period for race in this country: not yet at our goal of the post-race promise land where we don't need to even dignify race with conversation, we are also well beyond Black Panthers, race riots, and segregation. Obama recognizes the problem of race and addresses it with all the parties at the table, minus the anger and guilt that have defined so much racial politics in the past. He has taken on an enlightened challenge, and it's time that America accepts this challenge.