Interesting John Coltrane Songs

I've been listening to some Coltrane again lately. I've noticed that some of his songs bear strong melodic similarities to other famous jazz standards, such as "Night in Tunisia" and his own "Giant Steps." Listen to his "Liberia" and tell  me if that does not sound like "Night in Tunisia?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxJtXDcbAOY I believe the song uses the chord changes from "Night in Tunisia," in addition to sharing a African nations in the titles of the compositions and the use of African rhythms.

Coltrane's "Central Park West" is also another interesting Coltrane ballad. It is essentially a slowed down version of Giant Steps, with McCoy Tyner getting extra time to shine on piano.
Check it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDB5xwJXdyg&feature=related

Now listen to "Giant Steps" and hear the same introduction. Coltrane reused his own compositions and jazz standards all the time while incorporating African, Latin, Indian, and folk musical forms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30FTr6G53VU

Coltrane's "Equinox" is another interesting Coltrane-penned composition. Essentially a simple blues song, it begins with Latin drumming, but quickly turns into a spiritual, slightly altered blues with Coltrane and Tyner  soloing. It's actually very similar to a lot of other Coltrane songs that are reworked blues-derived compositions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KV1sbOe43M&feature=related

"Teo," with Miles Davis, is another great and fascinating Coltrane song (composed by Miles, I think). It's like "Flamenco Sketches" from Kind of Blue but with interesting drumming and faster solos. Although lacking the balladic beauty of "Flamenco Sketches," I still find it to be a more interesting example of Davis and Coltrane using Spanish and Middle Eastern-tinged music forms. Coltrane solo steals the show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B8l07a-zbI

"Impressions" is also an interesting piece, based on Davis's "So What." Here is a live version with Eric Dolphy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me7P9qqBgwI
Listen to Davis's "So What," whose chord changes were used for "Impressions." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEC8nqT6Rrk

'Autumn Leaves" is one of the best jazz standards, and well played by the Coltrane quartet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKANToc0SeM&feature=related

"Brazilia" is another intriguing composition worth listening to, despite its length. Doesn't sound Brazilian at all, but quite bluesy. Great bass and drumming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF-5G15ORk0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZJo7YIvjvs&feature=related

Thoughts on Ishmael Reed's Reckless Eyeballing

"It's these white women who are carrying on the attack against black men today, because they struck a deal with white men who run the country" (26).

I just finished reading Ishmael Reed’s Reckless Eyeballing, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s much easier to read than, say, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, and lacks the Vodoo/hoodoo themes in Reed’s 1970s novels. Reckless Eyeballing is a hilarious satire on the New York theater world, feminism, racism, and the American art scene generally. Personally, I find the most significant theme in the novel to be the connections between feminism and racism, specifically, how white men and women use black feminists’ whose books feature animalistic or sexually depraved black men to reinforce white supremacy and perpetuate racist stereotypes of black men. Black men are not the only ones affected by this process in black feminist literature either. Black women are manipulated, coerced, and pressured into writing black male-hating literature for white distribution of their novels, which severely curtails the options for black women writers if they want to get published or make a living. Moreover, these negative images of black men become internationalized through the white-controlled media, publishing houses, and academic institutions, thereby leading to dehumanization and stereotyping of black males around the world. Thus, black women writers’ freedom to express their ideas through writings is challenged by white feminists and patriarchy, which also oppresses black men, who bear the brunt of seemingly all misogyny, homophobia, and sexism. Reed also highlights the role of other ethnic groups and races in this process, especially Jews, Irish police, Southern whites, Caribbean cultures, and the various literary and intellectual schools of thought (and allusions) within the literary world of New York City during an age of rising political correctness.

Though a noted proponent of multicultural approaches to knowledge and education, Reed’s critique of political correctness, as illustrated in this satiric novel, does prove the limits of political correctness and how it perpetuates white supremacy. First, it lowers artistic quality and standards by curtailing the available writing topics and plot developments in the work of men and women of all races. In this novel, Reed’s fictional examples include the protagonist, Ian Bell, a Caribbean immigrant accused of misogyny by the feminist-led critics o New York for his first play, Suzanna, he has to change his subsequent play, Reckless Eyeballing so many times that the original message of the play is twisted to serve absurd fantasies of white feminists. For example, Ball’s play is about a black man, Ham Hill, killed by a lynch mob for looking at a white woman in the South, hence the eyeballing. Ian’s white feminist producer, who is hell-bent on doing a revisionist play about Eva Braun that portrays her as a victim of male war instead of the Nazi that she was, changes the play so that the lynching becomes justified because the simple act of looking at a woman makes lynching justifiable because eyes can ‘rape’ a woman. Bell succumbs to the pressure of the white feminists and agrees to all of Becky French’s suggestions, making the lynching of a black man perfectly justifiable since ‘eyeballing’ is equivalent to rape, and according to the revisionist delusions of French, all black men lynched in the South deserved it because they really committed the heinous act of rape. Ball, however, agrees to all their changes in order to see his play survive, despite his creativity and ability as a playwright facing severe restrictions from feminists who want all black men to be evil and women to be victims of patriarchy. Of course one must recall Reed’s own battles with feminists in this satire, since he too faced similar attacks and pressure for his satiric novels before Reckless Eyeballing was published in 1986. Since this novel is a satire, the actual power of white and their black feminists pawns is over exaggerated, but he does provide multiple examples of other black male writers in the text whose careers are destroyed for not conceding to white feminist ‘rules’ of literature.

Reed’s aforementioned critique of feminism should not be interpreted as a complete repudiation of feminist literature by any means. He merely points out the contradictions within feminism and the replication of racial hierarchies that hurt black men and women disproportionately. Reed’s text also highlights ethnic tensions within the theater and literary world through Jews, blacks, and White women. For some black writers of the older, modernist school, such as Jake Brashford, Jews controlled the production, direction, and creation of black plays and films, and the problem of creating an independent black aesthetic is due to Jewish control of the media and white and black feminist critics. The Jews, however, as represented by Jim Minsk, are actually supportive of Ian Ball’s original draft of Reckless Eyeballing, which lacked the overly unrealistic and misandry of the final version imposed on Ball by Becky French and became a hit with critics because of its attack on black males. Indeed, Jews are also shown to be targets of white racism as well, with Jim Minsk being brutally murdered in Georgia by a mob of racist whites who had tricked him into coming. The question of anti-Semitism, among both blacks and whites, and how it relates to gender comes to the fore later with the revisionist feminist fantasy play about Eva Braun, in which she becomes a heroine who shoots Hitler and marries a Jewish man. Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic propaganda in cartoons and films often used the same stereotypes of Jews that are associated with black men in the United States, exemplified by the black congressmen in Birth of a Nation who leer at white women. Since both Jews and blacks are depicted as sexually addicted to white women, and suffered similarly because of negative stereotypical myths consequently, Jews and Blacks mutual interests in preserving their leftist opposition to the rise of the neoconservative movement of the 1980s under Reagan. Indeed, Paul Shoboat, a Black critic who meets with Ian, believes blacks should emulate Jews, who are our only protection against the powerful right-wing forces that would have no problem killing blacks and Jews (82). Thus, a Black-Jewish coalition, though obviously very troubled in reality, is essential in countering white supremacy. Anti-semitism, however, appears among white feminists, who claim to be allies of women of color but end up perpetuating white supremacy through anti-black racism and attempts to takeover theater productions and criticism. The notion of Jewish identity, however, serves as an important reminder of the salience of race and ethnicity within and across gender, sexuality, and national lines.

Overall, I would rate this book a 4 out 5 stars. The humor is overwhelming here, a true masterpiece of satire, yet I missed many of the literary and film references because of my ignorance of Euro-American literature and older films. However, the obvious satirized themes are laughably absurd in a good way, meaning that the hyperbole works well here. For example, when explaining Becky French’s hatred for black men, one character attributes it to her bad dating experience with a black man while organizing in the South because he stole her credit cards! The Eva Braun play is also quite hilarious because of how ludicrous the idea of Eva Braun as a passive victim of Nazism and male aggression is so apparent. I also enjoyed the “Flower Phantom,” whose true identity is not revealed until the end but becomes quite obvious midway through the novel. The “Flower Phantom” is a black intellectual who goes around New York City shaving black feminists’ heads who support white feminists denigration of black males, leaving a chrysanthemum with the victim afterward. Shaving their heads is a reference to WWII French Resistance men shaving the heads of women who cooperated with the Nazi occupation, implying black feminists who portray black men solely as ‘beasts’ are cooperating with white supremacy and patriarchy. In addition, Reed’s novel elucidates how the politics of political correctness often affirm white supremacy by automatically negating legitimate criticism of certain groups, and often leads to a shift to the right among leftist groups, like many feminists. As a side note, Reed’s critique of black feminists has led many readers to interpret Tremonisha, the black feminist who does not realize her exploitation by white feminists until the second half of the novel, to be Alice Walker. There is one scene in which both Tremonisha and Ian Ball are at her apartment, and he finds her reading Zora Neale Hurston’s magnum opus, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Walker and many black feminists have revived Hurston as the black feminist writer par excellence, but oversimplify her work and seem to only read the aforementioned novel, missing out completely on her Tell My Horse, a anthropological and religious study of Haiti and Jamaica (vodou). From an interview I read, Reed did not intend for Tremonisha to be seen as Alice Walker, but one of the best things about postmodern literature  is open ended conclusions and participatory interpretations. Anywho, anyone interested in black feminism, black intellectuals and schools of thought, race relations, or New York theater scene should read Reckless Eyeballing. Though quite different from Reed’s illustrious Mumbo Jumbo, I highly recommend it. Some of the black perspectives on Nazism, its debt to American racism, and the Holocaust and Jewish history are quite fascinating as well for those without exposure to 'Afrocentric' history.

Comments on Ishmael Reed's Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

“What does white follks business have to do with me, Showcase said lifting her long black skirts and placing his hand upon her creamy thighs. The white man has the brain of Aristotle, the body of Michelangelo’s David and the shining spirit of the Prime-mover, how would it look for a lowly savage and wretch such as me meddling in his noble affairs?” (109)

Wow...Ishmael Reed’s Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down is something else. It’s harder to read than Mumbo Jumbo, his next novel, and in my opinion, tries too hard to cover everything. It shares certain stylistic and thematic similarities with Mumbo Jumbo, but I find it much more difficult. The writing style is not a strict accordance with the ‘rules’ of grammar and English writing, so many readers may be turned off after a few pages. Regardless of the difficulty in reading the text, it does have many fascinating characteristics and themes: parody of Westerns, repudiation of so-called Western civilization, elements of science fiction, conspiracy theories, and alternate history, and satire. The main protagonist, Loop Garoo Kid, a Voodoo/hoodoo cowboy, a name which refers to the ‘werewolves’ of Haitian mythology who turn into monsters and eat people, has to exact vengeance on Drag Gibson, an evil capitalist who embodies America’s westward expansion and Manifest Destiny, for killing the people in the circus group he traveled across the country with. In the process of doing so, the reader is treated to several historical allusions to famous people of the 19th and 20th century (Thomas Jefferson, Lewish & Clark, Marie Laveau, the Voodoo queen of New Orleans, John Wesley Hardin), and anachronisms everywhere, including Chief Showcase’s helicopter and Drag’s television. Like Mumbo Jumbo, Reed critiques the fictional history of the Old West that omits people of color (Indians, Chinese, African-Americans, Mexicans) who were always part of the West (western United States, not “Western’ civilization) and demonstrates the importance of including non-whites in the greater history of the region besides Lewis and Clark, Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, and romanticized, whitewashed cowboys.

The most prominent ways in which the multicultural origins of the Western US are illustrated in the text are the plethora of non-white characters. Chief Showcase, the only surviving Indian in the town the whites created after defeating his people, is reduced to being a servant for Drag. However, Chief Showcase demonstrates the essential and often advanced contributions of Native Americans to the United States in agriculture, food preparation, and even technology. Moreover, Chief Showcase character serves as a permanent reminder of how White Americans ‘acquired’ the West, through extreme violence, trickery, and exploitation. Drag’s Chinese servants also appear in novel to remind the reader of the numerous Chinese immigrants, forced into exploitative labor relations for wealthy whites, also contributed to the multicultural world of the Old West.

African-Americans, however, are given the most prominent role as non-whites in America’s westward expansion. Loop Garoo Kid, a black hoodoo-practicing cowboy, is an important character for several historical and cultural factors. First, a disproportionate number of cowboys actually were black, unlike the whitewashed, romanticized cowboys omnipresent in American popular culture and consciousness. Loop Garoo’s practice of New Orleans-derived voodoo/hoodoo becomes relevant as an alternative to the capitalist, destructive forces of Drag, the United States, and ‘Western’ civilization. Loop Garoo’s invocation of the loas (deities of vodou) leads to his transformation into a hoodoo trickster character, thereby overturning all of Drag’s economic and political power in Yellow Back Radio. Loop Garoo’s calling of the loas leads to a complete change in the town once his curses destroy Drag’s wealth (cattle, mines). A new world, represented by the white python of Loop Garoo’s that symbolizes Damballah, loa of creation, and destroys Drag’s wealth, shows the importance of establishing a world founded in mutual love and respect for all cultures. Voodoo’s potential to become a universal way of life is rooted in it’s ability to incorporate so many influences, including European and Native American cultures. By encouraging the people to Yellow Back Radio to turn away from the exploitative and destructive forces inherent in capitalism and Christianity, Loop Garoo paves the way for the children of the town to find the Seven Cities of Cibola, an anarchist technological paradise where machines have freed humans from reliance on hierarchical structures. In addition, Loop Garou’s loa, Judas Iscariot, shows fundamental issues in Christianity because Loop Garoo belives Jesus Christ was an arrogant, inferior version of Buddha and other religious leaders, thus Judas Iscariot betrayed a false Messiah. Loop Garoo essentially acts as Judas Iscariot to betray the false Christ of ‘Western’ civilization in the United States.

In addition to demanding an acknowledgement of the multicultural origin and present of the United States, Reed criticizes many of his contemporaries within the Black Arts Movement and American intellectuals in general. Many African-American (and other writers) were caught up in neo-social realist literature, that in the words of Bo Shmo, “All art must be for the end of liberating the masses. A landscape is only good when it shows the oppressor hanging from a tree.” Reed, like Loop, believes “No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons” (36). Reed here is saying that artists should have complete liberty to write or create anything they want, and should not be pigeonholed into only producing literature that focuses on black liberation or any other specific political agenda. Indeed, Reed is countering many long held beliefs about black writers among African-American and white critics and intellectuals, who are limiting the ability of blacks to freely express themselves. One still finds this tendency among literary critics and the media, which usually have a very narrow focus on what constitutes ‘great’ African-American literature or art. In the novel, Reed successfully deconstructs the novel form to show how innovative and free artists should feel to experiment in their work, instead of clinging to social realism. By freeing himself from the confining form of the novel, and expectations of black artists that are never leveled against whites, Reed succeeds in crafting a fascinating treatise on the West  that dismantles myths constructed by white Americans to be ‘real’ history. Indeed, Reed expands the American West to the “Western tradition,” featuring a Pope who acknowledges Christianity and Europe’s debt to Black Egypt, and Africa, for the black St. Augustine and other Church figures, popes, etc. White America’s tendency to fetishize the “West” is also critiques through characters such as Thomas Jefferson for not creating their own independent aesthetics and philosophy.

Overall, I would rate Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down a 3.5 stars out of 5. I unquestionably missed a lot in my reading of the text, due to what I find to be sometimes excessively difficult passages and too many themes tackled simultaneously. As previously stated, the satire of the Western genre serves to illustrate the multicultural origins of the region, along with critiques of American and Western European standards of religion and civilization. Indeed, as Loop Garoo says in his calling to the Gods, “O Black Hawk American Indian houngan of Hoo-Doo please do open up some of these prissy orthodox minds so that they will no longer call Black People’s American experience “corrupt” “perverse” and “decadent.” Please show them that Booker T and the MG’s, Etta James, Johnny Ace and Bojangle tapdancing is just as beautiful as anything that happened anywhere else in the world” (64). His emphasis on hoodoo/vodoo as a potential source for collective human liberation and alternative to the “West” but does not totally reject it is reflected in Loop Garoo Kid’s character, a trickster rooted in black folk tradition that paves the road to liberation by setting up the destruction of Drag’s capitalist, murderous regime of western expansion. Feminists will likely have problems with Mustache Sal, an olive-skinned beauty from the East (eastern US) who marries Drag for his money and has sex with nearly every man. She is likely a critique of feminists from the 1960s and 1970s who challenged the double standard imposed on female sexual activity but worked in favor of patriarchal social relations for their own material benefit. I suppose one would have to read the book for oneself to make your own decision, particularly since the novel is fiction and black and white feminists have made well-publicized attacks on Reed for ‘misogyny.’

Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike

Gaye's 1963 hit, "Hitch Hike," is an innovative example of 1960s Motown R&B music. The use of cowbell to play a clave rhythm, in conjunction with the blues-based R&B melody shows how the Motown sound was universal in its ability to incorporate elements of jazz, blues, gospel, pop, rock, funk and Latin. Moreover, Gaye's song would be copied by rock bands, and serve as a source of inspiration for songs by The Beatles and Velvet Underground.

Here is the original, by Marvin Gaye. There are congas, a flute solo, and cowbell, with Gaye singing vocals accompanied by Martha and the Vandellas, another Motown act. Gaye sings about finding a woman he loves, hitch hiking across the country to find her in various cities, such as Chicago, L.A., and St. Louis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwvHfwDfapI

Here is a live version of Gaye performing the song on some television show from the 1960s. It actually sounds a little different than the studio recording plus we get to sing video footage of Gaye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FioNrMTrVXk

The Rolling Stones covered the song, without the cowbell, flute, and horn section of the Motown recording. It's actually not bad, but they cannot sing like Marvin Gaye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmkU3yg4lK0

The Beatles song, "You Can't Do That," is probably inspired by Gaye's song. It features congas and cowbell, but obviously has a stronger rock sound, especially with the guitar-driven sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usQ8AhiRcNE

The Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa's early band, also recorded a cover of the song, that is quite funky. Lacking the Latin instrumentation, this recording does feature a tambourine, like most Motown music. I cannot tell who is actually singing, but they're far below Gaye in vocal ability...Still, an interesting recording with a little guitar solo. That funky bass keeps it going though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng5xhOt9PLE

The Sonics, a 1960s garage rock band, also recorded a cover of "Hitch Hike." I could do without the prominent, distorted guitar, but the little saxophone part is nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E0BpWZWXpE

The Velvet Underground also recorded a song inspired by the Rolling Stones cover. "There She Goes Again" is ok, but not great or interesting rock. The song incorporates the guitar line in the RS cover.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOrwJ7HHyyE

The Smiths also recorded a song based on the Rolling Stones version of the song called "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" that ain't that great or interesting...In fact, I strongly dislike the vocals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cD4oLk_D0

Walter Mosley

A great African-American writer I need to do some more reading of is Walter Mosley, probably best known for his Easy Rawlins detective series. En route to New York City in the summer, I read his first Leonid McGill mystery on the airplane, and I loved every minute. The Long Fall is a great crime fiction read, featuring a black detective and a multiracial New York that reflects the city's actual ethnic diversity. Most white detective or crime fiction overlooks or ignores race, otherwise it often perpetuates racist stereotypes or features an unrealistic setting of solely white folks. I liked The Long Fall so much that I am going to reread it in the near future and pick up some of Walter Mosley's other novels. In addition, there is a lot of humor in the novel, especially with the older white man who refers to McGill as a "Moor," and the interesting sidestories and background of McGill make it worthwhile read.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

"I ahm no black educated fool who t'inks everything between black mahn and white mahn can be settled with some blahsted lies in some bloody books written by the white mahn in the first place. It's three hundred years of black blood to build this white mahn's civilization and wahn't be wiped out in a minute. Blood calls for blood."

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is a piece of work...I came in prejudiced because I had discussed the novel's literary merit with a English teacher at my high school, and he and his students found the book to be subpar. I must agree. The language Ellison uses and his style is often confusing and drawn out, so much so that by page 200 I was ready to stop reading. Of course I had to force myself to finish reading it anyway, since the novel is always listed as one of the best in African-American and American literature. Nonetheless, the novel does include several valid critiques of black nationalism, Marxism, and the absurdity of life. Black nationalists, represented by Ras the Exhorter, are completely opposed to any black working with whites, and ultimately calls for the riot that engulfs Harlem near the novel's conclusion. His hatred for whites is self-destructive since Harlem will not be able to stand up to the white repression. The Marxists, referred to as the Brotherhood, only use the narrator as a tool to reach out to the black masses of Harlem, thereby reinforcing the narrator's invisibility by dehumanizing him and others in Harlem.

Moreover, the Marxists include racists in their ranks and operate autocratically, endeavoring to channel the energy of the masses to use for their own preference. Thus, the Marxists continue the dehumanization and imposed invisibility on colored folks, and ultimately manipulate black nationalists such as Ras into beginning the self-destructive riot. This brings us to the absurdity of life, since black folks have few options in life but to accept their invisibility and live out their own individualized absurd life rather than die for that of others. Life is absurd since there are now real outlets for black existence. Black life, such as that of the narrator, is perpetually abused, taken, and exploited by other blacks (Bledsoe, president of the black southern college the narrator comes from), The Brotherhood, Ras's black nationalists, white racists, and white philanthropists, who each use black lives as a means to an end. In the end, as the insane man at the Golden Day explains to a white philanthropist and the narrator, a Hegelian master-slave dialectic reveals both sides to be dehumanized, and each one becomes detached from reality, preferring to live in a fantasy where whites are a divine force and blacks are simply tools to achieve an end.

So, the novel is quite interesting despite the length and often boring writing style. The narrator's experiences from the South to Harlem during the ideological battle between black nationalism and Marxism illustrates the invisibility, or dehumanization of blacks by white society and blacks who internalize the oppressive forces in society. The narrator accepts his invisibility, moving underground to escape society, but decides, after sharing his story with the reader, to return to the surface because he could not whip his mind, meaning his thoughts compelled him to return and continue the struggle for consciousness. Therefore, the absurdity of life is something one must resist, in order to raise consciousness and create meaning in one's existence. Ellison also provides a portrait of all the contradictions of black urban life, including the classism, color prejudice, and collective self-destruction that inhibits acknowledgement of black invisibility. Overall, an interesting book from a social, or philosophical perspective since it is essentially about the nature and consequent absurdity of black life in the United States. If only it were much easier to read...

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

       
   Then they had grown. Edging into life from the back door. Becoming. Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, “Do this.” White children said, “Give me that.” White men said, “Come here.” Black men said, “Lay down.” The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other.

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is the Nobel laureate’s first novel, published in 1970. The reader can find later characteristics of her future novels in The Bluest Eye, such as multiple points of view/narration, experimental writing, and the extensive backstories of characters in the novel to bring to the fore the role of history in preserving or fostering forms of oppression, usually racial and sexual. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison highlights the importance of recognizing the dehumanization and objectification of children, specifically black girls, who are often most vulnerable to problems in society due to poverty, gender, and racial identity. Pecola Breedlove, a paradoxical surname due to her parents’ inability to breed love for themselves and their own children, is the victim of all of society’s callous treatment of the poor, the black, the female, and the youth. Blacks, whites, children, and adults, in addition to her parents, reinforce her own negative self-perception by valorizing whiteness and the beauty it entails. The only exceptions are three prostitutes in Lorain, Ohio who live above her apartment, and the part-time narrator Claudia and her sister, Freida.

Due to her dark-skin, nappy hair, and low-class background, nearly everyone in Lorain perceives Pecola as inferior and ugly. Though she is more like a dandelion, which called a weed by society, she is actually beautiful but cannot realize it. Indeed, everyone, including a European immigrant store owner, initially cannot see her and endeavors to take her money in exchange for candy without touching her black hand (Morrison 49). Furthermore, she is urged to loathe herself by upper-class blacks, like Maureen Peals and Louis’s mother, who mock her for her dark skin and poor family background. Maureen, wealthy by black standards, and light-skinned enough to win the appreciation, popularity, and acceptance by nearly all white and black students, save Claudia and Freida, insults Pecola for her ugly blackness. Louis’s mother likewise encourages Pecola’s self-loathing by only seeing her blackness and poverty after Louis taunts and abuses her because of the color prejudice he initially picks up from his mother. In addition, black boys at Pecola’s school insult her, calling her “black e mo” after school and insulting her for seeing her father’s nakedness, which is an obvious reference to the curse of Ham (67). Intriguingly, the curse of Ham was utilized by Christian defenders of slavery, who argued Ham and his progeny were darkened as part of the curse for seeing Noah’s nakedness, and destined to serve the children of Noah’s other sons, the white race. Due to black boys embracing and reinforcing their own self-loathing because of their mutual blackness and the fact that they also had all seen their fathers nude at some point, illustrates how one oppressed group internalizes and expresses their own self-contempt by oppressing more vulnerable members of society, such as women. Indeed, black feminists often stress this point, pointing to the numerous ways black men, emasculated by white racism, endeavor to demonstrate their masculinity by abusing and objectifying black women, who are vulnerable to intersectional systems of oppression. 

Indeed, Pecola’s father exemplifies this because of his own humiliating emasculation after being discovered by two white men while in the act of coitus with young girl during his teen years. At the threat of gunpoint, Cholly Breedlove is forced to finish intercourse for the first time, to entertain racist whites (147). Due to his inability to challenge white male hegemony outright, Cholly begins to hate his young lover and all women in general, for leading to the situation in which he was so thoroughly emasculated by whites. This leads into his valorization of freedom in the black male sense, or freedom from obligation and respect for black women, in other words, misogynistic relations. For Pecola, her father’s inability to respect and love himself and others black like himself, he molests his young daughter in the kitchen due to both pity and hatred of himself for not being able to help his suffering daughter. Similarly, her mother, Pauline, referred to only as Mrs. Breedlove by her own children because of her inability to show affection towards her children, rejects her blackness and everything it entails to become the ideal servant for the white Fisher family, which has everything her family lacks: money, a nice, clean home, and a blonde-haired white girl for her to lather with love and attention. In fact, Pauline loves her servant role and the closeness it brings to her to whiteness so much she savagely beats her daughter when Claudia, Pecola, and Freida come into the Fishers’ home while she’s working. Thus, the very surroundings of Pecola’s life ensured that she would succumb to low self-esteem and desire blue eyes to escape the harsh realities of life as a young, black woman always told by her family, peers, whites, and adults that her blackness is inherently ugly and inferior.

Pecola, however, did have some positive relationships that encouraged her to embrace herself. Claudia and Freida, also dark and poor, suffered from the same oppression of women, children, blacks and the poor. However, they transcend racial self-loathing and a desire for whiteness, especially Claudia, who rejects a white baby doll given to her by her parents for Christmas. Throughout their friendship with Pecola, the two sisters defend her against the black boys and the high-yellow Maureen who insult her, and attempt to save the life of her baby through naïve prayer and faith (193). Unfortunately, the kindness of Claudia and Freida cannot defeat the overwhelming dehumanization of blackness and black femininity that Pecola descends into insanity to find solace in a white-ruled world. Moreover, Freida and Claudia increase the gap between themselves and Pecola by not acknowledging the positive benefits of her friendship with the three prostitutes who live above the Breedlove family apartment. Those three black women, demonized by the “good, Christian colored folk” are the only ones who respect and accept Pecola for being who she is, never encouraging her self-hatred and desire for blue eyes. Ironically, the only people who reject the preference for white beauty are women who sell their bodies, which they see as morally acceptable given to the fact that women who do not charge men after sex are being exploited and abused anyway. But the three prostitutes alone cannot overturn Pecola’s internalized racism, which becomes hopeless after her wish for blue eyes is fulfilled in her own mind by the false magician Soaphead Church, a light-skinned West Indian believer in white superiority.

In addition to racial oppression internalized by blacks, Pecola, Claudia and Freida are oppressed for being children. The novel begins by emphasizing that in the relationship between Claudia and her mother. Children are expected to obey, accept lies from adults, and unthinkingly receive the blows, curses and unthinkingly absorb the internalized oppressions their parents bear. Moreover, this novel demonstrates how the dehumanizing of children has violent and adverse consequences for the parents, whose abuse of their offspring only fuels their own delusional beliefs in white and male superiority. For example, the self-loathing Soapherd Church releases his frustration at his own blackness by sexually abusing young black girls, whose vulnerability and innocence attract him. For the children, the consequences take the form of physical and sexual violence, insanity, and inevitably, the preservation of racism and sexism. Therefore, Morrison asserts the importance of changing one’s relationship with children to reflect true compassion, understanding, and a relationship based in parity rather than authoritarian parenthood to escape white hegemony, which must begin in families and communities before pervading across society. Morrison also highlights the importance of changing adult-child relations with the aforementioned case of Claudia, whose own desires are not sought by her parents when she is given a white doll for Christmas. Claudia, who only wanted to listen to her grandfather play the violin, has her parents impose a Euro-American standard of beauty on her against her wishes. Children, though always under the influence of their parents’ moral values and standards, often find their own independent, and developing worldview restricted by their parents, which is detrimental to human progress because children often have better solutions to oppression because of their uncorrupted philosophy. Indeed, Jesus Christ asserted this when he urges men and women to be like children, soft and innocent, which is unsurprisingly adopted by Morrison, who often uses Biblical themes in her novels.

As she descends further and further into the delusion of attaining blue eyes after Soaphead Shepherd’s deceptive treatment, Pecola’s pregnancy earns her the avoidance of adults, her father flees, her mother never speaks to her, and children laugh at her. Claudia and Freida, seeing their prayer as failing to ensure the survival of Pecola’s baby, avoid her at all costs, thereby increasing Pecola’s alienation. Talking to herself, Pecola debates whether she has the bluest eyes of them all, even though nobody else sees her blue eyes. Her fantasy of attaining the symbol of white beauty, however, allows her to avoid the cruel reality of racism and her own life crumbling apart into mental and physical despair. No longer allowed to attend school, spending most of her time searching garbage while rambling aloud to herself, one must also agree with the assessment of Claudia and Freida: the soil of the land was inhospitable to the seed, black girls. The distressing end shows the importance of external forces in determining one’s identity, which are indubitably negative when almost everyone in one’s life reinforces white beauty and black ugliness.

In short, white supremacy and sexism will never be defeated until the parents learn how to become children again, ultimately paving the way for revolutionizing how everyone perceives the self. The child, fragile and more vulnerable to the legacies of racism and sexism, will often find their life opportunities severely limited or destroyed if the racist oppression internalized within families and communities continues unabated. Morrison’s message of self-love for black women is still relevant, regardless of the popularity of the Black is Beautiful era in the Civil Rights Movement and contemporary feminist circles. Black women continue to be portrayed as unattractive, uneducated, and their inherent value as human beings faces constant attacks from a Eurocentric ideal of beauty that doubly oppresses black men and women. The feminist critique of black men in this novel can also be found in later Morrison novels, and justifiably so since the patriarchal, misogynist definitions of black masculinity continue to serve white hegemony at the expense of embracing a universal aesthetic of inherent value and beauty in human life. Perhaps if society could become more like children, untouched by the forms of oppression adults persist in passing on to future generations, then maybe the relevancy of The Bluest Eye to contemporary gender and race relations will no longer matter.

           

Ishmael Reed's The Last Days of Louisiana Red

Every time I hear you say that I get sick. Inaccurate as usual. For you to say that is an insult to the millions of negro men who’ve supported their families, freemen who bought their families freedom, negro men working as parking-lot attendants, busboys, slop emptiers, performing every despicable deed to make ends meet against tremendous odds.”

Ishmael Reed’s The Last Days of Louisiana Red is a fascinating satire on 1960s politics. Reed also revives the hero of Mumbo Jumbo, Papa LaBas, to act as detective in the strange and mysterious circumstances of the Yelling family in Berkeley, California. The short novel is often quite hilarious, with several scathing attacks on the city of Berkeley’s hypocritical liberalism and pretensions of academic merit, which is amusing when one remembers that Ishmael Reed was a lecturer at University of California-Berkeley for several decades. Furthermore, this novel shares many similar themes with Mumbo Jumbo, including conspiracies, elements of detective fiction, race, and Vodou, or specifically, New Orleans Vodou as represented by the historical Marie Laveau and Doctor John Montenet. Thus, real historical figures, obvious parodies of contemporary figures, and postmodern fiction are thrown together in this postmodern metatext. The Last Days of Louisiana Red (a reference to the Louisiana Red hot sauce) is also the first Reed novel with elements of misogyny, sometimes bordering on extreme anti-feminism, since the novel’s antagonist, modeled on Antigone, coincidentally, is portrayed as a man-hating selfish woman. Indeed, some interpret the figurehead feminist leader of the Moochers as Angela Davis.

To Reed, no matter how progressive the intentions of left-wing theory, if it remains naive about its relation to the hegemonic form of reason, it operates as yet another arm of Western domination. This essentially sums up Reed’s critique of black feminists, as represented by Minnie the Moocher, in this novel. An obvious reference to the illustrious jazz song by Cab Calloway in 1931, Minnie Yellings causes the downfall of others despite appearances of innocence. Upon becoming a full-fledged Moocher (The Moochers in the novel are the followers of Louisiana Red, the type of violent, evil Vodou practiced by Marie Laveau, the famous New Orleans “queen” of Vodou in the 19th century), Minnie (and other Moochers) live to take away from others without contributing or sharing anything of their own. Minnie talks about being oppressed by men (both black and white), but Papa LaBas, as the in the aforementioned quotation from the text demonstrates, says that black men have always contributed to their families by doing the most lowly, filthy jobs available to provide for their families since slavery days.

Then things heat up when Minnie mentions black men treating women as sex objects before abandoning them if they get pregnant, which leads to Papa LaBas claiming women’s “cunt power” and nature drives men away, which essentially sounds like misogyny. Indeed, an earlier scene in the novel is a brutal battle and eventually sex scene between Minnie’s brother, Street, and one of her female bodyguards, which does evince signs of sexualized violence. In Reed’s defense, Minnie (and other black feminists) attack on black males does often assume and neglect the suffering and contributions to black women and children men have made for centuries. Nonetheless, to portray black feminists and other left-wing ideologies and organizations of the 1960s as “whiners” who want to take and never contribute is a gross generalization of black feminism. Furthermore, to trace the origin of the Moochers back to a violent, evil type of Vodou practiced by a woman suggests that these leftist groups and ideologies prey violence, mistrust, despair while thriving on laziness, theft, and misplaced blame. Now the reader must know not to take this literally, but there is some legitimacy to Reed’s disillusionment with leftist, black groups in the 1970s. Of course this novel is also a NOVEL, which means it cannot and should not be interpreted literally. 

The ‘gumbo,’ or positive Vodou practiced by Papa LaBas and Ed Yelling and his workers, unlike Louisiana Red, is used for healing. Indeed, using one of Doc John’s formulas, Ed Yelling invented a cure for cancer, and was on the way of devising a permanent cure for heroin addiction, which necessitated his death since the forces of Louisiana Red were cooperating with the Mafia. The power of Vodou for positive, restorative change in the world is Reed’s message for building human solidarity and love, not the hateful, misguided politics that replicates the Western tradition of oppression. Thus, Reed’s novel may use misogynist language and attack 1960s radicalism, but it offers a viable alternative open to everyone given the cultural hybridity of blacks due to the creolization of African slaves and centuries of cultural miscegenation. And like Mumbo Jumbo, vodun as the source for a black aesthetic and philosophy, remains a core theme in Ishmael Reed’s work.

However, I must point out that this novel is not as entertaining as Mumbo Jumbo. Although I loved the constant parodies of liberal hypocrisy and unrealistic perceptions of Berkeley, the characters in this novel were not as interesting or moving. Papa LaBas is the only character I could really connect to and appreciate, mainly due to his character in Mumbo Jumbo. Perhaps several of the characters, intended to be parodies of famous people in the 1960s and 1970s, are spoofs I failed to capture due to my own ignorance. On the other hand, the novel is loaded with popular culture references and historical references I could catch, such as Cab Calloway, Minnie the Moocher, feminism, Louisiana Red Hot sauce, and the stereotypes of lesbians and campus radicals. Furthermore, novel is meta because in its conclusion, it recognizes how it does not have an exciting ending, which reminds one of Mumbo Jumbo as a metatext. 

In summation, The Last Days of Louisiana Red is worth picking up for it’s experimental framework and satiric eye on 1960s, Berkeley, California, and the necessity of choosing a political agenda and ideology based on the lived experiences of the people, by the people, to effect social change. The Moochers, rooted in the violent and destructive Marie Laveau, cannot produce a better society if their entire ideology is based on theft and a lack of will to contribute something besides merely demanding. Reed’s portrayal of feminism, though problematic, also applies because a feminist approach that assumes to equate maleness with evil without understanding greater societal problems cannot revolutionize the mind of men. As previously stated, in order to change the world, one must do it through the masses, according to their own ideology and beliefs, thereby avoiding impositions of doctrines disconnected from the daily lives of the people. Regardless of the attempts by Louisiana Red to eradicate the “Business” (vodou along the lines of Doc John’s medicinal practices), the Business will always survive and adapt because of its roots in compromise between personal desire and collective desire, or the ability to love oneself and others.

Vodou Aesthetics in Janelle Monae's Tightrope

"Dancing has long been forbidden for its subversive effects on the residents and its tendency to lead to illegal magical practices"

About 4:24 into the music video for "Tightrope," a black man in a dark suit and donning a top hat tips his hat to Janelle as she's carried away by two faceless "dementor-like" beings after dancing. Set in an insane asylum, the funky rhythms of "Tightrope" and the message of balancing one's life become a dance that gets the entire asylum dancing and grooving to to Janelle's James Brown-inspired footwork. According to the first of the following videos, Janelle explains the video as a positive message to balance oneself on the tightrope of life to maintain one's sanity .Janelle also says that the people in the music video may or may not be mentally ill since she signed a contract with the sanatorium, Palace of the Dogs. Regardless of the possible mental illness of the dancers and participants in the video, the black man with the top hat who crosses paths with her and tips his hat as she's carried away by the faceless figures draped in black is Baron Samedi, loa of death. Him tipping his hat to Monae means she is being taken away to die, which in the clip is shown as her being sent back to her cell. Monae is subtly suggesting that prison, or insane asylums, essentially kill the victims. Of course one would have to be somewhat familiar with Haitian Vodou in order to catch the reference. Ms. Monae also embraces a Vodou aesthetic and religious beliefs in other parts of the song, even singing, "Put some voodoo on it" near the song's conclusion, making the Vodou reference explicit with the connection between asylums and as crossroads of the living and the dead. Moreover, the song's introductory passage, quoted in full at the top of the post, celebrates the power of dancing as liberating, which is part of the core of Vodou beliefs. In addition, the dark attire of the residents suggest a funereal setting, which is thematically paired with the appearance of Baron Samedi, loa of death.

Of course one could also interpret the song as a metaphor for Janelle Monae's career, which tips on the tightrope between popular R&B music and independent, artsy music. Janelle Monae is trying to appeal to mainstream audiences beyond the narrow bands of white hipsters, but at the same time wants to retain her artistic creativity and control without losing it for the mainstream R&B crowd. The song itself, rooted in funk and featuring her James Brown-like dance moves is artistically within the 'safe' or expected confines of popular R&B, but her lyrics, on the surface simple, could suggest she is trying to balance her music career as indie but also popular, or willing to perform for the masses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4AE7r51Dqc&feature=related Janelle explains the song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnefUaKCbc&ob=av3e Music video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvf3Vc2NzI4&feature=related interesting rap mix of "Tightrope"

Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo: Afrocentricism, Philosophy, and Haiti

Time is a pendulum. Not a river. More akin to what goes around comes around.

Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo is an example of African-American postmodern metafiction. Reed uses multiple methods of expressing language through the written prose which abandons the accepted rules of grammar and English writing in favor of a universal hodgepodge approach of pictures, encyclopedia and dictionary entries, transcripts, multiple changes in narrator, and an author who inserts himself into the text occasionally and interweaves footnoted references and citations into the text. Reed also successfully fuses detective fiction, conspiracy and alternate history theories, and a surprisingly linear narrative that includes an Afrocentric perspective on Western history, philosophy, and race relations within the United States. Historical characters, both fictional and factual (James Weldon Johnson, Abdul Hamid, Warren Harding, Cab Calloway, and many others) are successfully mixed to form a complex narrative that exposes the problems of Western civilization and the origins of White and Black American identities.

I shall give a brief summary of the novel in order for the rest of my analysis to be understandable. Furthermore, this novel may be very difficult to understand for those with little knowledge of the Harlem Renaissance, history, Haitian Vodoun, and Afrocentric theory and epistemology. The novel is essentially about the spread of Black American culture during the Jazz Age (1920s) and the Harlem Renaissance, spreading to the point of becoming a pandemic that revolutionized and defined White American and European identities as well as being a product of the New Negro movement described by Alain Locke and other Harlem Renaissance thinkers. Referred to as “Jes Grew” (a reference to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a famous novel from 1852 in favor of abolition), Black culture and the Black Aesthetic grows from New Orleans to include nearly all of the Western world with new forms of dance, music (jazz and blues), literature, and painting (Pablo Picasso and many other European artists). Jes Grew, seen as a plague by the Atonists, the secret society of Teutonic Knights, Masons, and Knights Templar (yes, the Knights Templar miraculously survived the purging of the Middle Ages), try to stop its spread to preserve the glory of Western civilization and end the “immorality” encouraged by jazz, African-American dance, and art that begin to influence White youths. The Black Aesthetic and African-derived cultural uniqueness of Black Americans, defined as a counterculture of modernity by Paul Gilroy in his Black Atlantic, challenges Western cultural hegemony whilst simultaneously being a product of it and being appropriated by Western Whites in the United States. Indeed, when Freud and Jung visit America in the early 20^th century, both describe White Americans as “going Black” (209). In order to prevent the Atonists from destroying Jes Grew, Papa LaBas, a Harlem-based houngan (Haitian Vodou priest with a name that is a thinly-veiled reference to the loa Papa Legba, god of communication and intermediary between human world and the gods), his friend Black Herman, a legendary and real-life Black magician who also believes in Vodoun, and other Blacks (fictional and factual) work against the Atonists and their secret society, the Wallflower Order that seeks to co-opt and eventually end Jes Grew. The novel twists and turns at multiple points to reveal the story from the perspective of each party as it progresses, culminating in a final showdown between the forces of Atonism and Papa LaBas who reveals the truth like Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie’s novels: before a large audience, who listen attentively as the detective lays out the case.

Reed’s experimental novel that explores the falsehoods and problems of the Western tradition is profoundly Afrocentric. Premised on the notion of a common African-derived culture for the African diaspora, Reed uses Papa LaBas’s Vodou, Haiti as a cultural propagator of Jes Grew, Ancient Egyptian religion, mythology and history, Western science, the Crusades, the American occupation of Haiti as an extension of the Atonist war against Jes Grew, and conspiracy theories from an Afrocentist perspective to highlight the importance of African cultures in the formation of Western identity and as a countercultural, independent aesthetic that is always changing. Indeed, as Jes Grew changes over time, some of its past formations become appropriated by whites but still remain integral to the development of later forms of Jes Grew. For example, the popularity of blues and jazz music among White Americans decades after African-Americans moved on to more contemporary music forms is just one example of the process. Likewise, Reed’s novel critiques Carl Van Vechten and other whites who attempted to slum it up and take advantage of the genius and autonomy of the Harlem Renaissance to enrich themselves and co-opt it, as Hinkle Von Vampton is modeled on him. Jes Grew survives these Whites’ attempts to manipulate and destroy it, but is forced to reform itself in response as countercultural in order to continue to create another Black aesthetic and culture based on the life experiences of Black Americans.

Reed also makes some huge assumptions often associated with the Afrocentric schools of thought. For example, some of the theories devised by J.A. Rogers and other Afrocentric historians such as John Henrik Clarke are presented as truths, including Rogers’s theory that President Warren Harding was Black. Moreover, when Papa LaBas traces the history of Jes Grew and the Atonists back to ancient Egyptian religion and history during the novel’s climax, there is an assumption of an Ancient Egyptian origin for the West African-derived faiths of Vodou (Yoruba, Fon, and related peoples of Nigeria and Benin) that connects the African diaspora to Egypt and Nubia in addition to a common racial identity. If Papa LaBas’s history of African-American culture is premised on the notion of a monolithic African culture, which it appears to be, then the novel overlooks the immense cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity of the African continent. In fact, Papa LaBas asserts that the origin of the Haitian loa Erzulie, loa of love and female fertility, can be traced to Isis (161-164). A better approach would be to recognize the archetypal maternal and female love deities that can be found in cultures all over the world. Reed ultimately traces Jes Grew’s origins to the Book of Thoth, which initiated as Thoth’s illustrations of the Black god Osiris’s dances associated with spring, fertility, and life along the Nile. The Book of Thoth is sought by the Atonists to prevent Jes Grew from overthrowing Western civilization, but the book itself is based on Afrocentric assumptions of Osiris traveling around the world from Egypt (including South America and Mesoamerica, thus referring to theories regularly associated with They Came Before Columbus and Black Athena). According to Papa LaBas’s history of the world, the teachings of Osiris were brought to Greece and southern Europe by Dionysus, whose name also refers to the University of Nysa, where Osiris learned his teachings from Black men (168).  These teachings of Osiris also moved south, to Nubia, the Sudan, and ultimately West Africa, where disciples of Osiris congregated at Ife, the Yoruba cultural and religious capital for centuries. This Egypt-centric view of African history, however, is very problematic for ignoring the huge cultural and religious differences between West Africa and the Nile Valley, but does conform to longstanding beliefs in Haiti and Black America about the relationship between the Nile Valley civilizations and the African diaspora. Indeed, 19^th century Haitian and African-American writers such as David Walker, Frederick Douglass, and many others, some influenced by the Masons and French Egyptologists, saw Ancient Egypt as a “Black” African culture that proves the glory and capabilities of the Negro race and part of the African American legacy. Strains of black cultural nationalism have always embraced Egypt, and the fact that some Europeans also recognized this (Count Volney of France, for instance) demonstrate the importance of changing the West’s perception of Africa and the African diaspora as static, uncivilized “tribes” wandering the African jungles. Reed challenges these racist assumptions of the West about African savagery by focusing on the origin of Christianity and the Atonists in Black Egypt, where the Virgin Mary of Christianity was modeled on Isis, which is reflected in the widespread Black Madonnas in Christian Europe. According to Reed, the worship of the Virgin Mary was a compromise between the Atonists and “pagans of southern Europe who still believed in the Osiris and Isis fertility cults (170), which coincidentally, were still practiced in “Nubia” during the early Christian period (the fallacy of the Nubian concept will have to be addressed in a separate paper, dear reader).

The Atonists’ attempts to purge the world of the Egyptian-derived mystery cults of Osiris and Isis obviously do not succeed. In the West, the Atonists use Jesus Christ, a man who was only a lowly bokor (similar to a Haitian houngan but can use magic for evil or good) to distract the masses and convince them to turn away from Osiris and the “pagan” traditions based on worship of the loas (Egyptian deities are so entwined into West African/Haitian religion that they become loas in Egypt, Nubia, and southern Europe). However, the Atonists were only able to do this in Europe because West Africa was outside the influence of the Atonist-controlled Church, and the slave trade only revived the Osiris tradition/Black African origins of Greece into Western consciousness again, manifesting as Jes Grew in the 1890s and 1920s (ragtime and jazz, Harlem Renaissance, etc.). Regardless of the problem of assuming an Egypto-centric Afrocentric foundation of history, as mentioned previously, the importance of identifying Egypt’s common cultural substratum with the Sudan and Ethiopia is essential for challenging the West’s long history of racism and “Othering” of Africa, which uses colonial and slavery-era stereoptyes of the African continent to define the antithesis of European glory, civilization, and triumph.  The fact that the origins of Ancient Egypt lie in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley and northern Sudan is often overlooked by whites who perceive Afrocentric theories of Black Egypt as attempts at self-therapy for elevating black self-esteem, thereby ignoring how the construction of Western history is an even greater attempt at self-therapy in order to justify European aggression, imperialism, and racism against the majority of the world. Thus, Afrocentrism, though problematized by the Egypto-centrism assumed by Reed’s characters, is required for understanding the West’s contradictory relationship to cultures originating in Black Africa. The Atonist movement, rooted in Set’s jealousy of Osiris and attempt to replace him as the god of Egypt, becomes the West’s raison d’etre: vying to control and eradicate expressions of life and the celebratory nature of Osiris’s teachings, thereby creating the closed-minded perception of sexuality and the human body that became pandemic to the Christian world and opposed to the liberating power of dance, emotion, and the praise of life that define African-derived music and religious expression. Hence Set’s attempt to replace worship of the other loas with Aton, the Sun disc, that destroys life and is the antithetical Osiris (174).

Rooted in his Afrocentric alternate history of the world, the philosophical and theological views favored by Papa LaBas, Black Herman, and the Haitians in the novel pose a challenge to the Western traditions of epistemology and religion. As an ever-changing counterculture of resistance dating back to slavery, Papa LaBas, for instance, rejects the restricting and exclusivity of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, which only worship a single God rather than accept the Atonist control of human lives. Western individualism is exposed to be a lie; individualism in the Western context can only be properly expressed under the narrow confines of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which does not allow one to worship as one sees fit and express it in their preferred way (35). This is why Papa LaBas is ridiculed by elitist Blacks and Whites opposed to his Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral store in Harlem where he sells cures and performs “The Work,” the tradition of the loa Osiris and loas of Haiti. Moreover, Papa LaBas rejects Jesus Christ, who cannot be true since according to the Bible and various depictions of him, he never laughs, unlike humans (97). Western religion proclaims Christ as both God and human, a product of Western binary oppositional thought, but fails to see the false assumptions of humanity the Atonists place on Christ in the first place. As Patricia Hill Collins explains, Western rationalism is based on binary oppositional thinking that requires objectification by the subject one endeavors to understand, which inevitably leads to thinking in opposites when the objectified becomes defined solely based on differences. This objectification process requires the creation of an Other to explain differences between Western cultures and the non-West, which is also predicated on the objectification of African and Black American cultures that are defined as inherently oppositional to Western rationalism and science. In addition, Western rationalism as presented by the Atonists overlooks the role of personal, lived experience in verifying claims about the world, which ultimately supports the poststructuralist message of postmodern literature generally. Characters in the novel express similar views, though the belief in the fusion of cultures to form newer manifestations of Jes Grew becomes clear near the novel’s conclusion. Abdul Hamid, a real-life Harlem streetcorner preacher of the 1920s, for example, is a self-taught intellectual because the institutionalization of education only removes rebels, controls intellectuals and tries to limit the New Negro writers of the Harlem Renaissance to copying White styles (37). The very structure of Western education restricts access to true knowledge by perpetuating ignorance and weakening autonomous intellectual and cultural expression, unlike the African-based Jes Grew culture of resistance to the limiting Atonist path. 

Furthermore, an independent Black philosophy cannot merely mimic Western philosophy, meaning Black Marxists and other Blacks aping Western thought ultimately cannot transcend the limiting structures of Western thought (51), which are built on objectification of the world rather than cooperation and wonder at the miracles of life and nature. Matter of fact, Papa LaBas criticizes Freud’s theory of indissoluable bond, or being one with the external world as a whole like Papa LaBas is with nature. Because the Western worldview requires objectification, conquest of the natural world ensues, which leads to technological advancement solely for the sake of growth rather than a focus on developing individual freedom and contentment collectively as one can see in the living Jes Grew tradition of Black Americans. The Westerner’s aggression and obsession with conquest (both natural and human) becomes clearly derivable to the focus on the pursuit of an epistemology that omits lived experience and the full effort to create individual happiness as a prerequisite for societal change rather than “progressing” technologically but retaining the inequalities of previous eras. This is not to suggest that the African-derived worldview and epistemology of Black America is opposed to technology. One of the devotees of Jes Grew, Nathan Brown, pursues a pragmatic approach of taking the best of Jes Grew and the West to improve one’s life, thereby worshipping a Black Christ with all the expressive and personal liberation that comes from individual happiness (116). Abdul Hamid, the Islamic radical, also recognized the need for technology to assuage poverty and uplift the increasingly poor people of Harlem (34). A dual approach to the living tradition of Jes Grew, which provides room for personal expression and comprehension of the external world without conquest and manipulation, must remain an independent movement but not totally reject Western rationalism to avoid declines in living conditions. It’s universality (no one is excluded from individual and creative freedom during religious Vodou experiences or told how to worship) and support for lived experience as essential for building foundations of knowledge is self-evident in Jes Grew’s origins back to Ancient Egyptian Osirian cult, which emphasized the celebration of spring and fertility, or life, as the basis for freedom. However, one cannot assume this means hedonism or devotion to carnal pleasure, as Abdul Hamid states about the Book of Thoth and Jes Grew in general. The purpose of Jes Grew is not mere hedonistic and selfish desire, but to reorient philosophy to focus on humanity rather placing reason on a pedestal when the very processes used in the Western rationalist tradition rely on dehumanizing and destructive relationships between the natural world and human society. Instead of hedonism, Jes Grew should be equated with universal emancipatory humanism with respect for all traditions, religious and secular. The unique experiences of the African diaspora exemplify the possibility of such a pursuit because of the constant battle against dehumanization and the heterogeneous origins of Blacks in various West and Central African ethnic groups and the legacy of syncretism within the diaspora.

 Another important theme in the novel is the image and historical/cultural dynamics of Haiti. After the Wallflower Order’s Holy War on Haiti is exposed, Haiti becomes a worldwide symbol of religious and aesthetic freedom (64). The Atonists caused the American occupation of Haiti to attack the source of Jes Grew, since Haiti is closer to Africa culturally than Black America and responsible for bringing Vodou to New Orleans. Haiti, elevated to international symbol of Jes Grew and freedom of religion and aesthetics, plays a significant role in the novel. Charlemagne Peralte, leader of the cacos resisting the Marine occupiers, is portrayed as a Voodooist betrayed by a mulatto and murdered by a white American dressed as a black Haitian woman after a valiant raid on Port-au-Prince. Haitian characters, such as Benoit Battraville, provide Papa LaBas and Black Herman with the necessary information to find Hinkle Von Vampton and Hubert “Safecracker” Gould and prevent the Knights Templar and Teutonic Knights in the Wallflower Order from destroying Jes Grew. Batrraville also acts as a mentor, informing Papa LaBas that African-American expressions of Jes Grew must be internally developed, and that the jazz, blues, and other unique Black American forms of art and music are Jes Grew (198). The history of Haiti as an intermediary between African America and Africa is also self-evident in the immense pride African-Americans take in Haitian religion, culture and history, since Haiti was the first black nation to challenge Western hegemony in the Americas. Haitians identification with Ancient Egypt undoubtedly influenced African-Americans, although the exact origins of Haitian studies of Egypt are unknown. The only thing we do know is that the Masons established lodges in Haiti during the colonial period where some free people of color were also present, and since the Masons traced their ceremonial rights to Ancient Egypt, people of color involved in the organization while still in Haiti saw this as an attempt to appropriate what is rightly the legacy of Black people. Papa LaBas’s very name, a reference to Haitian loa Papa Legba, the most popular and widely revered loa in Haiti, is the god of the crossroads whose permission is sought for any ritual possession or communication with other loas. Papa LaBas acts as an intermediary himself between Blacks and the loas when he performs ritual healings or demands his employees at the Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral feed the loas, which is a Haitian custom. Haitian cosmology continues to provide the basis for Papa LaBas’s comprehension of the world, and it is ultimately at the crossroads between Western and African worldviews as well since it also carries some European influences from the creolization procress.

As previously stated, Mumbo Jumbo is a wonderful metafiction and exploration of the inherent problems in the West. Surprisingly, Harold Bloom includes the novel in his list of the 500 greatest books of the Western canon, even though Ishmael Reed is challenging the very notion of Western philosophy and civilization while promulgating an Afrocentric multicultural alternative to the limiting Western cultures. Although his Afrocentric philosophy is based on some poor assumptions of an Egyptian origin for many archetypal aspects in human religion and mythology, it is essential for highlighting the West’s unrecognized debt to Africa. Reed also promotes an alternative worldview that places human life and freedom above a system of gathering and verifying knowledge that divides humankind and objectifies nature, abhors ancient but evolving forms of religious expression, and places African diasporic thought in the center for a new model of understanding the world. Haiti plays a vital role in this by challenging the foundation of Western hegemony: white supremacy, intolerant Christianity, and imposed Western aesthetics.

On Toni Morrison's Jazz

“Crackers in the South mad cause Negroes were leaving; crackers in the North mad cause they  were coming.”

Toni Morrison’s 1992 novel, Jazz, is an experimental postmodern novel that is essentially about the Great Migration and the African-American migrant experience. Set in 1920s Harlem, the main characters are all migrants from the South whose former lives and family backgrounds are shared by shifting narrators. Indeed, the narrator switches so often that by the end of the novel, the book itself narrates as a metatext. Morrison herself has compared this to jazz music because of the improvisational style of the book. Moreover, the title of the novel refers to the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age more broadly, which included social change, newer forms of music that became essential to how white Americans also thought of the decade, and a decay in moral values often attributed to black jazz and blues music. What is most interesting about this novel is the focus on lower-class blacks instead of the bourgeoisie writers, poets and artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Two the main characters, the middle-aged married couple Joe Trace and Violet, are migrants from Vesper County, VA and have been in New York City since 1906. The other character, Joe’s teenage lover he saw behind his wife’s back and later murdered after she left him for a younger man named Acton, Dorcas, represents the effect of jazz and blues and city life on the transplanted black population in Harlem. And like a jazz song, the same story is told over and over again from different perspectives and narrators to eventually get the final story of how Joe and Dorcas meet, why he kills her, and why Violet felt the need to ruin Dorcas’s funeral by trying to stab the corpse. The novel is also similar in some ways to detective fiction and reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a short novel about how tradition led a small Colombian coastal town to let two brothers slaughter the man she claimed took her virginity. Like Marquez’s novel, the several people in Harlem get to answer or share their experiences with Joe, Violet and Dorcas, each one offering their own opinions of the characters and their motivations for their actions. Perhaps Morrison read Gabriel Garcia Marquez?

Morrison was inspired to write the novel by a book called the Harlem Book of the Dead, which is a compilation of funeral photos taken in the 1920s. One of the photos showed a young woman, renamed Dorcas by Morrison, who set out to write a novel. She did thorough research by looking up the musicians and magazines of the era that appear in her story, so it reads authentic. Morrison also referred to the novel as the second part of her trilogy of African-American fiction that begins with Beloved and ends with Paradise, which means her trilogy covers about 100 years of African-American history from the 1870s to the 1970s. Though she refers to the three as a trilogy, it is actually a very loose trilogy, despite the intertexuality between this novel and Beloved. Because Beloved was driven out of Sethe’s home in 1870s Ohio while pregant, and because Joe Trace’s mother is described as an insane woman, some have interpreted the latter to be Beloved based on shared insanity and some other evidence. Regardless of Joe’s possible parentage, the characters in the final novel have no relation to Joe Trace, so one must assume Morrison considers the three a trilogy because of the historical and thematic commonalities.

Anywho, back to the novel’s migration narrative characteristics. First of all, the pasts of both Joe and Violet are elucidated and like most Southern blacks, they left the sharecropping South for industrial, service-sector, and other higher-paying types of employment. Coming to the North meant leaving relatives behind, but the material gains were too great to pass, so they left Virginia in 1906 on board a train bound for New York City, where the two quickly found work. By 1926, when the main events of story take place, they live comfortably in Harlem, Joe selling Cleopatra cosmetics to women in the area and Violet hairdressing. Although they are both country people at heart, with country values and skills of hunting, agriculture, and manual labor, Joe is finally convinced to go to the cities after Booker T. Washington ate with the president of the United States, which symbolized the greater social mobility for blacks in urban areas (Morrison 107). Upon arrival in New York City, both Joe and Violet love it (33). Urban life causes dramatic changes for the formerly country black folks since the “lowdown” music, prostitution, rent parties, and drinking are assumed to cause moral decay. Urban life becomes deterministic, with the city choosing what one does, which in the case of Joe meant seeking what everyone loses in their youth: young love. Despite decades of a lasting marriage with Violet, she spends more time with her parrot she taught to say, “I love you,” than on Joe (49). Their loveless marriage, only still together because the other is all they have of the South and their youth, develops into relationship of routine, demonstrated by Violet cooking the same food for dinner everyday. Thus, despite the economic opportunities of the City, their lives are still determined by forces beyond their control (white employers and city officials) and only for their nostalgia of their Southern days does their marriage live after Joe shoots Dorcas. Dorcas, on the other hand, represents class tensions within Harlem and moral bigotry among Harlem’s “Christian” community. Dorcas, adopted and raised by her aunt, Alice Manfred, after her parents are killed by whites during the 1917 East St. Louis Riot, Alice raises her to not dress skimpily or listen to the jazz and blues music played by musicians and heard everywhere on phonographs. Dorcas ultimately gives in to the ‘lowdown” Negro music, pursues dancing and partying with lower class blacks of questionable moral fiber (as her aunt Alice would say). According to her best friend before her murder, Felice, Dorcas was boy crazy and self-centered, only dating Acton to see the envy on other girls’ faces, even though Acton, who when she is shot while at a party with him, is more concerned about her blood getting on his shirt than the dying girl before him. 

The City, therefore, does not live up to all its promises. People from different parts of the South congregate in Harlem, have access to better jobs, but eventually lose aspects of their rural roots by dressing in different, more revealing styles, dancing to blues and jazz, and prostitution thrives. Joe and Violet, like Dorcas, also change their lives according to the City’s will. The City’s skyscrapers, fast-paced life, and constant disappointment by persuading men to live for the weekend which never brings true happiness caused Joe to seek to relive his youth, to “refresh” himself by seeking another woman. When describing his relationship with Dorcas, he said, “ I rose in it” instead of falling in love; Dorcas was an Eden for his possessive and self-centered desire to make himself happy by avoiding the routine of his loveless marriage. At the same time, Joe enjoyed the neighborhood he lived on where he was a well-known and respected figure for organizing the toys children left out and the respect and acceptance of the community, even after shooting Dorcas. Violet, on the other hand, embraces her hairdressing career which makes good money, regrets never having a child, and longs for her Virginia youth when she was strong and independent. By the novel’s conclusion, she and Joe are happy together, despite him cheating on her with a young woman; she eventually realizes Dorcas was a troubled young woman and she has Joe’s attention now after he killed Dorcas.

The multiple points of view and heavy symbolism likely mean that none of the events after the funeral of Dorcas are true, but each interpretation being something the individual narrators (Felice, Joe, Violet, Alice, Malvonne and other characters) would like to believe happened with the characters. Of course the City’s affects, positive and negative, are assumed to cancel each other out by the novel’s conclusion, if one trusts Felice’s narration. Therefore, the Great Migration had some unquestionably positive results for black America, but the loss of country life and persistence of racism and exploitation alongside class tensions that developed with the increasing gap between black middle class and urban workers, led to a fractured community where light-skinned blacks and the wealthy still dominated the scene. Indeed, the peers of Felice and Dorcas ranked each other based on skin color and excluding darker skinned girls, and Violet herself wished for lighter skin like Dorcas because that likely played a role in Joe and her getting together. All in all, a good novel, though hard to read at times. Not nearly as powerful as Beloved or Song of Solomon, Morrison once again displays her mastery of literature and the African-American oral traditions of participatory storytelling; what occurs in the novel is always up to the interpretation of the author, and what specifically happened with Joe, Dorcas, and Violet remains in the air.