[Go here for part 1 > ESSAY: DO RIGHT WOMEN (PART 1 of 2) http://post.ly/jmJP]
ESSAY: DO RIGHT WOMEN (PART 2 of 2)
3. There's a new game, that can't be beat, You move most everything 'cept your feet, Called 'Whip it to a jelly, stir it in a bowl', You just whip it to a jelly, if you like good jelly roll I wear my skirt up to my knees And whip that jelly with who I please. Oh, whip it to a jelly, mmmmmm, mmmm Mmmmm, mmmm, mmmmm, mmmm --Clara Smith In western culture the celebration of dignity and eroticism does not and can not take place simultaneously. From Freud's theories of sexuality which focus for the most part on penile power to the church which goes so far as to debase the body as a product of original sin, there is no room for the celebration of eroticism, and certainly no conception whatsoever of the female as an active purveyor of erotic power. To me, the blues is clearly an alternative to Freud and Jesus with respect to coming to terms with our bodies. James Cone correctly analyzes this alternative. Theologically, the blues reject the Greek distinction between the soul and the body, the physical and the spiritual. They tell us that there is no wholeness without sex, no authentic love without the feel and touch of the physical body. The blues affirm the authenticity of sex as the bodily expression of black soul. White people obviously cannot understand the love that black people have for each other. People who enslave humanity cannot understand the meaning of human freedom; freedom comes only to those who struggle for it in the context of the community of the enslaved. People who destroy physical bodies with guns, whips, and napalm cannot know the power of physical love. Only those who have been hurt can appreciate the warmth of love that proceeds when persons touch, feel, and embrace each other. The blues are openness to feeling and the emotions of physical love. (Cone, pages 117-118) Moreover, the fact that Freud's theories find their first popular American currency in the 1920s at the same time as Black women's articulation of the Classic Blues suggests an open contest between widely divergent viewpoints. The Classic Blues offered an unashamed and assertive alternative to both the traditional puritanical views of sexuality as well as alternative to the new Freudian psychological views of sexuality. Bessie Smith and company were battling Jesus on the right and Freud on the left. The puritans with their scarlet letters projected the virgin/whore (Mary mother vs. Mary Madaglene) dualism. For the most part, Freud either ignored the psychology of women, thought they were unfathomable, or else projected onto them the infamous "penis envy." The period between the Civil War and World War II is the birth of American modernism. It is also the period when the bustle (an artificial attempt to mimic the physique of Black women) was a fashion standard. While it is not within the purview of this essay to address the question of how is it that Black buttocks become a standard of femininity for white society, it is important to at least mention this, so that we can contextualize the battle of worldviews. Freud proposed the "id" as the controlling element of the civilized individual. The purpose of Black music was precisely to surmount the "id." The individual looses control, is possessed. This trance state is a sought for and enjoyed experience. Rather than be in control we desire to be mounted, i.e. to merge with and be controlled by a greater force outside ourselves. Blues culture validated ritual and merger of the micro-individual into the social and spiritual macro-environment. In this way blues may be understood as an alternative conception of human existence. In a major theoretical opus on the blues, Blues and the Poetic Spirit, author Paul Garon argues To those who suggest that the blues singers are 'preoccupied' with sexuality, let us point out that all humanity is preoccupied with sexuality, albeit most often in a repressive way; the blues singers, by establishing their art on a relatively nonrepressive level, strip the 'civilised' disguise from humanity's preoccupation, thus allowing the content to stand as it really is: eroticism as the source of happiness. The blues, as it reflects human desire, projects the imaginative possibilities of true erotic existence. Hinted at are new realities of non-repressive life, dimly grasped in our current state of alienation and repression, but nonetheless implicit in the character of sexuality as it is treated in the blues. Desire defeats the existing morality--poetry comes into being. (Garon, pages 66-67) Musicologist/theologist Jon Michael Spencer takes Garon's argument deeper when he comments in his book Blues and Evil: Garon was seemingly drawing on the thought of the late French philosopher Michel Foucault, who said in his history of sexuality that if sex is repressed and condemned to prohibition then the person who holds forth in such language, with seeming intentionality, moves, to a certain degree, beyond the reach of power and upsets established law. Sex also might have been a means for "blues people" to feel potent in an oppressive society that made them feel socially and economically impotent, especially since sexuality inside the black community was one area that was free from the restraints of "the law" and the lynch mob. In essence, the Classic Blues as articulated by Black women was not only a conscious articulation of the social self and validation of the feminine sexual self, the Classic Blues was also a total philosophical alternative to the dominant White society. In this regard two incidents in the life of Bessie Smith serve as archetypal illustration. The first is Bessie Smith confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan and the second is Smith's confrontation with Carl Van Vechten's wife. The Klan is the apotheosis of racist, right wing America. Carl Van Vechten is the personification of liberal America. In Chris Albertson biography of Bessie Smith he describes Smith's July 1927 confrontation with the Klan that occurred when sheeted Klan members were attempting to "collapse Bessie's tent; they had already pulled up several stakes." When a band member told Smith what was going on the following ensued. "Some shit!" she said, and ordered the prop boys to follow her around the tent. When they were within a few feet of the Klansmen, the boys withdrew to a safe distance. Bessie had not told them why she wanted them, and one look at the white hoods was all the discouragement they needed. Not Bessie. She ran toward the intruders, stopped within ten feet of them, placed one hand on her hip, and shook a clenched fist at the Klansmen. "What the fuck you think you're doin'?" she shouted above the sound of the band. "I'll get the whole damn tent out here if I have to. You just pick up them sheets and run!" The Klansmen, apparently too surprised to move, just stood there and gawked. Bessie hurled obscenities at them until they finally turned and disappeared quietly into the darkness. "I ain't never heard of such shit," said Bessie, and walked back to where her prop boys stood. "And as for you, you ain't nothin' but a bunch of sissies." Then she went back into the tent as if she had just settled a routine matter. (Albertson, pages 132-133) Bessie Smith was not an apolitical entertainer. She was a fighter whose sexual persona was aligned with a strong sense of political self-determination. This "strength" of character is another reason that singers such as Bessie Smith were widely celebrated in the Black community. Furthermore, Smith not only was not intimidated by the right, she was equally unimpressed with the liberal sector of American society, as the incident at the Van Vechten household demonstrates. Along with his wife Fania Marinoff, a former Russian ballerina, Carl Van Vechten ("Carlo") was the major patron of the Harlem Renaissance. Albertson describes "Carlo" as an individual who "typified the upper-class white liberal of his day." (Albertson, page 138) Van Vechten loved the ghetto's pulsating music and strapping young men, and he maintained a Harlem apartment--decorated in black with silver stars on the ceiling and seductive red lights--for his notorious nocturnal gatherings. His favorite black singers were Ethel waters, Clara Smith, and Bessie. (Albertson, page 139) Van Vechten persistently sought Bessie Smith as a salon guest. She resisted but finally relented after continuous entreaties from one of her band members, composer and accompanist Porter Grainger, who desperately wished to be included among Van Vechten's "in crowd." Smith finally agreed to make a quick between sets appearance. Bessie exquisitely sang "six or seven numbers" taking a strong drink between each number. And then it was time to rush back to the Lafayette Theatre to do their second show of the night. All went well until an effusive woman stopped them a few steps from the front door. It was Bessie's hostess, Fania Marinoff Van Vechten. "Miss Smith," she said, throwing her arms around Bessie's massive neck and pulling it forward, "you're not leaving without kissing me goodbye." That was all Bessie needed. "Get the fuck away from me," she roared, thrusting her arms forward and knocking the woman to the floor, "I ain't never heard of such shit!" In the silence that followed, Bessie stood in the middle of the foyer, ready to take on the whole crowd. "It's all right, Miss Smith," [Carl Van Vechten] said softly, trailing behind the threesome in the hall. "You were magnificent tonight." (Albertson, page 143) What does any of this have to do with eroticism? These are examples of Black womanhood in action accepting no shit from either friend or foe. Blues divas such as Bessie Smith were neither afraid of nor envious of Whites. This social self assuredness is intimately entwined with their sense of sexual self assuredness. As Harrison perceptively points out, the Classic Blues divas "introduced a new, different model of black women--more assertive, sexy, sexually aware, independent, realistic, complex, alive." (Harrison, page 111). These blues singers were eventually replaced in the entertainment sphere by mulatto entertainers and chocolate exotics, Josephine Baker preeminent among them. Significantly, the replacements for Blues divas were popular song stylists who aimed their art at White men rather than at the Black community in general and Black women specifically. The replacements for the big, Black, Classic Blues diva marked the consolidation of the modern entertainment industry's sexual commodification, commercializing and exoticizing of Black female sexuality. Although entertainers from Josephine Baker, to Eartha Kitt, to Dianna Ross, to Tina Turner all started off as Black women they ended up projected as sex symbols adored by a predominately White male audience. In that context, sexuality becomes, at best, symbolic prostitution. The Black woman as exotic-erotic temptress of suppressed White male libidos is the complete antithesis of Classic Blues singer. The Classic Blues singer did not sell her sexuality to her oppressor. This question of cultural and personal integrity marks the difference between the sexual commodification inherent in today's entertainment world (especially when one realizes that the major record buying public for many hardcore rap artists is composed of White teenagers) and the sexual affirmation essential to Classic Blues. Another important point is that Classic Blues celebrated Black eroticism based in a literal "Black, Brown or Beige" body rather than in a "white looking" mulatto body. When we look at pictures of Classic Blues divas, we see our mothers, aunts, and older lady friends. Indeed, by all-American beauty standards most of these women would be considered plain (at best), and many would be called "ugly." For example, Ma Rainey was often crudely and cruelly demeaned. Giles Oakley's book The Devil's Music, A History of the Blues quotes Little Brother Montgomery "Boy, she was the horrible-lookingest thing I ever see!" and Georgia Tom Dorsey "Well, I couldn't say she was a good-looking woman and she was stout. But she was one of the loveliest people I ever worked for or worked with." Oakley opines She was an extraordinary-looking woman, ugly-attractive with a short, stubby body, big-featured face and a vividly painted mouth full of gold teeth; she would be loaded down with diamonds--in her ears, round her neck, in a tiara on her head, on her hands, everywhere. Beads and bangles mingled jingling with the frills on her expensive stage gowns. For a time her trademark was a fabulous necklace of gold coins, from 2.50 dollar coins to heavy 20 dollar 'Eagles' with matching gold earrings. (Oakley, page 99) I'm sure the majority of Ma Rainey's female audience did not fail to notice that Ma Rainey resembled them--she looked like they did and they looked like she did. There is no alienation of physical looks between the Classic Blues singer and the majority of her working class Black audience. Physical-appearance alienation of artist from audience is another byproduct of the commodification of Black music. What started out as a ritual celebration of openly eroticized life was transformed by the entertainment industry into mass-media pornography--the priestess became a prostitute. Albertson's citing of a colorfully written Van Vechten assessment of a Bessie Smith performance clarifies the difference between Bessie Smith performing mainly for Black people and subsequent "Black beauties" (including the famous Cotton Club dancers and singers) performing almost exclusively for Whites. Van Vechten not only points out the literally Black make up of Smith's audience, he also points out how Black women identified with Bessie Smith. Now, inspired partly by the powerfully magnetic personality of this elemental conjure woman with her plangent African voice, quivering with passion and pain, sounding as if it had been developed at the sources of the Nile, the black and blue-black crowd, notable for the absence of mulattoes, burst into hysterical, semi-religious shrieks of sorrow and lamentation. Amens rent the air. Little nervous giggles, like the shattering of Venetian glass, shocked our nerves. When Bessie proclaimed, "It's true I loves you, but I won't take mistreatment any mo," a girl sitting beneath our box called "Dat's right! Say it, sister!" (Albertson, page 107) The implication of such example is psychologically far-reaching and explicitly threatening to male chauvinism, as Harrison explicates: ...the silent, suffering woman is replaced by a loud-talking mama, reared-back with one hand on her hip and with the other wagging a pointed finger vigorously as she denounces the two-timing dude. Ntozage Shange, Alice Walker, and Zora Neale Hurston employ this scenario as the pivotal point in a negative relationship between the heroine/protagonists and their abusive men. Going public is their declaration of independence. Blues of this nature communicated to women listeners that they were members of a sisterhood that did not have to tolerate mistreatment. (Harrison, page 89) That these women--big, black, tough, non-virginal, sexually aggressive--were superstars of their era is testimony to the strength of a totally oppositional standard of human value. Their value was not one of physical appearance but one of spiritual relevance. And make no mistake, at that time there was no shortage of mulatto chorines and canaries--Lena Horne, archetypal amongst such "All-American beauties." Nor was there an absence of White male sex-lust for exotic-erotic mulattoes. The difference was that during the twenties there was an unassimilated Black audience which self-consciously embraced/squeezed the blacker berry, i.e. the Classic Blues diva. The Classic Blues diva was an extraordinary woman whose relevance to a Black audience has never been approached, not to mention matched. William Barlow's assessment is fundamentally correct. The classic blues women's feminist discourse grappled with the race, class, and sexual injustices they encountered living in urban America. They were outspoken opponents of racial discrimination in all guises, and hence critical of the dominant white social order--even while benefiting from it more than most of their peers. They identified with the struggles of the masses of black people, empathized with the plight of the downtrodden, and sang out for social change. Within the black community, the classic blues women were also critical of the way they were treated by men, challenging the sexual double standard. Concurrently, they reaffirmed and reclaimed their feminine powers--sexual and spiritual--to remake the world in their own image and to their own liking. This included freedom of choice across the social spectrum--from political to sexual resistance, from black nationalism to lesbianism. Like the first-generation rural blues troubadours, the classic blues women were cultural rebels, ahead of the times artistically and in the forefront of resistance to all the various forms of domination they encountered. (Barlow, pages 180-181) At the essential core of the Classic Blues was a throbbing, vital eroticism, an eroticism that manifested itself in the lifestyle and subject matter of the Classic Blues divas. Although we can analyze in hindsight, the ultimate manifestation of blue eroticism is not to be found nor appreciated in intellectualism but in its funky sound which must be experienced to be fully appreciated. Once again, Alice Walker's The Color Purple is exemplar in portraying the importance of the blue erotic sound--an eroticism best articulated by Black women. Shug say to Squeak, I mean, Mary Agnes, You ought to sing in public. Mary Agnes say, Naw. She think cause she don't sing big and broad like Shug nobody want to hear her. But Shug say she wrong. What about all them funny voices you hear singing in church? Shug say. What about all them sounds that sound good but they not the sounds you thought folks could make? What bout that? Then she start moaning. Sound like death approaching, angels can't prevent it. It raise the hair on the back of your neck. But it really sound sort of like panthers would sound if they could sing. I tell you something else, Shug say to Mary Agnes, listening to you sing, folks git to thinking bout a good screw. Aw, Miss Shug, say Mary Agnes, changing color. Shug say, What, too shamefaced to put singing and dancing and fucking together? She laugh. That's the reason they call what us sing the devil's music. Devils love to fuck. (Walker, page 120) Albertson, Chris. Bessie. Braircliff: Stein and Day Paperback, 1985 (Originally issued 1972) Barlow, William. Looking Up At Down. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989 Borgatti, Jean. "Songs Of Ritual License From Midwestern Nigeria" in Alcheringa Ethnopoetics (New Series Volume 2, Number 1). Dennis Tedlock and Jerome Rothenberg, editors. Boston: Boston University, 1976 Brown, Sterling A. The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown. Michael S. Harper, editor. Chicago: TriQuarterly Books, 1989 Cone, James H. The Spirituals and the Blues. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1972 Douglas, Ann. Terrible Honesty. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995 Garon, Paul. Blues & The Poetic Spirit. New York: Da Capo Press, 1975 Giovanni, Nikki. The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni. New York: William Morrow, 1996 Harrison, Daphne Duval. Black Pearls, Blues Queens of the 1920s. Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990 Hine, Darlene Clark. Speak Truth To Power. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1996 Jones, LeRoi. Blues People. New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1963 Oakley, Giles. The Devil's Music, A History of the Blues. New York: Harvest/HBJ book, 1976 Spencer, Jon Michael. Blues and Evil. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993 Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Pocket Books/Washington Square Press, 1982 -------------------------- —kalamu ya salaam
WORKS CITED