Quote of the Day - from a REAL Confederate/Southerner

(This image brought to you by graphic artist Doug Dobey in response to this idiocy: a gigantic Confederate flag that welcomes visitors to Richmond, Virginia.)

Any Southerner who honestly believes that the rebel flag is a reminder of their honorable Confederate history and heritage is woefully ignorant of the facts -- or flat-out racist.  And here's the quote that proves it.

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." --Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, "The Cornerstone Speech," March 21, 1861

For any reasonably intelligent, clear-thinking American to stand by a flag that represents this racist philosophy is unconscionable. 

To read The Cornerstone Speech in its entirety, click here. 

Yay! It's Official!

I"m going home for my birthday in June, to South Carolina's Lowcountry.  This is what home looks like.

February's NaBloPoMo - Make!

This month's theme is "make" -- whatever that means.

What's interesting is that there is so little that America manufactures anymore and most people have a tendency to not make things, but purchase them as needed and discard them with abandon. Once upon a time -- as recently as the turn of the century -- everyone made their own clothes.  They also grew much of their own food. When my mother was a kid growing up in the rural South, you weren't allowed in stores to buy clothes off the rack. You had a sewing machine, you learned how to sew what you wanted and mend your hand-me-downs. If you really had to have it, you ordered it in a Sears and Roebuck catalog. You got resourceful. You made what you wanted.

This was the Southern way, the way I was raised. To be able to make things with your hands, whether it was the curtains in the living room or the pretty dress you saw in the window.  To cook, to bake. To keep a garden seasonally, grow a fruit tree and eat what you grow.  I have all of that in me and have embraced some part of that somewhere along the way in my life -- but I live in a city that doesn't necessarily give me free rein to live that way.

Of course, this got me to thinking about what I make and as it turns out, it's a lot. I would like to add clothes to that list.  I was taught to sew as a child and I'd love to pick it back up.  Knitting, too.

It's kind of wacky that we need a website to scour the nation to find American manufacturers and then have them plead with us to buy American in this really jingoistic way -- like you're less of an American if you don't -- but here it is.  They should have that conversation with the American manufacturers that take their business to other countries.

And then there's The Buy Black Movement. But that's another conversation...

Oh, Kanye, Part 3: That Confederate Flag and You

So these are the images in question by artist/illustrator Wes Lang. 

Nothing you haven't seen before, if you've even so much as glimpsed bands like Lynrd Skynrd, Metalica, Megadeth, The Grateful Dead, Judas Priest. Or if you know any bikers. Or purveyors of West Coast tattoo art. Kanye is appropriating that imagery and more, and draping a Confederate flag over it.

(Meh.)

I suppose Kanye KKK hoods and robes are next.  If he makes them fashionable enough -- and he can because that's a big part of what he does -- he won't have any trouble selling them. (Hey, that's got a ring to it - Kanye KKK!) He can wear one all the time and call himself The Grand Dragon Wizard -- of Greatness and Brilliance. Because, according to him, that's what he is.

Of course, later he will sell those KKK outfits -- and the regalia that accompanies them -- in Barneys in pastel hues for thousands of dollars. Because he's brilliant.  Right?

He sounds bipolar to me. Here's a few symptoms.

1.  Feeling unusually “high” and optimistic OR extremely irritable 
2. Unrealistic, grandiose beliefs about one’s abilities or powers 
3. Hyperactivity 
4. Racing thoughts; jumping quickly from one idea to the next 
5. Impaired judgment and impulsiveness 
6. Acting recklessly without thinking about the consequences 
7. Talking so rapidly that others can’t keep up 
8. Distractibility
 
 

Manic depression is touching my soul
I know what I want but I just don't know
How to, go about gettin' it
Feeling sweet feeling,
Drops from my fingers, fingers
Manic depression is catchin' my soul

Woman so weary, the sweet cause in vain
You make love, you break love
It's all the same
When it's, when it's over, mama
Music, sweet music
I wish I could caress, caress, caress
Manic depression is a frustrating mess

Well, I think I'll go turn myself off,
And go on down
All the way down
Really ain't no use in me hanging around
In your kinda scene

Music, sweet music
I wish I could caress, caress, caress
Manic depression is a frustrating mess

Well, that just about sums it up for me. One thing is for sure. That flag isn't going anywhere.

Oh, Kanye Part 2: That Confederate Flag (in context!)

Now might be the moment to take a look at the Confederate flag in context -- something that most people aren't willing to do.

Everyone was flying a lot of flags in the South during The Civil War. (Please note: This war has a lot of names. Many Southerners refer to it as the War of Northern Aggression because according to them, it wasn't a war. It was an invasion. Most of their black counterparts called it The Freedom War. You get the idea.)   The Confederate flag as we know it (also known as "Stars and Bars") actually originated as the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee.  There were three official Confederate flags to represent the new nation, none of which resembled the battle flag. To add to the confusion,  each Southern state created their own flag. All this flag waving was more than confusing, especially in battle. It was General PGT Beauregard who came up with the idea of a peace flag and a war flag, so enemies could easily be recognized in the fray.  He gave his assistant William Porcher Miles the task of creating the war flag. How he came up with it is more than interesting.

Inspired by the flags that he saw at the South Carolina secession convention in December of 1860, Miles -- who had been chair of the Committee on the Flag and Seal, conveniently enough -- came up with a blue St. George's Cross (also known as a Latin cross) on a red background, with white stars that represented each  slaveholding state. 

No surprise that he put the crescent and palmetto from South Carolina's state flag in the upper left corner.

This flag, however, is the one that was chosen.

Miles changed it to a St. Andrews Cross (the cross of Scotland, interestingly enough) to appease Southern Jews who didn't want any religious symbol to represent the nation.  The number of stars changed according to how many states had joined The Cause.

Miles changed it to a St. Andrews Cross (the cross of Scotland, interestingly enough) to appease Southern Jews who didn't want any religious symbol to represent the nation.  The number of stars changed according to how many states had joined The Cause.

Needless to say, because the Southerners lost the war and remained rebels who were deeply committed to the idea that the war was an ongoing situation, the battle flag -- also known as The Dixie Flag, The Confederate Navy Jack, The Southern Cross and yes, The Rebel Flag -- was the one that they wholeheartedly embraced. 

As a Southerner by proxy -- that is, someone who is two generations removed from slavery -- I can't hold onto the Confederate flag in any way.  For the life of me, I don't understand exactly what Southerners have to be so proud of.  First of all, you lost. Yes, that's right. You lost the war. Yes, you fought valiantly. Yes, you have your brave war heroes, your majestic leaders. Even with all that greatness, you lost the war.  It doesn't matter how many times you dissect, review and reenact the battles. You still lost.

There, I said it.

Secondly, you fought for states rights -- that is, the right to have slaves -- which *surprise!* was completely immoral.  Thanks to the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the growing abolitionist movement, Abraham Lincoln's election and a few other factors, the Southern antiquated social construct was eroding quickly. The end.

Last but not least, the antebellum South took their anger out on us -- wherein millions of black people were displaced, whole communities slaughtered, torture, violence and lynchings of black men, women and children was rampant and rape was commonplace. The state and local laws did nothing to defend or protect black people and the federal government did not intercede. Where is the pride in that? 

We are not a monolithic people. I no more expect young Southern black folk to take up the Confederate flag en masse than I would expect to see all young Jews running around wearing swastikas and waving SS flags, because they know their history.  That's what's missing in America --  a healthy dose of history and some real perspective.  A lot of old black folks lived through it and way too many black youth don't know about it.

You want a strong dose of Southern/American history? Read Buried In The Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America by Elliot Jaspin and then tell me if you seriously want to wrap yourself in a Confederate flag.

A description from Goodreads: Leave now, or die! From the heart of the Midwest to the Deep South, from the mountains of North Carolina to the Texas frontier, words like these have echoed through more than a century of American history. The call heralded not a tornado or a hurricane, but a very unnatural disaster--a manmade wave of racial cleansing that purged black populations from counties across the nation. We have long known about horrific episodes of lynching in the South, but the story of widespread racial cleansingabove and below the Mason-Dixon line--has remained almost entirely unknown. Time after time, in the period between Reconstruction and the 1920s, whites banded together to drive out the blacks in their midst. They burned and killed indiscriminately and drove thousands from their homes, sweeping entire counties clear of blacks to make them racially "pure." The expulsions were swift-in many cases, it took no more than twenty-four hours to eliminate an entire African-American population. Shockingly, these areas remain virtually all-white to this day. Based on nearly a decade of painstaking research in archives and census records, Buried in the Bitter Waters provides irrefutable evidence that racial cleansing occurred again and again on American soil, and fundamentally reshaped the geography of race. In this groundbreaking book, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Elliot Jaspin has rewritten American history as we know it.

Next up: Oh, Kanye Part 3:  That Confederate Flag and You

Envisioning Emancipation

Apparently, this somewhat celebratory moment that commemorates the Emancipation Proclamation isn't lost on Hollywood or the media. There are an avalanche of movies, documentaries, exhibits and the like that are to be released within the next two years. Here's a little something that caught my eye. 

The book Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and The End of Slavery -- released on January 1st by Temple University Press -- has me spellbound. I get lost inside those faces, their collective stance, the feel of it all. They are somber, elegant and in most instances, they are painfully well dressed. What's especially disturbing is that they look too familiar. I remember thinking, I know that look on that little boy's face. The way that soldier's shoulder is thrown back, the way her arms are folded. If I look at those pictures for too long, I can almost sense their thoughts. It's all so dignified, so full of self-respect and hope.

Many of the photos have never been seen before. God only knows where they were hidden or how they were found. 



Images in media are so much more important than we think they are.  As we are shown someone else's perspective of us, we are taught so many things  -- who we are, what we look like, where we stand, whether we truly matter.  For God knows how long -- for too long, really -- we have seen ourselves through the bluest eye. And now this: thousands of photographs taken by us, for us -- black photographers capturing snapshots of black people as they stand on the brink of freedom and true self-determination. I have seen other pictures from this era and when I look at these, I can feel the difference.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Liked Django Unchained (Spoiler Alert!)

(Please note: This is the second trailer for Django Unchained. Enjoy!)

I don't think Spike Lee was wrong -- I want to honor my ancestors, too -- but I can't criticize a movie if I haven't seen it. And yet everyone has an opinion on Django Unchained.  I supposed that's understandable. It's been awhile since Roots had everyone glued to their televisions for a week. And then we wanted to talk about it. We wanted to find our roots.

As a nation, we are in dire need of a collective roundtable discussion about race. And for once, we really need to make it an honest one. Perhaps the success of this movie will trigger an avalanche of talks, documentaries, exhibits and yes, more films.  Nothing gets more movies made in Hollywood like a blockbuster. The more information, the better.  Anything to get the ball rolling.

I have way more than ten reasons as to why I liked Django Unchained.  These are the ones that floated to the surface initially.

1. It's funny.  Needless to say, the most telling moments happen when white people stop laughing and black people can't stop cracking up. The white guy behind me was giggling quite freely until Django beat the brakes off of that white man with a bullwhip. 
2. It's fiction. Of course, that won't stop people from treating it like a documentary. 
3. It's about slavery in the United States -- something of which way too many Americans know very little. They certainly know even less about its atrocities.  And they seem to know less than nothing of the Black Holocaust.
4.  It's got a black (ex)slave hero. The truth is, there were hundreds of thousands of Nat Turners, disrupting anything whenever they could. Where's that movie?
5. It's got a black hero that's beating, whipping, maiming, shooting and killing a garden variety of insufferably racist, bigoted white people. I can't think of any black people that wouldn't want to see that. Repeatedly.
6. It's got a loving, solid black marriage.  Yes, black people want to see that, too -- in any time period. Slaves fought desperately for their marriages -- and their children. It didn't start with the Huxtables.
7. Believe it or not, the black hero's wife doesn't pass the paper bag test.  Shocking, right?
8.  It's got a black hero that's focused on saving his black wife by any means necessary.  I don't know about you but I don't see very many leading men in filmdom going to the absolute limit for the love of a black woman.
9. Maybe it's my recent forays into the Rhineland or the research that I'm doing about Germans in the (Antebellum) South but I loved the German references within the storyline. (Interestingly, my last name is German. More on that later.) And those filthy greedy Australians? That was just too perfect.
10. It's got a beautiful ending: the black hero and his girl ride off into the sunset together. I remember seeing that and thinking, Why not? Why shouldn't they run off and be happy? At Harlem's Magic Johnson Theater, the audience stood up and cheered.'Nuff said.

Perhaps Dangerfield Newby is the "real" Django Unchained.  He tried to buy his wife Harriett and their 7 children out of slavery but when the agreed-upon price was abrubtly raised once he'd met it, he sought other means and joined John Brown's raiders at Harper's Ferry. And the rest, as they say, is history.

happy father's day, daddy

i can't even begin to say how much i miss my daddy.

yes, that's right. i'm an african-american woman with parents who were married to each other for nearly 50 years. my daddy left this world last year at the age of 92. no man worked harder than he did to provide for his family. back in the day, he held seven union cards. seven! i don't know anyone with more than two. my mother still lives in the house that they raised us in - all five of us. a big house, in cascade heights, in the ATL. and she's still running their real estate business, singlehandedly.

it makes me sick to my stomach, the things that everything in the media continually feeds us about black men and black fathers. while it's horrible that this garbage gets ingested worldwide, what's especially disturbing is that we've started to believe it about ourselves. we can't even make movies or tv shows about decent hardworking black fathers. absolutely everyone thinks they're unicorns. no one believes they're real.

so let me set the record straight, on my end: i had a daddy, a granddaddy and a great-granddaddy -- all of them, hard-working, sober, responsible, dedicated, church-going family men. and i know i'm not the only black person out here who can say that. the glass is hardly half empty.

today would have been a day of fun for him. he would have been celebrated in church, with a special service for fathers, surrounded by people congratulating him and wishing him well. and then of course a nice big dinner , surrounded by family, and then his easy chair and phone calls from near and far all day long from everyone that knows him, and opening all kinds of gifts and yelling at the grandkids and telling everyone what to do. the remote would be in his hand like a scepter, and he'd wave it around for dramatic effect whenever he would punctuate anything he'd have to say. and he had plenty to say. about everything.

if i couldn't be there, i would have sent a huge bouquet of flowers and something permanent and cool, something that he could touch and say, my only daughter gave this to me for father's day, like a tie clip. if i were actually there, i'd make dinner and serve it to everyone dutifully -- and in the middle of the meal, daddy would turn to my mother and say, in a stage whisper, our only daughter is serving us dinner, in this really astonished overly dramatic can-you-believe-it voice. like it's this massively huge thing that's not really happening right in front of him but it is. like it's something i never did when i came home. it's not like it never happened at all, ever. me making dinner and serving it and cleaning up afterwards was practically my entire childhood. i suppose he expected me to stay in that kitchen, making his oxtails and rice, until marriage put me in someone else's. but that was not to be.

it feels like i'm going to grieve him for the rest of my life. who knows. i probably will.

i'm actually okay with it, if that's what happens. everyone handles these things differently. i really don't know how else to be. besides, i am told that such traumatic things can sometimes trigger massive creative explosions. it makes a lot of sense, that something truly beautiful could eventually come out of so much sorrow.

dim sum in chinatown

yesterday i went to have dim sum at grand harmony palace in the heart of chinatown with two friends who happen to be chinese and native new yorkers—miona is from the bronx and evan was born and raised on mott street. they both speak chinese as well, which isn’t always the case with the children of immigrants. usually, the push is to make their children and themselves as american as possible. by the time they realize that what they are is american enough, it’s usually too late. but that’s not the case with miona’s parents, who still don’t speak english. as i walked to our table in the restaurant, i could fully understand why.

the room was awash in red fabric on the walls, with chandeliers and gold touches all over the place and bright yellow seat covers and tablecloths that made everything look elegant and drab all at once. everywhere was a flurry of activity: babies crying, children laughing, old people chatting, everyone eating, and starchly uniformed servers with these huge layered trays on sturdy wheels moving slowly through the room like metal oxen, pausing for a moment at the hint of a signal that anyone wants anything at all. it was easy to make them stop where we were because miona loves food and evan was starving.

i found it especially amusing that no one was speaking any english whatsoever. the effect was not unlike a pane of glass breaking over and over again, at different pitches, and different angles, from different directions.

i followed their lead, pointing at things, then asking them to tell me the names of the things that i liked, then pronouncing them badly until they stopped cringing and i won their tentative approval. white teapots filled with crysanthemum tea were constantly refilled. if i wanted my tiny cup refilled, i tapped my finger next to the cup and kept tapping until i wanted them to stop pouring.

dim sum is the asian equivalent of english high tea but much, much tastier. it’s like a heavy snack (yes, i know—that’s oxymoronic, but it’s true). i love dim sum and i’ve certainly had it before but not in a place where that’s all they served at that time of day. and the experience of being the only black person in a gigantic roomful of chinese people was more than a notion. if you are of color, you are black as far as i'm concerned. that would include everyone except the white people -- and quite a few of them ain't telling it.

frieda kahlo was right: chinese babies are the most beautiful babies in the world.

one of the things that miona and evan couldn’t stop talking about was my impending nuptials in charleston, south carolina that are happening approximately a year from now. interesting but true: they have never lived outside of new york city. they both went to college in the area. miona travelled to southeast asia recently for some months and had great adventures but before that, she’d never really left home. so the south is this great mystery and they’re both wondering about the asian presence there.

what i’m trying to show them is that there has been a strong chinese presence in the south since reconstruction but they don’t seem to know a lot about chinese-american history in general. so i’ve promised them a reading list, documentaries, and welcome packages filled with maps and things to do when they get there. clearly, they want and need to be primed.

we’re already planning to have lunch in harlem somewhere soon. maybe the new italian restaurant up the street from me. i’m not sure. next weekend is already earmarked for english cuisine at my favorite anglo spot: tea and sympathy on greenwich.

all in all, a new and exciting experience. next month: i’m getting my learner’s permit!

See more progress on: enjoy the second quarter of 2008 by having one new and fulfilling experience in April, May, and June. Woo Hoo!

charleston sc and beyond

i spent last weekend in charleston, sc looking at churches and talking to officiants with my friend. although there was a chill in the air, it was still sunny and beautiful. i love this cooper river bridge (also called the arthur ravenel jr. bridge). crossing it feels epic, somehow.



trust me, it's much more overwhelming when you're standing on it.



thankfully,we still made it to the isle of palms to stick our feet in the ocean before we left.

garland is right

garland farwell has fallen in love with the southland -- and it's the deep south, surprisingly enough. he says he's really blown away by the place, the vibe, the people, the food, all of it. not surprising, actually. its very beautiful there. he says it's like soho in the 70s except people are "all spread out and tripped out on jesus and earth spirits and shit. there's craftsy artists everywhere." he's got a residency at coleman center for the arts in york, alabama and is working on a project regarding the work of the folk artist mose tolliver. sounds interesting.

what's cool is reading about his adventures via his blog and seeing the beautiful pictures. at one point, he says that the south is the most beautiful place this side of heaven that he's ever known. and it's true, it's so true. it's so sweet to see that he's figured that out. but you have to go there to see that, to understand that. you have to get past your preconceptions and all those misnomers and stereotypes about the south and its history, just let it go and embrace the beauty of it all. most people can't do that. like there wasn't racism anywhere else -- certainly not up north, in places like brooklyn or out west in san francisco. like the klan wasn't everywhere.

in his last missive, he told me what i'd known to be true for quite some time: that new york city is not the center of the world anymore, and that with every olive garden and applebees and pottery barn, it's becoming more and more generic. the city is dying and no one seems to care. "you can make art anywhere," he said dismissively. that depends entirely on exactly what kind of art you want to make. you can't do broadway if you live in omaha. then again, with stuff like the little mermaid up and running, and a julie taymor-directed spiderman coming to the great white way, who cares?

i'd rather bankroll my record label with commercials and film/tv work, sequester myself in graduate school and wait to originate something cool onstage. and you know what? garland is right. i don't have to be in new york city to do any of that.

all of us, dressed in black

i got an email from stephen this afternoon, telling me that black folk all over the country are going to wear black tomorrow. (needless to say, i've got just the dress.) there is to be a march and a rally in jena, louisana -- and the organizers asked that everyone who couldn't attend dress in this way, as a show of solidarity for the jena six.

every black anybody that i contacted already knew all about it. unbelievable, the way forwarding email amongst us nowadays is basically like beating the african drum to pass along pertinent information. its moments like this one when i can't help but think that, in spite of what the media says -- and in spite of what we tell ourselves -- we really are much stronger and more unified than we seem to be able to grasp.

okay, i have to say it: all these bling-bling african-american millionaire knuckleheads out here on shows like mtv cribs bragging about their solid gold toilets and the swans in their expansive backyard ponds and all the tacky crap in their 50 room mansion and whatnot -- and who steps up with a $10,000 donation for the defense fund? david freakin' bowie. what's sad is that his gesture is probably all that most people know about what's happened.

i'm sure that a lot of people think that it's business as usual in the south -- like racism lives down there and no place else. sean bell would disagree, if he could. so would yusef hawkins. and amadou diallo. one would think that in these media saturated times, we'd be hearing all about the jena six. believe me, the world is watching -- and reporting -- even if most americans don't know anything about it yet.

no one will ever be able to convince me that there aren't two countries called america: one for white people and another for everybody else. we can drink from the same water fountain, we can use the same public toilets, but we can't get the same level of justice. now, that's progress.

well. if you want to protest tomorrow, here's a few suggestions:

1. wear black. because absolutely everyone should.
   
2. register to vote -- and then when the next election rolls around, get out of the house and do it, no matter what.
   
3. sign the petition to the louisana governor
4. sign the petition to the justice department
5. call your congressperson. seriously, ring their phone all the way off the hook -- because this whole situation is nuts, and no one with any real degree of authority seems to care.
6. better yet, email them.
   
7. make a donation, if you've got it like that.
8. and last but not least, mychal bell has been in jail for no reason since 2006, so if you've got the time (and an SASE), write him a letter
   

and if you want to know what the deal is, this video pretty much sums it up.

...the plot thickens...

Torture victim may have visited before
Neighbor on Big Creek says woman asked for help last month

By Gary Harki Staff writer
By Andrew Clevenger Staff writer

BIG CREEK — When Megan Williams was kept against her will in a shed beside a Logan County mobile home, it may not have been her first time at the residence.

Police say Williams, 20, was tortured, raped and beaten by a group of people for about a week. The group was led by Frankie Lee Brewster, who lived in the trailer, and her son, Bobby Ray Brewster, according to police. Six people have been charged in the case, and more may be arrested.

(here's the kicker: she said she was dating one of them. for the rest of the story, click here.)

It Happened In Big Creek, West Virginia

This is the kind of news that explodes in the black community and no one else in the world seems to know about it. I certainly didn't wake up the day after I read this in the Amsterdam News and hear any of it mentioned on The View. So -- if you haven't heard about what happened in Big Creek, West Virginia earlier this month, you might want to read this. Be warned: the article is fairly graphic.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

6 arrested, charged in woman's weeklong torture
Authorities believe racism played role in ordeal

By Gary Harki
Staff writer

Carmen Williams doesn’t understand why her 20-year-old daughter was tortured, raped and tied up in a shed.

Police tell her that what happened was probably a hate crime, that it happened because Megan Williams is black.

“Every time they stabbed her, they called her ‘nigger,’” her mother said.

But whatever the reason, Carmen Williams wants people to know what happened to her daughter. She agreed to talk to a reporter from her daughter’s room at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital.

She said a man and a woman — who Megan Williams thought were her friends — took her to the house of Frankie Lee Brewster in Pecks Mill, Logan County.

Megan Williams was held in the house for about a week, police said.

According to criminal complaints filed against six people in this case, she was beaten, stabbed, choked, sexually assaulted and threatened with death.

The details are even more horrible. According to the complaints, she was forced to eat dog and rat feces and to lick up blood. She was made to lick parts of Brewster’s body, under the threat of death. Her hair was pulled out. She was made to drink from the toilet. She was sexually assaulted while hot water was poured on her body, and while a man held a knife to her.

A woman allegedly cut Megan Williams’ ankle and said, “That’s what we do to niggers around here.”

(If you want to read the rest, click here.)

this might explain it

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos (Rock of Ages)

by Jan Reid

i can’t remember when the song layla sank into my consciousness.

i was a proper church-going little girl, i was in the deep, deep south and hee-haw was on tv every week. i was surrounded by cousins and sweet dirt and sky, and the sun was always shining, even when it rained. everything was drenched in twang and rock and gospel. i remember a little battery operated transistor radio in my bedroom that had a strap on one side of it. i remember lying on my stomach, playing with my paper dolls with that radio right next to my head, listening to the allman brothers.

no one told me that what i was listening to was for white people, that i was supposed to be at the r&b end of the table because i was black and that’s what black people listened to. i instinctively knew that table was mine and i could sit whereever i wanted. later, much later, in college and even in my early time in nyc—when i was supposed to be surrounded by smart cool talented individuals—i can distinctly remember them (black and white) balking when i said which butthole surfers record i preferred or how much i liked bands like husker du and captain beefheart and the pixies or how i loved mudhoney way more than nirvana for that supermuff but cobain wrote catchier songs or how i was going to go see john doe somewhere downtown the next night. the question hung in the air like pastel colored streamers at a mexican prom: how did i know so much about rock? rarely ever would anyone ever actually ask. (too bad.)

“you’re an anomaly,” some white someone told me once.

“oh really,” i said flatly. i couldn’t believe that he meant that as a compliment. but he did. “maybe i’m the norm,” i casually suggested. “either way,” i continued, “how would you know?” (and no, that's not all i said. not by a long shot.) i'm probably always going to remember how his face changed as that one sank in.

that whole blipster thing is just one more stupid chapter in a continuing bizarre racist saga of “how to sell music to america” that some yahoo set up when they figured out how to make money off of records back in the day. now that they’ve come up with a name for The Only Black Person At The Show, they can patronize with some degree of accuracy and still be completely off the mark.

but i digress.

i think duke ellington was dead-on correct when he said there’s only two kinds of music—good and bad. unknowingly, the song layla set it off for me. or was it freeform fm radio? i don’t know.

i never thought much of eric clapton as a vocalist or as a guitarist (yes, he’s great—no, he’s not a deity) but i did love derek and the dominos. the more i listened to the music, the more i wanted to know more about where all of that passion and feeling and desperation came from. i heard snippets of stories here and there. and what happened to the drummer sounded like a wierd urban legend. but then i found this layla book and had it all explained to me, in such lurid detail that i could almost feel their collective exhaustion after some drug addled binge in the english countryside.

all of that 70’s excess—the heroin, the alcohol, the ferraris that were paid for in cash, the hookers that duane allman had imported from macon for their sessions in miami—that’s in there. but the love story at the core of it all is compelling stuff. and ultimately, the way clapton takes his feeling and pain and makes art is effing brilliant.

but it's the never-ending twang of that slide guitar that embraces something inside of me -- that something that knew sacred steel in a traditional church setting before elmore james made his presence felt and then duane allman turned it into something else. my southern ways are still there. they're completely intact and ever-present. thank Jesus.

oh. and duane and greg look like some hayseeds i went to school with, for real—which made me love them even more and miss the south of my childhood.

i don’t want to meet eric clapton. i want to meet bobby whitlock.

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