Yo I am into this thread,
I was excited to find out about this forthcoming text from DeForrest Brown,
Jr. just today:
https://primaryinformation.org/product/assembling-a-black-counter-culture/
If you feel like reading something now here is a deep cut on the impact of
COVID-19 on the music industry and more. A warning to anti-academic list
members, this is that:
https://blog.usejournal.com/manufacturing-normalcy-7633259f63b5
Does anyone on the list have any idea why the republication of Kodwo
Eshun's 'More Brilliant Than the Sun' seems to have been pushed back
indefinitely?
Yeah that Ash Lauryn article deserves all the props. I really need to read
more of her writing.
Peace,
Reuben
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 at 16:49, David A. Powers wrote:
> Okay, I was going to keep my mouth shout, but if the list is going to
> tackle this topic, then I really think it's time to get real and move past
> BS symbolic politics to look at the real systemic reasons why racist
> outcomes persist in the United States.
>
> In the United States, we have just undergone 40 of neoliberal austerity
> which has been imposed on the poor and working class. Unions have been
> destroyed, while safety nets that provided access to housing, healthcare,
> and education for the poor have been dismantled in a systemic fashion. This
> has been a period in which extremely wealthy elites have amassed insane
> amounts of wealth, while working folks have consistently been impoverished.
> Deindustrialization has eliminated most of the good paying jobs from the
> Rust Belt. And in Detroit, musicians have suffered the dual blow of Motown
> leaving, and the music industry itself collapsing, making it very difficult
> for skilled working musicians to find enough work to live on.
>
> Of course, because of the racist colonial history of the United States,
> and espeically the legacy of racist chattel slavery, historically exploited
> minority communities have been disproportionately impacted and impoverished
> by neoliberal austerity. Furthermore, many elite capitalists have continued
> the tradition of weaponizing and encouraging white racism and prejudice
> against minorities, for the purpose of dividing the working class along
> race lines. This is mostly done not for ideological reasons, but for the
> simple reason that it keeps wages low and profits up. Transferring jobs to
> countries where it is easier to exploit workers, and then stoking fears
> about immigrants, servers a similar purpose. Expanding (racist)
> incarceration and exploiting prison labor also plays a role in this.
>
> My point is this: creating complex musical works, and writing
> sophisticated books, are cultural activities that very few poor and working
> class people can afford to engage in. The nurses taking care of me at
> Detroit Receiving Hospital after I got a head injury from a car accident,
> or the people serving me coffee at a gas station or diner, do not have the
> privilege and luxury of writing books on techno. And on top of that, a lot
> of black folks simply aren't very interested in techno; they prefer other
> kinds of music. The biggest audience for this music is in Europe, and the
> audience is mostly white.
>
> So if you want a world where there are more black musicians, artists, and
> writers can do their thing, you have to recognize that this can only happen
> on the basis of providing for people's basic material needs, and
> recognizing their basic human rights: the right to not be murdered or
> unjustly harassed and imprisoned by the police, as well as the right to
> housing, food, education, healthcare, and a decent paying job. While it's
> certainly important to be aware of implicit racism and obstacles that black
> DJ's or writers might face compared to white peers, and to fight against
> all expressions of racism, it's INSANE to be primarily fixated only on
> cultural questions such as the number of black DJ's, when black folks are
> being killed by COVID-19 at a far higher rate than whites, and when 40% of
> people in the US making under $40,000 a year have lost their jobs.
>
> You can't demand cultural change without ALSO demanding that we change the
> material basis that culture rests on! It's completely hypocritical. People
> need housing and food before they can write books. Even Jesus fed people
> before he preached to them. And don't forget--the Black Panthers, MLK Jr,
> and Malcom X before his death were all talking about the connection between
> racism and capitalism. For having the audacity to combine antiracist
> struggle with the struggle for basic human rights and economic justice, *they
> were murdered*.
>
> Of course, I'm just a random white dude who has been homeless and had to
> drop out of college to work because I couldn't afford it; however, you
> don't have to take my word for it: *go read the work of great black
> intellectuals, such as Cornel West, Adolph Reed Jr, and Angela Davis*.
>
> Peace out,
> ~David Powers
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun
