Respects to Joey Ramone, but

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>ravi wrote:
>>
>>>with regard to your response: what do you mean when you say "black
>>>americans are americans"? what does "american" mean? are you using
>>>the term in a purely formal sense based on citizenship and physical
>>>presence? (i am implying that there is a different sense in which
>>>the term can be used - say cultural - but going into that seems not
>>>necessary for the purpose of my question and might distract).
>>
>>Every sense - citizens, physical presence, economic actors, 
>>participants in and creators of culture (in both the sense of art 
>>and other cultural products, as well as the set of practices and 
>>understandings by which people live their lives), you name it. The 
>>contribution is obviously often disparaged and overlooked, but it 
>>shouldn't be.
>
>doug, your thoughts seem to make an excellent case against the
>exclusion of blacks from american mainstream culture (and
>politics and identity, etc), but the question is whether
>america can appropriate black culture and contributions as its
>own, isnt it? it is true that black culture influenced america
>in the long run, but only so through its presence as the
>"other", isnt it? if that be the case, then how valid is it
>for america today to appropriate these contributions as
>"american", since they were not, at the time they were made?
>
>i have a lot of "if"s in the above that i hope readers will
>notice, since i want to make clear that i do not have a
>thorough enough knowledge of black or american history to make
>statements out of these questions,
>
>	--ravi

The Popular Front in the USA, for instance, made a valiant effort to 
have black cultural achievements recognized as central to the best of 
"American culture" and rewarded as such.  Cf. Michael Denning, _The 
Cultural Front_.

*****   Review of Michael Denning's _The Cultural Front: The Laboring 
of American Culture in the Twentieth Century_

by Derek Nystrom

...The newly organized industrial workers created not only the 
political context for the left cultural productions of the Popular 
Front, but also a new kind of audience for these productions; indeed, 
many of Denning's arguments for the inclusion of certain figures in 
his cultural front pantheon derive in large part from their 
popularity amongst these workers, as they (the artists) "forged an 
'American' style out of the city styles of the black and ethnic 
working classes" (330)....

<http://www.workplace-gsc.com/books/nystrom.html>   *****

The Popular Front and longer-standing black efforts to gain civil 
rights have succeeded to some degree, and how Americans think of jazz 
(for example) today reflects, in some ways, the legacy of work of 
politico-cultural activists of the past (many of whom are, however, 
sadly forgotten).

That said, when we hear the word "All-American" today, many of us 
still tend to visualize a white face (most likely blond and 
blue-eyed).  Wasn't that what the media said about Timothy McVeigh -- 
an "All-American" boy who became a terrorist, to the shock of many 
whites?  If he had not been white, he wouldn't have likely been 
called "All-American," however clean-cut and clean-shaven.

Here's Malcolm X's speech, "Am I an American?": 
<http://members.aol.com/klove01/sound/amiameri.rm>.  Does his speech 
still resonate among blacks in the USA?
-- 
Yoshie

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