The black counter-frame (1600s- ) is the set of ideas, images, narratives, history and so on through which many Black Americans see and understand America. According to white sociologist Joe R. Feagin, it is what counters the white racial frame among blacks.
- The white racial frame is spread to blacks through white-controlled spaces: public school, white universities, the mass media.
- The black counter-frame is spread through black-controlled spaces: family, friends, church, beauty salons, barber shops, bars, HBCUs, etc.
Some blacks use only the white racial frame, like Clarence Thomas or Uncle Ruckus of the “The Boondocks”. Some use only the black counter-frame, like Rev. Wright or Huey Freeman. Most blacks fall somewhere in between. There is no hive mind.
Even the black counter-frame itself is not the same from person to person, but these elements frequently appear:
- We are all God’s children. The common humanity of all people regardless of race. No one race is better than another. Therefore:
- Freedom, equality and justice for all! Straight out of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. What America should be, but not what it is:
- The main thing wrong with America is white racism. Whites do not live up to their political ideas of freedom, equality and justice. They talk the talk but do not even try to walk the walk. They got rich off of slavery and genocide. America was built on racism. Still is.
- Blacks are every bit as American as whites. The country was built on their blood, sweat and tears.
- Moral outrage. See above.
- Radicalism. America can and should be changed from within, through protest, revolution, etc. There is no such thing as Magical Progress. Nothing is going to change unless blacks do something. Thus: slave uprisings, abolitionists, John Brown, NAACP, SNCC, Black Panthers, etc.
- The stereotypes are not true. They are self-serving lies made up by white people.
- Black is beautiful. Blacks are fully and beautifully human, every bit as good as whites or anyone else. Black pride to counter the black shame taught by the white racial frame. Valuing black beauty, courage, achievement, etc.
- How to deal with white people. At work, at school, at government offices, etc. How to deal with the police. How to deal with white ideas of beauty. Sharing experiences of racism.
- Gendered racism. Racism affects males and females differently. Whites see black men as dangerous, black women as ugly yet oversexed. Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire and Welfare Queen stereotypes. Black women get hit with both racism and sexism.
- Afrocentricity. To counter the blind Eurocentrism of Western culture.
Some who have clearly expressed a black counter-frame at length:
- 1820s: David Walker (“The Appeal”)
- 1830s:
- 1840s: Henry Garnet
- 1850s: Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass (especially his Fourth of July speech)
- 1860s:
- 1870s:
- 1880s: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Anna Julia Cooper
- 1890s:
- 1900s: W.E.B. Du Bois (“The Souls of Black Folk”)
- 1910s:
- 1920s:
- 1930s: Oliver Cox
- 1940s:
- 1950s: CORE
- 1960s: Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton (“Black Power”)
- 1970s:
- 1980s:
- 1990s:
- 2000s: Jeremiah Wright
– Abagond, 2013.
Source: Joe R. Feagin, “The White Racial Frame” (2010).
See also:
- white racial frame
- counter-frames – the black counter-frame is just one example
- black counter-frame elements:
- “Black is Beautiful”
- “Stereotypes have some truth to them” – in what they say about the white people who believe them!
- The oneness of mankind
- How White America got rich
- There is absolutely nothing wrong with being black
- apostles:
I see, so everyone who doesn’t conclude that “the main thing wrong wtih America is white racism” is just using the wrong frame? Is everyone who doesn’t conclude that “the main thing wrong with Africa is white racism” also using the wrong frame?
Then there would be no point in reading something like this http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2013/07/a-black-reader-laments-his-people/ since clearly any black who disagrees with the “black frame” is simply stupid and uniformed or has somehow lost sight of the right frame, even if they might have grown up being taught it. No point in listening to alternative viewpoints from blacks if they aren’t using what we deem to be the “black frame”. Carry on.
LikeLike
I look at America through my own lens and not in the way that others see it. I’m one of those people who believes that people see what they want to see and will look for certain things because of what they’re conditioned to believe in.
I know a population of racists exists in America of all hues, and would love to see our demise, but I refuse to live my life as a victim. I refuse to live my life as simply being a color and make every aspect about my life all about race. I’m just not consumed by it like others are and I don’t see a reason why I should be.
I make no apologies why I don’t see racism as the main obstacle that thwarts our success as a people because I don’t follow that ideology and it’s simply not good for me or my family’s psychological well-being.
LikeLike
I guess Leo and Biff need re-framing.
LikeLike
@ Biff
I did not say that. You are reading that in. Black people think for themselves. Their opinions cover a broad range. Who is to say who is right? The counter-frame is a common set of ideas observed by a white sociologist, not articles of faith handed down from on high.
LikeLike
Leo,
“I’m one of those people who believes that people see what they want to see and will look for certain things because of what they’re conditioned to believe in.”
Does this go for you to? If not, what were you conditioned to believe and how do/did you decondition yourself?
“I make no apologies why I don’t see racism as the main obstacle that thwarts our success as a people because I don’t follow that ideology and it’s simply not good for me or my family’s psychological well-being.”
What people? Black people? Racism is what divides Americans into white people, black people, and Asian people. So if racism is a big enough issue to separate the American people why wouldn’t it be a big enough issue to thwart your people’s success.
The only reason I can see “that ideology” as being detrimental to your family’s psychological well-being, is that you view racism as insurmountable. So then I have to wonder, what do you mean by main? I think you mean it’s not the easiest obstacle, so it shouldn’t be our main focus.
LikeLike
@Abagond
Great post! And I love the picture you chose!lol
LikeLike
Solesearch
Excellent question!
“Racism is what divides Americans into white people, black people, and Asian people. So if racism is a big enough issue to separate the American people why wouldn’t it be a big enough issue to thwart your people’s success.”
**************
Not to take away from what you stated, but if I were to re-frame your question, I would make a slight change….
[WHITE SUPERIORITY/ POWER] Racism is what divides Americans into white people, black people, and Asian people. So if [WHITE SUPERIORITY/POWER] racism is a big enough issue to separate the American people why wouldn’t it be a big enough issue to thwart your people’s success.
***************
@ Leo
Are you a WHITE person?
LikeLike
@Biff
“Then there would be no point in reading something like […] since clearly any black who disagrees with the “black frame” is simply stupid and uniformed or has somehow lost sight of the right frame, even if they might have grown up being taught it”
You are displaying a remarkable degree of fallacious cognition on this matter. Abagond clearly stated that not all Black people follow the counter-frame or the White frame. Some follow one, some follow the other, many fall sonewhere between the two and even then, many still have their own imaight into each frame.
That is paraphrased, but that is more or less what Abagond conveyed toward the middle/end of this blog post. At best, your argument is redundant since it reflects a conceit which Abagond already made. At worst, your argument is more idiocy, for which you are infamous for spreading on this blog. Why do you even come here? You learn nothing, argue with everything and never convince anyone with your feeble skills as a rhetorician. Is your life so filled with mundanity that you can seek no other fulfillment beyond violating Confucian principles on how to avoid affirming one’s own foolishness?
@Leo
There is an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air that was made just for people in your situation. Will and Carlton get profiled and locked up while transporting a vehicle that belongs to a (White) family friend. Carlton so desparately wanted to believe that the police officer was just doing his job, but both Will and Phil knew better and had to leave Carlton to come to the proper conclusion once the delusion ceased clouding his vision.
I agree that our people (I am giving you he benefit of the doubt as actually being Black) do indeed need to vacate the narrative of the victim and occupy the narrative of the victor, but I am not naive enough to dismiss an on-going history of torrment as merely being people seeing what they wish to say. It will be okay though. Paul Mooney also has some wisdom on the matter. One day, you’ll receive what Mr. Mooney refers to as the “nigga wake up call.”
LikeLike
[…] The black counter-frame (1600s- ) is the set of ideas, images, narratives, history and so on through which many Black Americans see and understand America. According to white sociologist Joe R. Fea… […]
LikeLike
Matari, I’ll accept your change. lol. I should have been more explicit.
LikeLike
OK, some commenters may slam me on this, but so be it. 😛
Actually, I agree with what Abagond says. Blacks in America have had to form a sort of counter frame to deal with the white racial frame that forms the mainstream cultural view. It is an attempt to diffuse the negativity directed towards them from the white racial frame. Without a counter frame, the only choice is to assume the white one or simply disappear.
But it is a very uninspiring sort of frame to view things in. It is more of an appeasement, or the “misery loves company” type of frame. Such a frame will always be a bit weak, and it does not lead to much change or improvement (or only when it festers to the point that the white side has to patch something up). If this is the proposed counter frame, then it means that African-American culture is the weak end of American culture balanced out by the strong white end. Any cultural or social or whatever achievement by the black end could easily simply be absorbed into the white end, leaving the black end just as weak as before.
Why do I say this? Because it is framed as being antipodal to white. And with white being at one pole, with its overpowering magnetism, the other side will be weak, and exist mainly just to counter the other end. It also supports the idea that white people created the black man in America (which may be more or less true), but it yields its existence and strength to the ebb and flow of the white man. (Man does not mean male person, but just people in general.)
I really hope that the counter frame could evolve into a frame that is not antipodal to whites, but more “incidental” to the white frame. That is, the strength of the counter frame does not exist as a resistance to the white frame, but in spite of it. That is why some cultural and social reference besides “white” needs to be adopted. Otherwise, one may always perceive oneself at the short end of the stick. Anyone who is white-washed, but not white will have this problem.
The black counter frame that Abagond describes suggests that American blacks are rather white-washed, because the point of reference is at the receiving end of white racism. They are just as white-washed as the blacks who assumed the “white racial frame”. They are white-washed, because “white” is the basis for the frame of reference.
I have seen many here on this blog complain that white simply “stole” black culture (like music or dance or whatever), made some slight modifications, and adopted it as their own. Well, I don’t really believe that people “steal” cultures. They share, adapt, adopt, modify, even mimic or copy, but do not “steal”. How did China learn about trains? Some 19th Chinese railroad workers in the American west became railroad engineers, and then took the concept of railroads back to China with them after the cross-continental lines were connected. America was the pioneer. But, today, China is criss-crossed with high speed trains and their cities have fast, cheap, clean subways. America now sucks in their transportation infrastructure. But I cannot say that China stole the culture of railroads any more than the West stole the culture of gunpowder.
Black Americans need to take hold of a culture and history that whites cannot either white-wash or copy and call their own. The best way to start is to take control of one’s history — write the pages of history for yourself. The REAL history is one you own, and no one can steal it from you. And if you take control of it, they cannot whitewash it in front of your eyes.
I might need to eat my words. The FBI does not like this sort of thing. 😛
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kushite Prince:
I love the picture of Huey Freeman, abagond used as well. ^_^
I like the one of Huey in your avatar, too! Huey Freeman, the black, militant revolutionary, activist!
When i had braids back in the day, when my sister took my corn rolls out, everyone told me i look like Huey Freeman. LMFAO!
LikeLike
@Jefe
Good example with China’s advanced rail system. I would say Blacks made the NBA their own, but those athletes are merely making the team owners, a majority who are White, richer.
LikeLike
oh lord sondis, I know u didn’t just call it corn rolls, lmbao, that sounds like some type of food not a hair style.
LikeLike
“everyone told me i look like Huey Freeman”
uhuh, my dad used to have a fro and said ppl told him he looked like Michael Jackson. huey is the best character on there. I wish the creator would grow him up though as it is weird for me to keep lusting over him and he young smdh.
LikeLike
I thought it was corn rows.
LikeLike
This is a good post. compliments the previous post thread from yesterday.
LikeLike
@Sondis
Braids?? I’m sure that was a sight to see!lol
LikeLike
@Sondis: I bet you were handsome with cornrows.
LikeLike
Well, Abagond, you put someone like Clarence Thomas in the “white frame”, and elsewhere you’ve called him an uncle Tom and other derogatory terms. Elsewhere I’ve seen you try to divide blacks into two camps, with one that is totally discredited as being corrupted by the ideas of white people. Maybe that’s not your intent here, but it kind of seemed like it.
Then this idea that you can put all white views in a neat “white frame” is ridiculous. Lots of white people like myself (maybe even a majority of them, since whites lean heavily conservative) have very little interest in CNN due to liberals like Fareed. I actually think if you had more of the “black frame” on TV, most white liberals would eventually just change the channel, as well.
Whites have done all they can do to get rid of white racism short of killing themselves, including, for starters, giving racial preferences for schools and jobs, downplaying media coverage of crimes commited by blacks (e.g., the Trayvon Martin revenge killings), making any white person who uses the “n” word a virtual social pariah (that’s why I can’t type out the word), and avoiding any race related public discussions of what has happened in Detroit or is happening in Chicago, etc. Now, a generation after we undertake all of these reforms, we still get people trying to say “the main thing wrong with America is white racism” when our country’s finances are out of control, we are getting economically buill-dozed by China and our border states are undergoing Mexican reconquista? Seriously?
The underpresentation of blacks/minorities in liberal controlled media is unmistakable if you look for it. I can often look at MSN’s front page and count pictures of 20 white people before seeing a single person of a color. I think if minorities (particularly hispanics) were adequately represented, a lot more whites would become racially conscious, and not in a way that would make them more amenable to the “black frame”.
LikeLike
@ Jefe
Most of the black counter-frame as laid out here is defensive. I agree with that. But given the position blacks find themselves in, that is unavoidable. For example, “Black is beautiful” should go without saying, but the black shame taught by the white racial frame makes it necessary.
I would not call it weak, though. Blacks have gone from slaves to being half middle-class within 150 years. Not even Jews can say that. And we know it was not due to the kindness and fairness of white people, even though the white racial frame reads it in just that way. The black counter-frame is part of what got blacks to this point. Without it they would still be slaves – or still be sitting at the back of the bus.
That is not to say the black counter-frame is perfect, that there are not new elements that can and should be added. Gendered sexism and Afrocentricity are newer elements, for example. None of this stuff falls from the sky. History, like you say, is a huge area for improvement.
I completely disagree, though, with the idea that the white racial frame is in better shape. It has way more money, minds and institutional power behind it, so it is strong in that sense, but the frame itself is a historical slime mould. Its whole purpose is to make racism respectable, to excuse howling crimes, to give people a false sense of self-worth and moral virtue. It is a huge lie. It makes the victims of its genocide the savages, it makes its former slaves the lazy ones and it makes themselves the good guys of history, a light unto the world. How sick and deluded is that? EVEN FOR A WHITE PERSON, the black counter-frame is a zillion times better than the white racial frame.
LikeLike
Just got a new device, but it still takes me too long to read through all the other comments before i post a comment so chuck it, ill just post my too cents and let be.
the black counter frame
– abagond seems to have left out – books,magazines,articles,blog’s(inculding this blog of course) etc
LikeLike
OK fair enough.
Agree that the white frame has its weaknesses, esp. the self-delusional aspects that you allude to. Maybe that might contribute to bringing the whole system down.
I guess by “weak”, I didn’t really mean that the black counter frame was powerless against the white counter frame, esp. in adjusting its social position. Certainly it has been. I think I meant by weakness I meant the nature of its self-definition, ie, with respect to whiteness. But then I suppose that the white frame is weak in that regard too, as it positions itself on the other side of non-whiteness as well.
I suppose by strong, I meant that it seemed to pull people in that direction. That is consistent with the concept of the expansion of whiteness in America, ie, how people become white, even if that means giving up most of oneself to assume positions that are hardly moral or just. I didn’t mean that it is better. I am not sure if the black pole of the American racist frame attracts people to its side, eg, for being more moral or just.
“the black counter-frame is a zillion times better than the white racial frame.”
Do you mean morally? Apparently many people do not see how it is better, otherwise, they would not gravitate to the other.
So, is it advisable to keep with the current paradigm, or explore and establish new models? Actually, when I think about it, this white racial frame vs. black counter frame polarization was one of the things that made me uncomfortable about the USA. I couldn’t find a suitable racial frame that fit, and found it very stressful that we had to adopt racial frames in the first place.
LikeLike
1.we’re all god’s childern – as an athiest I gaged on that one, and as I continually review religious views esp christianity , i find in its pathetic irrationality the reason for our conflicts sufferings and failures.
LikeLike
@ Mbeti
That one comes from the black church, which has been one of the main purveyors of the counter-frame.
LikeLike
I like this post a lot but not all Black people think alike. I don’t see why many people think we, as a race, all think alike as a herd of sheep. We are not a monolithic group. It makes me mad whenever they ask me what is the Black point of view on a subject like I am an expert on what my people think. Shaking my head, they are shocked when I find out that I don’t listen to Lil Wayne or any of that mainstream Rap crap and that I love Led Zeppelin and Queen.
Yes many of us do have a different mindset from mainstream White AmeriKKKlan but we don’t all think alike.
LikeLike
@ Jefe
The black counter-frame is better than the white racial frame both morally and in being way less deluded. But right, neither frame should be necessary in the first place. America needs a multiracial frame.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So, are you suggesting a multiracial frame that is tripodal to the black and white frames? or multipodal with other frames (eg, Mexican-American or Chinese-American?)
Would an new frame develop that is antipodal to the multiracial frame?
Maybe you could do a post on the new multiracial frame that you envision to replace the white / counter black racial frames (or at least counter to both those frames). 😛 😛 😛
Maybe if the USA had had a multiracial frame when I was growing up, I wouldn’t have felt so compelled to leave. The USA has had multiracial people for centuries, but they were always marginalized, and never developed a healthy racial frame.
I think I get a taste of this multiracial frame in my interaction with the USA,eg,
– the attendees at my mother’s funeral were about 25% Asian, 25% white, 25% black and 15% Hispanic, 10% multiracial
– my godmother’s extended family has Asian, white, black and Hispanic mixed all through it – they have very mixed looking family reunions
– one of my cousins is always sending pictures of her grandsons, one is about 3/8 black, 3/8 white and 1/4 Chinese, the other is about 1/2 Pakistani, 1/4 white and 1/4 Chinese. They are only a year apart and growing up in the same town and hang out together. I wonder how what racial frame they will assume in 20 years.
I can’t say for sure if any of their racial frames are migrating to either the white or black ends — maybe it is towards a new pole?
In order for these people to join together to participate in the same activity in a friendly cooperative manner, the situation forces them to adjust their racist frames to fit with each other. Maybe that is part of the way forward.
LikeLike
Jjefe , for all the things you said your mother said that were racist, your mom and pop had a lot of courage to try to marry and have kids
LikeLike
I realize when she got pregnant (unintentionally), she was caught between a rock and a hard place. Abortion was illegal (and could only done back-alley style), and her parents would not take her in (esp. given the frontline news that had occurred in her hometown in an area where the local politicians and law enforcement were in cahoots with the KKK), and as a young, unwed mother of a mixed-race baby spurned by her parents, she would have face a life of poverty. The least horrible option was to get married. I have to tell myself daily that all of the other options would have been far worse.
I didn’t know the full story about the Freedom Riders incident until after my mother died, and I researched it. I really wish that that history had been taught to me as a child (instead most of the useless nonsense they do teach). Would have helped growing up.
BTW, my father actually said more racist things than my mother, usu within earshot of whites (who were the good ole boy types). I think I helped break his internalized racism when he got middle-aged. But my mother actually seemed to believe that certain aspects of white privilege were normal. It was that white frame view that got me all spooked out and antsy. I couldn’t take it.
LikeLike
@ Jefe
By a multiracial frame I mean one that would inform a successful multiracial society in America. It would not be this fake colour-blind, post-racial or diversity-through-tokenism stuff that keeps white privilege and racism in place. It would take the place of the white racial frame. It would be a frame that all Americans could hold as a healthy way to view themselves and their society. It would inform and support egalitarian policies, heading off a white racist backlash. It would see a society where no one race is above another as a good thing.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
Right, I think he was being deliberately obtuse.
LikeLike
@ Biff
The white racial frame is poisonous for ANYONE to believe in, not just black people. It is hideous. It divides the country. It leads to terrible policies on crime, health care, poverty and education. It has led to genocide, slavery and the current inequality in American society. Not just between the races but even among whites. The American economy has doubled in real terms over the past 30 years, yet the bottom 80% is still just scraping by. That is obscene and criminal. It is robbery on a massive scale. And it was made possible by appealing to the racism of white people by way of the Southern Strategy:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Im not sure I understand all the theories being talked about here , particularly some of the comments on black American culture , I see a disconnect by many people on what black American culture is,as well as whar black Afro diasporic culture is…
Sam pointed out very well on another thread how deeply black American culture has influenced American culture in a big way..in many respects, American culture has black American culture embedded all in it
How can we perceive black American culture as weak? Our popular American culture is dominated by black American culture
Black American jazz is studied in the highest institutions of learning
I mean cmon black American jazz is BLACK COUNTER FRAME personified, brought to us by an advanced group of black Americans.Most black Americans today are in disconnect with black American jazz history, what it means to the legacy of black America .
On the mundane superficial plane, white America did gravitate to jazz, and they marketed it making white artists the big momey makers…that doesnt take away one iota the origins and who the great innovaters were…in the long run, people are learning of the grear works of Armstrong, Ellington, Bird, Diz, Miles, Coltrane, and many other artists who worked with these individuals, and you can beleive black American jazz always was a black counter frame
Is it because people can only relate to this on a political leval tha there is nary a mention of these incredible geniuses and their contributions to black American legacy on any of these discusions? Or people just dont know or care about it?
talk about a subject for a thread, Abagond, do one on “What is black American culture?”…Id be interested in the responces
LikeLike
Jefe,
“Black Americans need to take hold of a culture and history that whites cannot either white-wash or copy and call their own. The best way to start is to take control of one’s history — write the pages of history for yourself. The REAL history is one you own, and no one can steal it from you. And if you take control of it, they cannot whitewash it in front of your eyes.”
This has already been done, but it doesn’t stop white people from white-washing history. They control what textbooks are used in schools.
I feel like there is a very schizophrenic view of African Americans that complicates any discussion. We are Americans and subject to America’s rules and regulations, not an autonomous group. We are not a nation unto ourselves, but we and others constantly talk about us as if we were.
There is always talk about what black people should do as a group. Like African-Americans have elected representatives that enforce the policy and direction of African-America. The American government does that.
LikeLike
@ Jefe, many years ago when I still taught history I was told we cannot teach those things because the kids couldn’t handle it. It would lower there self esteem. I still now like I did then think that is why so many students feel lied to after they do their own research. After they grow and whatever age that is they feel like we Santa Claus them.
Which is why I would love to try to tackle a site for history that tells about these issues for young kids perspective. Yet, I fear the response it would get seeing that telling kids that Puritan and Pilgrims did not get along got me in hot water.
LikeLike
Every black American innovation in music and dance in America , each movement , is BLACK COUNTER FRAME , that went on to become mainstream American culture …at its innovation, each cultural innovation was against the grain of what was happening at the time…it absolutly is a black counter cultural frame at that point…many times, being banned ,repressed, destroyed…I talked about this on the Booty Dancing Thread
Early New Orleans jazz,from Buddy Bolden to, Baby Dodds, Armstrong, Jelly Roll , Syney Bichet , etc , was extremly counter culture at that time, was black American expresion….1870 the first jazz started being played, partly as a blues musicians , setting into motionresult of Jim Crow laws that forced classicly trained musicians to play with a black counter frame to the white culture at that time…then, in the early 1900’s, a white group got the call to make the first jazz record and they said blacks had nothing to do with it…at the same time, jazz started taking off because of the new technology , records and, radio, and, white America started gravitating towards it and all these black dances, that are very much a black counter frame, also subject to being banned and dissmissed , start coming out and white people start coypying that, the Charlestong, Black Bottom, Shimmy , Shag
LikeLike
Tin Pan Alley was invented so white writers could write music to fit into the new beats and dances, they were forced to fit into a black counter frame of cultural aproach
Armstrong starts to become incredibly popular, makes two records, the “Hot Fives and Seven” and it becomes world renowned and recognised for the genius it is, to top it off, Armstorng in an innovative black counter cultural counter frame , brings a new singing style that a huge amount of recognised American singer latch on to, Bing Crosby, Billie Holliday, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, all ackowledge Armstrong as their inspiration, and the white jazz big bands start becoming super popular, playing a more homoginised and comercial style, that actualy has been described as making arrangements around Armstrong licks…this is all black counter frame culture , coming in and dominating American culture..
Yet, it still goes forward , innovating, becoming counter frame culture at every new step…Boogie Woogie (think Boogie Woogie Bugle B oy , 8 to the bar) morphs with blues into Rock and Roll , from Little Richard and Chuck Berrey, was banned and shocking to many white Americans
then James Brown and funk, serious black counter frame thinking at that time,that the rappers sampled big time decades later…
Hip hop , and incredible beat and dance at first, turning the world on its head, and spinning on its back, definitly black counter frame culture
I mean , King ofTrouble, did you ever think of it like this, as how black frame counter culture should be taught, should be embraced and be the fonte of strength, pride and self esteem? Again, Im wondering if people can actualy describe what Black American Culture is
LikeLike
“1870 the first jazz started being played, partly as a blues musicians , setting into motionresult of Jim Crow laws that forced classicly trained musicians to play with a black counter ”
this got twisted up, i was having trouble with the computor, it should read
” in 1870, the first jazz started being played , partly because of Jim Crow laws that forced classicly trained musicians to play with blues musicians.and this was black counter frame culture..”
somthing funny happened , and it got mushed up
LikeLike
@B.R
Well said but can you please tell me what a counter White frame is?
LikeLike
So true. Especially the comments re: Hispanics distancing themselves from Blacks, and how they and Asians assimilate into white ‘culture’. Personally, I don’t care for Hispanics or Asians, and I detest Whites, but oh well, gotta live around them (which doesn’t mean I have to love ’em). That’s just how I am.
LikeLike
@ B.R. if I had known you back then I might have had you come in as a guess speaker on musical progression. We did do a small very small lesson on it. Yet, my musical knowledge is lacking in many areas. I almost end at Robert Johnson I like Blues and I can hear the harmonies pain in Work Songs. We went through a little code in message in those songs but I would need to be deeper in music to really teach off of it. Most of my experience has been with the contract side of it. (That is why the falling of getting these Hush Songs together is really hitting me hard. I just have run out of steam because of legal, big heads, and me looking for a job.) I think when you want your kids to feel the pulse of his people lullabies and folk songs hit hard.
So this time I am going to ask if anyone remembers any lullabies that their parents, or grandparents sang them. I am going to work with musicians I trust and aren’t looking to one-up or jock into first person and absolutely I will check every song out. I am not just going to leave it to the composer to get the music.
LikeLike
@solesearch,
OK, fair enough. I apologize for getting high-handed at times by suggesting what people should do “as a group”. How about if I mention what people *can* do as individuals and what they *can* do if they band together with others.
I do hope parents (and this would include white parents also), at least, will realize and acknowledge that US history in school is white-washed. As parents, people do have some limited control of that – they can monitor the school board members and try to get them removed if they approve history books that are more white-washed than others. Or they can complain or even campaign against a school district or principal that prefers a white-washed textbook over one that is less white-washed. I can’t believe that parents have zero control or influence. I don’t believe this.
Even if parents cannot exhibit the control over what their kids learn as much as they would like, they can acknowledge that the education at school is full of holes and they can see what they can do to patch it up. This does mean that parents take an active role in their kids’ education, but I think that is a good thing.
Last year, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong tried to propose that
moral and national education would replace the prior moral and civic education in order to “strengthen national education”. Such concepts include the notion that demoted democracy as a best sustainable form of government and promoted the virtues of a communist system. There was severe and vigourous protest across many sectors of the population, including students, parents, and others. People actually READ the new guidelines, and at least got the Education Bureau to delay enforcement of it until 2015. I think there will be renewed protests next year and the following year.
I really like it when I see parents and students so actively involved in the educational content of their schools.
The only time I have ever seen students and parents so involved in the actions by the schools in the USA was when they protested mandatory desegregation in the 1970s. So parents are passive about what is being taught to their kids, but not so when white kids are forced to go to school with black kids.
(This is why I get so confounded about the USA and why I get the impression that the focus on education by Americans is not about educational content or achievement, but social and political motivation, and maybe religious).
Parents taking a stand DOES work, even in the USA. When I was in High School, the school decided to discontinue 3rd year and 4th year French classes. I, together with a few other students (and their parents of course), protested this decision, and the school finally approved that for those students interested, the school would pay for them to take a university correspondence course. So I had the county school district pay for me to take a university French course when I was in high school.
(This was in PG county, MD when it was about 62% white and 30% black and only a few years after mandatory desegregation. Today PG county’s school system is about 81% black, 11% Latino and 4% white — I am not sure what is possible today.)
I still am amazed (or should I say, dismayed) by the passivity of parents in the USA regarding their kids’ education. The fact that you say you have to relinquish control to white people also confounds me. I guess I simply don’t get it.
LikeLike
Adeen , do you mean a white counter culture against the system ? surfing might be a white counter culture , although invented by Hawaians. American culture has black American contributions woven throughout its fabric, even the banjo is an African instrument…there are also white influences in black American culture , like harmonic progressions , but the black contributions seem to get swept under the table, and that is the problem…
KOT , you mean you had copyright issues ? That is too bad ..
I don’t even think a person has to like jazz, or, rock to study how that musical music and dance idiom played a part in the social fabric at the time , how universally , there is always white resistance to these black counter culture frames , and , yet they go on and dominate the popular culture…I think that is very powerful , relevant to struggle , important to understand and know it plays out the same way in other countries who brought slaves from West Africa to the Americas, like Brazil
LikeLike
@Abagond,
Please consider formulating a post on the multiracial frame you are proposing and what aspects you think it will address about the defects of the other frames. I think that would be a good discussion.
LikeLike
KOT , and please know I’m appealing to you here , not debating , I think there is a big disconnect from the experiences of great great grand parents in the narrative of black American history. It always starts with the mid sixties , the twenties, thirties , forties are a nebulous cloud , with most of the focus on lynchings, Jim Crow, one drp rule , basically , what was happening in the south.
In my opinion , the cultural evolutions , the struggle and resistance to black cultural counter frames and how they eventually became mainstream American culture, is the bigger American picture of the black American history , and fight with racism.
Right now , the black American writers from the thirties and forties and the activists from the mid sixties are the narrative, not the culture , not the struggles of those cultures..
Tap dancing , a profound black counter cultural frame , innovated and perfected by black Americans , whites flocked to it big time and white tap dancers got to be the big stars , Fred Astair, Gene Kelley, yet very ironic tap dancing became the object of wrath for black sixties activists , along with put downs on Armstrong…very sad…Armstrong was the example of how black American great great grand parents had to deal with white racism. If you watch an interview with Armstrong and a white reporter, you will actually see him playing the white man, but without revealing it to the white man
I think these cultural movements and their struggle is the fillet mignon of the black American history narrative, yet there is a major disconnect
What does Malcolm X have to do with be bop ?
LikeLike
@ jefe
Great suggestion! Thanks. It will probably be up today or tomorrow (New York time).
LikeLike
Answer , the Zoot suit wars, Spike Lee even referred to it in his film.
Yes, be bop , one of the highest level American cultural expressions, also had its cultural struggle in the black American story, and many of the giants of be bop were heroin addicts, I think a lot of that had to do with racism and internal conflicts because of that, these were unrecognized geniuses
LikeLike
No problem BR, even if you were debating me I have pretty thick skin. I have years of callousing so don’t worry about it. I can definitely take an argument and not latch on personal feeling about it.
I personally think that black history should start with the blacks that came with the explorers themselves. Which there was a few, then it should hit on to progression. I am not saying it should be all black history in-fact lets pull in Asian, Native American, Arabic, Hispanic and those of European parentage.
If we were honest about our history and started to work for a more unifying goal, we would find this country progressing at a much faster rate. Yet, with the governor of half and false history inhibiting the motor of this country we crawl
LikeLike
Abagond was relaying a description, not giving a prescription. Why are people arguing as if this was some sort of rhetorical perch from which Abagond was handing down edicts. He is merely relaying the result of someone’s observations about a collective, shared perspective. No one, including Abagond is demanding a “buy in”.
LikeLike
@ Angela: Comment deleted for being off topic.
LikeLike