February 13, 2021 • 45 mins
In this special Saturday episode of TDZ, Miles and Jack take a look at some of the underrated ways Black Americans created the modern Zeitgeist.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to this special episode of
dais Silic production of My Heart Radio and Uh, I'm Jack.
That is Miles Um and today, in honor of Black
History Month, we wanted to tell some stories, uh of
(00:23):
underrated ways the black Americans throughout history created the modern zeitgeist.
And then we're you know, these are stories that I
didn't learn in my history education. Nobody learns any proper
black history in school, like unless you're unless you're fortunate
enough to go to a school where the faculty or
(00:45):
the administration there is like, no, we actually need a holistic,
well thought out, uh curriculum around the history of people
of color, black people through the lens of their experience,
rather than the oppressor's lens, which just like and they
wanted that and we gave it to them and now
they're good. Yeah yeah. Um. So one, let's let's just
(01:10):
kick off here with Bessie Coleman, who, uh, I think
one of the things from early twentieth century imagination that
we like can't quite appreciate is how into aviation people were.
Like people were obsessed with the I mean because they
(01:32):
flying had just been invented. People were super into that. Uh,
you know, fighter pilots in World War One. We're heroes. Um.
And you know, I think it's the closes. I could
come as like in the two thousand's tens, when like
it was really cool to be like in the tech industry,
(01:55):
and like how quickly that shifted. Uh. But instead of
just like you know, Mark Zuckerberg making a lot of money,
the people who are flying planes and like, you know,
being brave enough to experiment with the stuff, we're uh,
you know, doing heroic acts and winning wars. So it
(02:15):
was just a super central part of the you know,
collective imagination of Americans in the early twentieth century. Um.
And then you know, it developed so quickly that it
passed from humans rocketing through thin air to something we
get annoyed if it isn't fast and convenient enough, uh,
(02:36):
like in the span of fifty years. But at the time,
people were blown away by anybody who was going up
in the air. Um, people you know idolized them. And
that's where Bessie Coleman comes in. She was known as
uh Queen Bessie the Avia Tricks. Uh. She grew up
her parents were sharecroppers, uh, and then her dead basically
(03:02):
left the family, Uh, to go live on Native he
was part Native American, part African American, and he wanted
to live on tribal land because she was just terrible. Uh,
it was easier there, and it wasn't it wasn't easy there,
m but so yeah, like watching that evolution of her,
(03:27):
Like I love reading this anecdote about how she even
got into flying because that's whether fought in World War
One and was and was in France and saw what
what France was like. And he was like, Oh, the
ladies out they they're just doing ship. Yeah, like they
just they Okay, So he came back. It's like sucking
(03:47):
with his sister, Like yeah, you think your big time,
but in France he's like women are liberated and they
can't do any they can't even fly, And it's just
funny how it was. You know, I think in talking
about Black History stories and we were talking about this
off Mike and even thinking about like how we would
talk about, you know, contributions of African Americans are like
(04:08):
what a what an episode looks like about talking about
African American history in the context of a Black History
Month episode, and it's not just about realistical about interesting
things African American people have done, um, and sort of
juxtaposing that with how hard it is. I think most
people do that, but you have to take that extra
(04:30):
step to begin to actually think about It's not just that,
oh wow, it was so hard during this time. It's
that all of these like inspiring stories, all of these
art forms with a lot of things we're gonna talk about,
they're born out of the pursuit of black people seeking liberation,
seeking a way to be as free as they saw
(04:52):
other people, specifically white people. Um, whether that is from
the eras of slavery or Jim Crow. But there's this
yearning for the feeling of freedom, of liberation, and from
that you get such real deep stories or art forms
that are just so undeniable. So yeah, like so even
(05:13):
as I think about Bessie Coleman, it's like, yes, she
was there. Part of her pursuit of even like being
trained as a pilot was that she caught wind of liberation. Yeah, freedom, right,
And so she's asking, you know, I think she what
crowd funded a way to even get to France because
there's no way she was going to you know, get
herself to France. Um. In that time, people. She's the smart,
(05:38):
so smart like they you know, she got people to
believe in her to do it. But yeah, yeah, that's
it's it's like, it's fantastic to see like what it
takes to get there, but also not forgetting that it
is it's all intertwined with the tragedy of oppression, um.
And again the pursuit of freedom, just that feeling just
(06:02):
to to be you, and in this instance, it was
that she's a black woman in the country that forget
even just women being able to you know, become aviators, um.
But like that the other additional barrier of racism and
things like that, that you have to go to another
country that you're still even thinking like, but I still
want to be free, so then that means I have
(06:24):
to go to this place. So it's like, yeah, it's
like half tragedy half beauty, but it's also also really
you know, thinking of what all of these achievements actually
mean in the context of the continued pursuit of liberation
for black people and all people at this point, but
in test context, Yeah, and that tension between you know,
the tragedy of oppression, the beauty of the you know,
(06:46):
struggle and genius that people brought to the struggle for liberation.
That tension is the history of America, like that contradiction
is the history of America. It's not the history of
black America. It's the history of America, straight up like that.
And it gets edited out. And that's a disservice to
everyone when it gets edited out of the story of America.
(07:08):
It doesn't allow for a true understanding of American history.
Absolutely not. I mean you, the things I've learned just
from studying history are it's so mindblowing. Like that's the
one that the only reason you know, I went to
I went to college because you know, you're sort of
inundated this idea of like you must go to college
(07:29):
for get job, um, And so I did that, but
I didn't. I knew I didn't want to have like
being a count or whatever. I thought I was probably
gonna be some silly man at some point. But I
knew if I didn't do that, I wanted to teach history.
So I I studied a lot of history. I was
like my major. But like the things you learned just
about our everyday lives from understanding your history, it's so valuable,
and like the fact that you know, a lot of
(07:51):
the times these things are obscured or distilled or washed,
white washed in a certain way. Um yeah, it keeps
us from actually connecting to the real truth. Not to
say that it's like you need to know how ugly things,
I mean, you do, but you also need to know
that to be able to envision a better version of that,
because if you don't have that context, then you're kind
(08:11):
of you're trying to make something without a real West
recipe card. Yeah. So with regards to Bessie Coleman, you know,
crowdfunding again, when she came back knowing how to fly, Uh,
there weren't jobs for her. Uh, there weren't jobs for
black pilots. There weren't jobs for women pilots. Uh. And
(08:32):
so again she had to rely on the generosity of
others and basically fly in donated planes, which ends up
she one of them dies while it's in the air.
She crashes, breaks a bunch of bones. And then a
few years later another donated plane crashes and she dies young.
(08:54):
But she is a star. And I mean just with
we we talked about the the damage that's done by
white supremacy. Uh, you know, both with people of color,
but also on white people, and like the cognitive dissonance
that is, like that lie in their brain. And I
(09:15):
think that you know, that's also a battle that's being
waged across time. And anybody who you know that that
seat of doubt, anybody who comes in being like, no,
you know, a black woman couldn't fly a plane. Surely
this is the most complicated, uh difficult thing to do.
And that's something that you know, was taken into World
(09:37):
War two. That was still like the standard narrative and
World War two. And but anybody who saw her or
knew her or read about her, and the mainstream media
tried to edit her out of of history. But anybody
who saw that that you know, that seat of doubt,
you can't ignore that. That's that's gonna grow in your
(09:58):
mind and in like across the culture and well, and
I think in a way like you'll see this over
a lot of the topics we talk about. Like to
your point is, if you're on a diet of saying
that this group of people is inferior or less than you,
and you have to behold their humanity and genius, that
(10:19):
will do something to you. Some people can move past
and evolve and say, well I just took an l
intellectually there because I just I've left around and found
out um or you will go further into your denial. Um.
But yeah, but these are these moments that like that inspire,
and you know that it does doesn't end with Bessie Coleman,
(10:41):
Like there's she inspires. She continues to inspire even after
her death. Yeah, I mean there's a road around I
think Chicago hair named after her. But more importantly, I
mean within the black community, like aviation becomes a thing
that people are you know that that's just a concept
(11:03):
that people are pursuing, uh that you know, in small
part or no small part, Like it has an effect
that ends up with the Tuskegee airmen, who in World
War Two were you know, basically twice as good as
any other pilot in terms of they they fought. Uh,
(11:25):
they were great fighter pilots, shooting German planes down without
without losing any pilots or losing any planes. And then
like when they had to do bomber accompaniment, like which
is the hardest thing to do, they because you're all
going around the slow plane underneath the anti air artillery.
Just like out the sky. Yeah, they lost like half
(11:49):
as many planes as any other unit per per mission
and just had to be twice as good, which is
something that I mean, that's a trope throughout And you know,
I heard it from my own father, whose father told him,
you're when you are you have an awareness of what
it means to be black in America. You are told
you will have to be twice as good to get
(12:10):
half as much or in general, you have to be
twice as good to get noticed. And it's yeah, I mean,
you're you're watching. It's like even statistically there are people
were like twice as good for half the recognition. Yeah,
and even with Bessie Coleman, like to just touch on
liberation again, one of her biggest inspirations was that she
(12:33):
saw that black people were being left behind because they
could not get into aviation. But she really felt, she said,
for our people to keep pace with the rest of
the world, we have to find a way to get
into aviation as well. This is a new tech, like
we have to be there. And again, just it's about
like a lot of these people, it's not just like
oh I want to do this or that. It's really
(12:55):
about like we know that there is a way to
get something better for our people, and we're invested in
a country that is taking a really long time to
figure out what that is. And but the exactly to
your point, the entire you know, the pace of americandustry
is about this back and forth of like trying to
understand the racist origins with how they're we're also embracing
(13:21):
these cultures to be our own and what that means
and everything. So yeah, yeah, I mean the another kind
of military story is the Harlem hell Fighters that I mean,
we can touch on really briefly, but the American military
in World War One was like, we don't really want
segregary soldiers, very segregated, uh, And they lent this group
(13:45):
to the French military, to the French Army in World
War One, and they fought longer than any other group
of American soldiers in World War One. Also had a
military band that was incredibly influential in Europe when they
were there and then came back and was a huge
(14:07):
contributing factor to, uh, the Harlem Renaissance. But they came
back from the war being like, we more than proved ourselves.
There's a dude who was so amazing that they put
his face on UH war bond stamps like he was
a national hero. They came back and were like all right,
(14:27):
like so, I think they called it the Two Front
War where they wanted, you know, victory in Europe, but
then they wanted to come home and fight for victory
and they instead faced That was right at the time
when there was this huge white lash, as Van Jones
called the Trump uh election, which I think happens throughout history. Um,
(14:54):
but that was the There was the Red Summer, uh
so called because it was a very letty summer of
slaughters by white people against black families. And then there
was the Tulsa you know massacre. You know, that was
all happening. Then the resurgence of the KKK because you know,
(15:14):
there was just a pushback because of what supremacy, being
a you know, works hard. It is a self sustaining
force in the culture. And with this again you know
Harlem hell fighters they go, they fight longer and harder
than anyone, and they the American soldiers did didn't want
(15:38):
to be with them, so they had to get loaned
out to the French. They'll be like, well, I guess
they'll funk with you. Um, they didn't. They were not
allowed to participate in the sending off parade to go
to war. That was they were not They were not
given that dignity what to leave to fight and die.
They also experienced the most losses I believe for any
(15:59):
fighting unit. But then they but they came back and
they gave them a parade. And all this to say
is like again, like you're saying this double victory, this
idea of how African Americans can serve in the military
and have served since the American Revolution. But we don't
talk about that because I think it's probably ends with
like Christmas addics or something like that, and we think
(16:21):
of like, okay, well that that black man died in
the in the Boston massacre. Um. But when you talk
about this double victory, it's about, yes, defending a country
that has even has enslaved you. But it's because you
know that this could help people to see that you're
also pulling in the same direction as this country, and
you're you want to also this to contribute to a
(16:44):
larger movement for liberation, equality injustice that we can you
know what will go there will serve our country because Unfortunately,
we have to still prove to these people in the
Americans in America that we are also America kins that
deserve the same respect. But yeah, it's it's just like
(17:04):
it's just again it's a NonStop thing. But at every
level or at every point in history, we have these moments.
And I mean to think of just you know, the
contributions throughout most military conflicts of black soldiers, I would
blow most people's minds because it wasn't until maybe seven
years I was well out of college before I actually
began to see, starting back at the American Revolution, what
(17:28):
truly the contributions were in this you know military context. Yeah,
a lot of the even Tuskegee Airmen and the Harlem
health fighters had to be like honored, uh posthumously, and
we're only given recognition in like the two thousands or
by the Clinton administration in the nineties. And it's just like,
(17:49):
um right, I think that's why it's not enough to
just have kind of retrospective things about being like this
is what's cool about the people that did these things.
We also have to talk about how different even in
that time, people were not giving them props, Like like
it's happening now. It was a completely different era, but
also one that we have to look in its eye
(18:10):
to understand that there's we have to actually address this
and how are we, um, how can we correct and
improve how our you know, our country can move forward
and evolve, um in a way that truly is like
honoring the contributions of all these people were going to
talk about who just you know, even though it could
be about changing music or sports, it's all born out
(18:32):
of this singular feeling of wanting to be free and
that that is still owed um two black people in
this country. UM. But we're still trying to figure out
how we're going to do that. But even even though
with that said, still continue to to to make strides
and and create you know, these achievements or works of
(18:53):
art that just continue. Yeah, you mentioned music, and we're
going to talk about that next. But first let's take
a quick break and we'll be right back and we're back.
(19:14):
And you know, when when you talk about the history
of popular music in America, I think I had an
awareness that there's been a pervasive process of invention by
black Americans followed by theft and popularization by white artists
from Elvis to the Beastie Boys to Eminem two modern artists. Uh.
(19:39):
There's this article by Wesley Morris, the New York Times
critic about the history of music that that really like
makes it clear that this is like the primary story
of like like we were saying, it's not just the
story of black history, it's the story of American history.
And this is the story of of American music. Like
(20:01):
he in this article, he points out that like there
wasn't really an American music prior to the minstrel show,
like that that was a thing like Americans were into,
like you know, just really European classic exactly like Polka
and Uh. And then this white actor T. D. Rice
(20:27):
claimed he saw old black man on a farm like
working with a horse and like imitated his singing and
put black burnt cork on his face and birthed like
the audiences called him back for twenty encores. Which I
(20:47):
think that's an important detail because that is like he
hit something that was so like desperately craved in by
these white audiences. Um. And it's just it, it's again
this unspoken thing. I I knew that there were were
was a tradition of minstrel shows in the history of America.
(21:10):
I didn't realize it was like the most popular and
the only type of popular music for a long time
that was truly American. And even from his act, like
that's where we even get Jim Crow, that character from
from TD Rice. It was on which a farm of
somebody named Crow. And so even in this article um
(21:33):
by Wessey Moris, like it even talks about, you know,
the evolution of minstrel cy, right that how that became.
It was about this like white gaze on blackness and
this fascination with it. But it was at the time
it was only comfortable to see a tongue in cheek
of a white person impersonating and that was like the act.
It's like they've kept wow, like they're doing it. And
then even then it evolved to the point where even
(21:55):
that you know, there were black people doing minstrel shows too,
and that the sort of mental jiu jitsu or putting
yourself in the inception mode of I'm doing an impression
of someone doing an impression of me the who I am,
and I have to now reflect that back to this
(22:17):
audience in a way that they're going to eat it up.
And then he said, again he uses that trouble like
talk about being twice as good, like the the bizarre
contradictory nature of that as an art form is like
it's so cruel um. But again it talks about this
fascination with the Again, this because the call and response
(22:40):
music that comes off of plantations um, and you know,
slave songs on ships and things like that, that's the
that feeling, even like soul music that's born out of
the struggle in pursuit of freedom. That's why it has
this drawing power because it's so authentic, and even if
(23:00):
the song isn't about specifically freedom, it's like, but Derek's
the expression is so different. It's not this sort of
pre prescribed version of what music is coming into that
which is like there there must be a harpsichord, a piano,
a contrabassoon, and this kind of choral arrangement with major keytonality.
(23:21):
All these other things like blue scales and all these
other ways of expressing yourself are coming out of this
imperfect way of expressing yourself because prior to that it
was very manicured and by the numbers and things like that.
And yes, you know, even looking at like at its peak.
He points out, like in the thirteen Billboard Awards, like
the people who are getting or Grammys, the people who
are getting nominated are Mack Lamore, Mighty Cyrus, uh, you know,
(23:47):
Robin Thick, who are precisely just doing this thing of
like there are things like, well, I love the music,
and of course there's no there's nothing wrong with liking
a genre of music and even taking that as you know,
and performing it. But it underlines this thing of like
I see it, I like it. I'm gonna do it
my way, and I'll also get a lot of success
(24:07):
from it. Maybe I'll you know, shift the focus back
to honor where the traditions in which I am taking
this from, or maybe I'll just blow up the charts. Um.
But it has like this weird thing of America. You know,
that's the thing with music. We love black culture, you know,
we love black culture. And the amount of like when
(24:29):
I go on Twitter, the amount of digital black face
I see with people, you know, the vernacular I've seen
on first on text of Twitter, and like, do is
that you? Is that you wanting to be like a
black person that you you like? Um, it's like America
wants to love the culture but can't really go all
the way and loving the culture in offering protection, offering freedom,
(24:52):
understanding the wrongs that have occurred in the past, and
then trying to move forward to that. It's almost like,
come on, we like everything, but let's let's not get
too hung up on that, you know, like when I
think that's the sort of this moment that a lot
of black people were waiting for in this country of like,
you love the culture, you take from the culture. It
gives you joy, it gives everybody, but you can't when
(25:14):
when are we going to When is that going to
be acknowledged in the sense of lifting us up or
providing the kind of support that has been asked for
since time immemorial. But yeah, I mean the music thing
is is truly like it's it's it's the it's really
the American thing because they say all the American art
forms they talk about where you know, like jazz, okay,
(25:38):
you're one of the most profoundly uh just in terms
of like how it's stereotypically imagined. Yacht rock. He opens
up by being like yacht rock is you know, mostly
associated with white dudes with mullets in the eighties, and
that is it is straight up just appropriating like you know,
(26:00):
soul music and other R and B music and other
forms of black music. That is just but it's just
put put in doctors, which is also kind of like
what my fascination is with Michael McDonald, you know, because
you know, and it's like what the Michael. And to
(26:24):
me it's funny because I'm like, this dude is really
she's he's going for it and it's but it's it's
there's still he can't quite get it there, you know,
because he's still Michael McDonald, but you know what he's
trying to do. Um, But it's all yeah, it's all
just part and parcel of you know, acknowledged are unacknowledged
taking and picking and choosing that we do and in
(26:46):
our culture. But yeah, and then he i mean he
talks about how Motown is like the peak of like
the achievements of you know, uh black artists, uh you know,
blending the you know, sensibilities that they knew that white
audiences would find appealing while also just like taking the
(27:10):
music to a higher level than had ever been achieved,
but just in terms of the thematic kind of peak
for for the article, he talks about Old Town Road being, um,
you know, the banjo is this instrument that is uh,
you know, starts with slaves and is then appropriated by
(27:34):
minstrel shows and in the South by white people, and
then you know, just it's this very kind of meta
um reversing of a lot of the music history while
like drawing a reference to it. And it's just so
interesting that I mean, he kind of points out it's
(27:54):
kind of a silly song, but it like tapped into
something so powerful and so like on point for American
music and like history of American music that it became
the biggest number one hit of all time right exactly.
And then because because even as you talk about like
the sort of aesthetic inception that's going on right the
(28:17):
banjo music, minstrel shows things like that, But then he's
sampling Trent resin Er, a white guy who that's this
that banjo sample comes from Trent Resoner, and then turns
it into a hit that made the country music gatekeepers
lose their damn minds because they're like suddenly now trying
(28:38):
to protect the sanctity. I think it was almost like
they have every other white art form country and now
what the heck, But you know what, that's that's what
this is. That's what it's. It's it's so it's so
weird of like America tries so hard to separate itself
from each other without realizing, like you know, in the
more toko Ville type vision, you know it, it's truly
(29:01):
this melting pot. Yeah, it's not like a segre I mean,
I know, people, it is segregated, but like the culture
of this is truly one of like all these other things.
And what level we can acknowledge that and embrace that
as a completely separate conversation. But yeah, for that, for
then that little Nazac song to become, you know, the
biggest song ever. I think it speaks to like this
(29:23):
this energy that exists, positive or negative, but it's just
very potent. Another name that I think a lot of
people don't know is Claudette Colvin, who nine months before
Rosa Parks was arrested Montgomery. She was a fourteen year
old who like kind of more organically without really planning
(29:45):
to Her and her friends were sitting in the you know,
back colored section of the bus and the bus was full.
A white person came back, sat there and said, you
guys have to move back so that you're not ing
as close to the front as I am. And she
just was fed up, didn't get up, did the same
(30:06):
thing that Rosa Parks is famous for, and got arrested.
And then the civil rights movement sort of grew out
of that. She was then befriended by Rosa Parks, who
was an official head of the civil rights movement and
organizations who were you know, part of the civil rights
movement at that part at that point, and they you know,
(30:30):
made the calculation that Rosa Parks will probably be more
palatable to a white audience. And it's just I feel
like Claudet Colvin gets written out of history because she
becomes a footnote because white people want to give themselves
credit for uh, the civil rights movement and like being
(30:52):
like coming around to be the press give of the
dominant culture, and the idea that they had to be
tailored to that they're kind of in built white supremacy
had to be like designed around by the civil rights movement.
(31:14):
I think is not is not something that the mainstream
culture wants to acknowledge about it so right, or that
even that the people in the civil rights movement. We're
even having to do that thinking too, of going, well,
we know how white people were going to respond to
this photo of Claudet Colvin versus Rosa Parks, who's from
a respectable family, has a little more social cash and
(31:36):
is lighter that this will play better, um again in
the pursuit of liberation. And yeah, it's just I think
it's her story too, is interesting because even like her mom,
they all kind of knew that They're like, this ain't
gonna be you, and he like Rosa Parks is gonna
(31:56):
take this one, and and we know, like that's what
should happen. But I or I mean, that's how they
were sort of strategizing in terms of the movement. But yeah,
I think it's also, Yeah, it has to be said
that this was it's activism takes all kinds of shapes
and forms, and the road to these like moments, there's
so much thinking, and it's still having to navigate sort
(32:20):
of these systems of oppression even to like get the
message out that you deserve dignity. Yeah, I mean, look
how the white media or just the mainstream media treated
Trayvon Martin after he's murdered Suddenly there's pictures of him,
you know that he posted the social media, like with
the headlines of like he's no angel, Like that's the
(32:45):
the idea that they you know, they they knew, they
were absolutely right that Claudette Colvin would have been uh,
you know, just discriminated against if if she had been.
Can you imagine us in a kid's history book, You're like, well,
hold on Rose, we know about Rosa Parks. But because
(33:05):
of colorism in this country and internalized white supremacy that
even the black activists knew themselves they were having to
overcome to optically present a case safe enough for the
consideration of Like that's how deep it has to get.
But I think that's what's necessary too, because you can't
just reduce these things to like it was one person
who sat down on the bus and that kicked off, Like, no,
(33:29):
this is it's a it's an continued effort um and
a lot of a lot of thought has to go
into these things, and unfortunately, these kinds of calculations have
to be made. Yeah, and then you know, one of
the more popular ways that people are you know, seeing
um activism these days is through you know, Colin Kaepernick,
(33:52):
NBA players striking, And I think there are a couple
sports stories where black history tree gets completely written out
or written around. Um. Horse racing was one that I
just wasn't even aware of. And I've been to the
Kentucky Derby, but African American riders were the basically the
(34:14):
first black superstars in American sports. They won fifteen of
the first twenty eight runnings of the Kentucky Derby. Uh
and then one and then that made them famous and
so uh the and that was also around the same
time that we were talking about with the Red Summer
and the Tulsa uh Black Wall Street massacre. Uh. They
(34:38):
started getting pushed out, like literally boxed out in in
the sense that white riders would like push them into
the rails, would uh you know, whip them while trying
to like literally whip them with the whips they were
supposed to be using to like get their horses to
go faster. Um. It's like fun because like when we
(35:00):
talk a lot about these about these stories, it's also
a story of how we American or white America or
the dominant American culture struggles to allow the success at
a certain level. Like it gets to a point and
then suddenly a circuit breaker has to be hit to
kind of like level the playing field really quick. Yeah,
(35:23):
we saw that again, even talking about this with the
concept of white lash or what if you wanna call
moral licensing whatever, and having Donald Trump elected after Barack Obama,
it got to a point and let's kind of let's
let's bring it down a couple of notches again. And
I think that's the thing that we also need to
bring more awareness to as a country as well, is
(35:43):
that there are these in built biases that a lot
of people have of like even seeing something like that
and not thinking twice about how discriminatory or awful that is.
It almost like, oh right, that's just part of the
subconscious of this culture. Um. But by talking about these stories,
we you know, hope to bring that kind of awareness
to people because you know, in talking about Kaepernick, we
(36:06):
we talked about how you and I both really didn't
know about Craig Hodges until we watched the Last Dance
and we knew who Craig Hodges was, you know what
I mean, Like when Craig Elo got that took that
shot in his face, or Mark Price and the Calves,
you know, Craig was right there. He was right there, uh,
in that one in that in the series against the
Detroit Pistons when Michael Jordan's got rocked and he's like,
(36:30):
I gotta start lifting weights if I'm gonna play against
Bill Amber and these maniacs. Um Craig Hodges scored more
points than Michael Jordan in that game where they went out,
and we forget that he suddenly vanished because in after
the Rodney King beating, it was the Bulls versus the Lakers,
and the game one of the championship, he was imploring
(36:51):
Michael Jordan's and Magic Johnson, two of the most visible
black athletes at that time, to boycott the game to
bring awareness to the just rampant racism that exist and
not just America, but policing specifically through the context of
this more Brodney King beating and how that just all
it took was that for him to stick up and say,
(37:12):
I think we should do this because this is a
real issue that when the powers that be within the
league caught wind of it, it's like, okay, so now
you're gonna start getting traded. Now you might not come
back from you know, you know, you were on the
injury reserve. Maybe your playing minutes are going to go down,
even though you're an All Star and you're shooting the
lights out on paper, um. And it's it's hard to
(37:32):
watch those moments because Craig Hodges he grew up in
a house of activists, and he was raised with the
knowledge and awareness of American history and systemic oppression and racism.
So when he's seeing it, he couldn't help but to
speak out. Unfortunately, this man was so ahead of his
time in just the mere idea of mentioning some kind
(37:54):
of act of solidarity to tell people that we're not
accepting this as black men was just way too much.
And it's hard to blame Magic or Michael too, because
that's a weird position to already be in as a
black man, is to have this power, but you are
also beholden to the white people that are paying you.
So it's this hand that feeds relationship that occurs. But
(38:16):
with Craig Hodges, he was very vocal. He he wore
a dashiki to the White House um and wrote an
eight page letter talking about all because he had been
raised to write letters to your politicians. If you have
something to say to your leaders, and he wrote an
eight page letter and all he got laughed at, and
that began the end of his career because he was
(38:37):
speaking up yeah and him, yeah, who was one of
the most lights out shooters at a time when the
NBA didn't value that as much as they should have.
But he dropped fifty one on John Stockton, one of
the great UH defensive guards in the history of the NBA,
just a lights out shooter, college teammate of Shaquille O'Neill
(39:00):
and yeah at l s U UH and he started,
you know, just conscientiously objecting by sitting during the national anthem,
like legitimately, that's what Colin Kaepernick did first before you know,
somebody was consulting with was like, kneeling would actually be
just like a better look, but sitting to just represent
(39:23):
that like there are I think he specifically said, like
there are uh countries around the world where that is
a symbol of oppression and violence and uh, you know,
so he was sitting. People weren't really paying attention to
that for a few games, and then once the league noticed.
(39:43):
At first, you know, Rod Thorne, who was like the
disciplinary and for the n b A, he talked to him,
and rod Thorn was like, I mean, there's no like
rule that says you can't do it. So and then
David Stern noticed and suddenly he was suspended in finitely right.
And then it became a compromise thing of like, well,
don't sit, do something else. He's like, what if I
(40:06):
pray or whatever, and like it was like this whole
back and forth and again he was just saying that
he was just observing the reality of America and commenting
on it out loud. But yeah, for him, it's funny
too because he had a bit of a different path
than Craig Hodge. Craig Hodges did because he only sort
of got into thinking critically about America when he was
(40:29):
handed a big autobiography of Malcolm X from his coach
at l s U. And that's when he actually converted
to Islam, and he realized He's like, oh my god,
I'm actually seeing all of these forms of systemic oppression
playing out in real time in front of my eyes
left and right in in the nineties or at the
time he was looking at it. So he had no
choice but to speak up because he was aware of
(40:51):
it all. And that's what's really interesting too, is like
when you see the NBA, uh, you know, trying to
get behind the players over the summer um and r
like the bubble postseason and things like that and a
lot of the Black Lives Matter messaging that was going on.
There's still a lot that the league can do too.
I would say, make people like Craig Hodges and mak
(41:11):
mud Adoro whole, because that countless dollars that were missed
from contracts, They were frozen out, they were both. Yeah,
especially if there's like literally no argument that dude was
lights out and they uh, you know, just basically screwed
with them, threw him off his rhythm, would hold him
(41:33):
out of games, would give them less playing time. There's
pressure on this coach to play him less. And you know,
at the very least they should be given a leadership
position with with the within the league to help with
these issues. Like just listening to both of them be
interviewed around the Black Lives Matter movement of last summer
(41:57):
and George Floyd's murder, they are just so compelling to
listen to uh and speak so clearly and so lucidly
about this because they've been thinking it and doing it
for decades now, like they need to be uh, you know,
part part of this conversation because for too long it
(42:18):
feels like it's been a statement crafted by Michael Jordan's
management to you know, and I don't know like that.
A hundred million dollars is a great start, which is
what Michael Jordan's wrote a check for, but it's still
I don't know like it people who are actually about
doing the work and making the uncomfortable, you know, having
(42:42):
the uncomfortable conversations right because they you know, because even
further back, you know, Craig Hodges and mak Mudobdor with
like they're inspired by Tommy Smith and John Carlos in
the six Olympics obviously like of seeing like right, these
are people who are representing a country that they have
a very tumultuous relations and ship with. But it's about
(43:02):
a vision that it can be better. That's why it's
not just I renounce everything. It's like, yeah, I'm here,
but in this moment where you're reflecting on the nation part,
I want it to be known that we can be
doing better. In fact, we must be doing better because
we are not fulfilling the full potential of what the
country can be um And for these two athletes merely
(43:26):
observing the reality at that time was just considered so provocative. UM.
And I think that's where we have to always keep
our eyes on how we treat people who are speaking
out against things and how we're looking at them, and
also how the media or just any powers that be
are trying to frame what is being said as being like,
what is it It's a hot take to ask for equality,
(43:49):
that's incendiary, that's not. And I think that's where we
have to open our minds a bit to understand that, like,
we're operating at like two of our capacity in this
country and we can be doing a lot more. And
so yeah, I think with that is being able to
to look back at what our history is, good and bad,
and understanding that there's even even the most inspiring people,
(44:10):
especially in like Black History Month, there's it's all about two.
It's not just not just observing and honoring these contributions,
but also honoring it in the sense that in your
lived life after this more than just February, you can
understand that a lot of these things that have given
us moments of joy and things to to gather around
these are all have been out of the pursuit of
(44:32):
liberation that is yet to be fully realized. And I
think that's where we all, we all owe it to
each other to begin to move in that direction. And
that's why we gotta keep you know, we gotta keep
talking about where we're coming from, because then we don't
know where we're gonna go. Yeah, uh and I mean there,
so you know, we we could give examples all day,
(44:54):
but I think that's a really good way to leave it.
Um that is going to do it for this actual
episode of Daily Zeitgeist. We will be back at the
regular time with episodes and episodes of trending uh, and
we will talk to you all then. I m
Hello the Internet, and welcome to this special episode of
dais Silic production of My Heart Radio and Uh, I'm Jack.
That is Miles Um and today, in honor of Black
History Month, we wanted to tell some stories, uh of
(00:23):
underrated ways the black Americans throughout history created the modern zeitgeist.
And then we're you know, these are stories that I
didn't learn in my history education. Nobody learns any proper
black history in school, like unless you're unless you're fortunate
enough to go to a school where the faculty or
(00:45):
the administration there is like, no, we actually need a holistic,
well thought out, uh curriculum around the history of people
of color, black people through the lens of their experience,
rather than the oppressor's lens, which just like and they
wanted that and we gave it to them and now
they're good. Yeah yeah. Um. So one, let's let's just
(01:10):
kick off here with Bessie Coleman, who, uh, I think
one of the things from early twentieth century imagination that
we like can't quite appreciate is how into aviation people were.
Like people were obsessed with the I mean because they
(01:32):
flying had just been invented. People were super into that. Uh,
you know, fighter pilots in World War One. We're heroes. Um.
And you know, I think it's the closes. I could
come as like in the two thousand's tens, when like
it was really cool to be like in the tech industry,
(01:55):
and like how quickly that shifted. Uh. But instead of
just like you know, Mark Zuckerberg making a lot of money,
the people who are flying planes and like, you know,
being brave enough to experiment with the stuff, we're uh,
you know, doing heroic acts and winning wars. So it
(02:15):
was just a super central part of the you know,
collective imagination of Americans in the early twentieth century. Um.
And then you know, it developed so quickly that it
passed from humans rocketing through thin air to something we
get annoyed if it isn't fast and convenient enough, uh,
(02:36):
like in the span of fifty years. But at the time,
people were blown away by anybody who was going up
in the air. Um, people you know idolized them. And
that's where Bessie Coleman comes in. She was known as
uh Queen Bessie the Avia Tricks. Uh. She grew up
her parents were sharecroppers, uh, and then her dead basically
(03:02):
left the family, Uh, to go live on Native he
was part Native American, part African American, and he wanted
to live on tribal land because she was just terrible. Uh,
it was easier there, and it wasn't it wasn't easy there,
m but so yeah, like watching that evolution of her,
(03:27):
Like I love reading this anecdote about how she even
got into flying because that's whether fought in World War
One and was and was in France and saw what
what France was like. And he was like, Oh, the
ladies out they they're just doing ship. Yeah, like they
just they Okay, So he came back. It's like sucking
(03:47):
with his sister, Like yeah, you think your big time,
but in France he's like women are liberated and they
can't do any they can't even fly, And it's just
funny how it was. You know, I think in talking
about Black History stories and we were talking about this
off Mike and even thinking about like how we would
talk about, you know, contributions of African Americans are like
(04:08):
what a what an episode looks like about talking about
African American history in the context of a Black History
Month episode, and it's not just about realistical about interesting
things African American people have done, um, and sort of
juxtaposing that with how hard it is. I think most
people do that, but you have to take that extra
(04:30):
step to begin to actually think about It's not just that,
oh wow, it was so hard during this time. It's
that all of these like inspiring stories, all of these
art forms with a lot of things we're gonna talk about,
they're born out of the pursuit of black people seeking liberation,
seeking a way to be as free as they saw
(04:52):
other people, specifically white people. Um, whether that is from
the eras of slavery or Jim Crow. But there's this
yearning for the feeling of freedom, of liberation, and from
that you get such real deep stories or art forms
that are just so undeniable. So yeah, like so even
(05:13):
as I think about Bessie Coleman, it's like, yes, she
was there. Part of her pursuit of even like being
trained as a pilot was that she caught wind of liberation. Yeah, freedom, right,
And so she's asking, you know, I think she what
crowd funded a way to even get to France because
there's no way she was going to you know, get
herself to France. Um. In that time, people. She's the smart,
(05:38):
so smart like they you know, she got people to
believe in her to do it. But yeah, yeah, that's
it's it's like, it's fantastic to see like what it
takes to get there, but also not forgetting that it
is it's all intertwined with the tragedy of oppression, um.
And again the pursuit of freedom, just that feeling just
(06:02):
to to be you, and in this instance, it was
that she's a black woman in the country that forget
even just women being able to you know, become aviators, um.
But like that the other additional barrier of racism and
things like that, that you have to go to another
country that you're still even thinking like, but I still
want to be free, so then that means I have
(06:24):
to go to this place. So it's like, yeah, it's
like half tragedy half beauty, but it's also also really
you know, thinking of what all of these achievements actually
mean in the context of the continued pursuit of liberation
for black people and all people at this point, but
in test context, Yeah, and that tension between you know,
the tragedy of oppression, the beauty of the you know,
(06:46):
struggle and genius that people brought to the struggle for liberation.
That tension is the history of America, like that contradiction
is the history of America. It's not the history of
black America. It's the history of America, straight up like that.
And it gets edited out. And that's a disservice to
everyone when it gets edited out of the story of America.
(07:08):
It doesn't allow for a true understanding of American history.
Absolutely not. I mean you, the things I've learned just
from studying history are it's so mindblowing. Like that's the
one that the only reason you know, I went to
I went to college because you know, you're sort of
inundated this idea of like you must go to college
(07:29):
for get job, um, And so I did that, but
I didn't. I knew I didn't want to have like
being a count or whatever. I thought I was probably
gonna be some silly man at some point. But I
knew if I didn't do that, I wanted to teach history.
So I I studied a lot of history. I was
like my major. But like the things you learned just
about our everyday lives from understanding your history, it's so valuable,
and like the fact that you know, a lot of
(07:51):
the times these things are obscured or distilled or washed,
white washed in a certain way. Um yeah, it keeps
us from actually connecting to the real truth. Not to
say that it's like you need to know how ugly things,
I mean, you do, but you also need to know
that to be able to envision a better version of that,
because if you don't have that context, then you're kind
(08:11):
of you're trying to make something without a real West
recipe card. Yeah. So with regards to Bessie Coleman, you know,
crowdfunding again, when she came back knowing how to fly, Uh,
there weren't jobs for her. Uh, there weren't jobs for
black pilots. There weren't jobs for women pilots. Uh. And
(08:32):
so again she had to rely on the generosity of
others and basically fly in donated planes, which ends up
she one of them dies while it's in the air.
She crashes, breaks a bunch of bones. And then a
few years later another donated plane crashes and she dies young.
(08:54):
But she is a star. And I mean just with
we we talked about the the damage that's done by
white supremacy. Uh, you know, both with people of color,
but also on white people, and like the cognitive dissonance
that is, like that lie in their brain. And I
(09:15):
think that you know, that's also a battle that's being
waged across time. And anybody who you know that that
seat of doubt, anybody who comes in being like, no,
you know, a black woman couldn't fly a plane. Surely
this is the most complicated, uh difficult thing to do.
And that's something that you know, was taken into World
(09:37):
War two. That was still like the standard narrative and
World War two. And but anybody who saw her or
knew her or read about her, and the mainstream media
tried to edit her out of of history. But anybody
who saw that that you know, that seat of doubt,
you can't ignore that. That's that's gonna grow in your
(09:58):
mind and in like across the culture and well, and
I think in a way like you'll see this over
a lot of the topics we talk about. Like to
your point is, if you're on a diet of saying
that this group of people is inferior or less than you,
and you have to behold their humanity and genius, that
(10:19):
will do something to you. Some people can move past
and evolve and say, well I just took an l
intellectually there because I just I've left around and found
out um or you will go further into your denial. Um.
But yeah, but these are these moments that like that inspire,
and you know that it does doesn't end with Bessie Coleman,
(10:41):
Like there's she inspires. She continues to inspire even after
her death. Yeah, I mean there's a road around I
think Chicago hair named after her. But more importantly, I
mean within the black community, like aviation becomes a thing
that people are you know that that's just a concept
(11:03):
that people are pursuing, uh that you know, in small
part or no small part, Like it has an effect
that ends up with the Tuskegee airmen, who in World
War Two were you know, basically twice as good as
any other pilot in terms of they they fought. Uh,
(11:25):
they were great fighter pilots, shooting German planes down without
without losing any pilots or losing any planes. And then
like when they had to do bomber accompaniment, like which
is the hardest thing to do, they because you're all
going around the slow plane underneath the anti air artillery.
Just like out the sky. Yeah, they lost like half
(11:49):
as many planes as any other unit per per mission
and just had to be twice as good, which is
something that I mean, that's a trope throughout And you know,
I heard it from my own father, whose father told him,
you're when you are you have an awareness of what
it means to be black in America. You are told
you will have to be twice as good to get
(12:10):
half as much or in general, you have to be
twice as good to get noticed. And it's yeah, I mean,
you're you're watching. It's like even statistically there are people
were like twice as good for half the recognition. Yeah,
and even with Bessie Coleman, like to just touch on
liberation again, one of her biggest inspirations was that she
(12:33):
saw that black people were being left behind because they
could not get into aviation. But she really felt, she said,
for our people to keep pace with the rest of
the world, we have to find a way to get
into aviation as well. This is a new tech, like
we have to be there. And again, just it's about
like a lot of these people, it's not just like
oh I want to do this or that. It's really
(12:55):
about like we know that there is a way to
get something better for our people, and we're invested in
a country that is taking a really long time to
figure out what that is. And but the exactly to
your point, the entire you know, the pace of americandustry
is about this back and forth of like trying to
understand the racist origins with how they're we're also embracing
(13:21):
these cultures to be our own and what that means
and everything. So yeah, yeah, I mean the another kind
of military story is the Harlem hell Fighters that I mean,
we can touch on really briefly, but the American military
in World War One was like, we don't really want
segregary soldiers, very segregated, uh, And they lent this group
(13:45):
to the French military, to the French Army in World
War One, and they fought longer than any other group
of American soldiers in World War One. Also had a
military band that was incredibly influential in Europe when they
were there and then came back and was a huge
(14:07):
contributing factor to, uh, the Harlem Renaissance. But they came
back from the war being like, we more than proved ourselves.
There's a dude who was so amazing that they put
his face on UH war bond stamps like he was
a national hero. They came back and were like all right,
(14:27):
like so, I think they called it the Two Front
War where they wanted, you know, victory in Europe, but
then they wanted to come home and fight for victory
and they instead faced That was right at the time
when there was this huge white lash, as Van Jones
called the Trump uh election, which I think happens throughout history. Um,
(14:54):
but that was the There was the Red Summer, uh
so called because it was a very letty summer of
slaughters by white people against black families. And then there
was the Tulsa you know massacre. You know, that was
all happening. Then the resurgence of the KKK because you know,
(15:14):
there was just a pushback because of what supremacy, being
a you know, works hard. It is a self sustaining
force in the culture. And with this again you know
Harlem hell fighters they go, they fight longer and harder
than anyone, and they the American soldiers did didn't want
(15:38):
to be with them, so they had to get loaned
out to the French. They'll be like, well, I guess
they'll funk with you. Um, they didn't. They were not
allowed to participate in the sending off parade to go
to war. That was they were not They were not
given that dignity what to leave to fight and die.
They also experienced the most losses I believe for any
(15:59):
fighting unit. But then they but they came back and
they gave them a parade. And all this to say
is like again, like you're saying this double victory, this
idea of how African Americans can serve in the military
and have served since the American Revolution. But we don't
talk about that because I think it's probably ends with
like Christmas addics or something like that, and we think
(16:21):
of like, okay, well that that black man died in
the in the Boston massacre. Um. But when you talk
about this double victory, it's about, yes, defending a country
that has even has enslaved you. But it's because you
know that this could help people to see that you're
also pulling in the same direction as this country, and
you're you want to also this to contribute to a
(16:44):
larger movement for liberation, equality injustice that we can you
know what will go there will serve our country because Unfortunately,
we have to still prove to these people in the
Americans in America that we are also America kins that
deserve the same respect. But yeah, it's it's just like
(17:04):
it's just again it's a NonStop thing. But at every
level or at every point in history, we have these moments.
And I mean to think of just you know, the
contributions throughout most military conflicts of black soldiers, I would
blow most people's minds because it wasn't until maybe seven
years I was well out of college before I actually
began to see, starting back at the American Revolution, what
(17:28):
truly the contributions were in this you know military context. Yeah,
a lot of the even Tuskegee Airmen and the Harlem
health fighters had to be like honored, uh posthumously, and
we're only given recognition in like the two thousands or
by the Clinton administration in the nineties. And it's just like,
(17:49):
um right, I think that's why it's not enough to
just have kind of retrospective things about being like this
is what's cool about the people that did these things.
We also have to talk about how different even in
that time, people were not giving them props, Like like
it's happening now. It was a completely different era, but
also one that we have to look in its eye
(18:10):
to understand that there's we have to actually address this
and how are we, um, how can we correct and
improve how our you know, our country can move forward
and evolve, um in a way that truly is like
honoring the contributions of all these people were going to
talk about who just you know, even though it could
be about changing music or sports, it's all born out
(18:32):
of this singular feeling of wanting to be free and
that that is still owed um two black people in
this country. UM. But we're still trying to figure out
how we're going to do that. But even even though
with that said, still continue to to to make strides
and and create you know, these achievements or works of
(18:53):
art that just continue. Yeah, you mentioned music, and we're
going to talk about that next. But first let's take
a quick break and we'll be right back and we're back.
(19:14):
And you know, when when you talk about the history
of popular music in America, I think I had an
awareness that there's been a pervasive process of invention by
black Americans followed by theft and popularization by white artists
from Elvis to the Beastie Boys to Eminem two modern artists. Uh.
(19:39):
There's this article by Wesley Morris, the New York Times
critic about the history of music that that really like
makes it clear that this is like the primary story
of like like we were saying, it's not just the
story of black history, it's the story of American history.
And this is the story of of American music. Like
(20:01):
he in this article, he points out that like there
wasn't really an American music prior to the minstrel show,
like that that was a thing like Americans were into,
like you know, just really European classic exactly like Polka
and Uh. And then this white actor T. D. Rice
(20:27):
claimed he saw old black man on a farm like
working with a horse and like imitated his singing and
put black burnt cork on his face and birthed like
the audiences called him back for twenty encores. Which I
(20:47):
think that's an important detail because that is like he
hit something that was so like desperately craved in by
these white audiences. Um. And it's just it, it's again
this unspoken thing. I I knew that there were were
was a tradition of minstrel shows in the history of America.
(21:10):
I didn't realize it was like the most popular and
the only type of popular music for a long time
that was truly American. And even from his act, like
that's where we even get Jim Crow, that character from
from TD Rice. It was on which a farm of
somebody named Crow. And so even in this article um
(21:33):
by Wessey Moris, like it even talks about, you know,
the evolution of minstrel cy, right that how that became.
It was about this like white gaze on blackness and
this fascination with it. But it was at the time
it was only comfortable to see a tongue in cheek
of a white person impersonating and that was like the act.
It's like they've kept wow, like they're doing it. And
then even then it evolved to the point where even
(21:55):
that you know, there were black people doing minstrel shows too,
and that the sort of mental jiu jitsu or putting
yourself in the inception mode of I'm doing an impression
of someone doing an impression of me the who I am,
and I have to now reflect that back to this
(22:17):
audience in a way that they're going to eat it up.
And then he said, again he uses that trouble like
talk about being twice as good, like the the bizarre
contradictory nature of that as an art form is like
it's so cruel um. But again it talks about this
fascination with the Again, this because the call and response
(22:40):
music that comes off of plantations um, and you know,
slave songs on ships and things like that, that's the
that feeling, even like soul music that's born out of
the struggle in pursuit of freedom. That's why it has
this drawing power because it's so authentic, and even if
(23:00):
the song isn't about specifically freedom, it's like, but Derek's
the expression is so different. It's not this sort of
pre prescribed version of what music is coming into that
which is like there there must be a harpsichord, a piano,
a contrabassoon, and this kind of choral arrangement with major keytonality.
(23:21):
All these other things like blue scales and all these
other ways of expressing yourself are coming out of this
imperfect way of expressing yourself because prior to that it
was very manicured and by the numbers and things like that.
And yes, you know, even looking at like at its peak.
He points out, like in the thirteen Billboard Awards, like
the people who are getting or Grammys, the people who
are getting nominated are Mack Lamore, Mighty Cyrus, uh, you know,
(23:47):
Robin Thick, who are precisely just doing this thing of
like there are things like, well, I love the music,
and of course there's no there's nothing wrong with liking
a genre of music and even taking that as you know,
and performing it. But it underlines this thing of like
I see it, I like it. I'm gonna do it
my way, and I'll also get a lot of success
(24:07):
from it. Maybe I'll you know, shift the focus back
to honor where the traditions in which I am taking
this from, or maybe I'll just blow up the charts. Um.
But it has like this weird thing of America. You know,
that's the thing with music. We love black culture, you know,
we love black culture. And the amount of like when
(24:29):
I go on Twitter, the amount of digital black face
I see with people, you know, the vernacular I've seen
on first on text of Twitter, and like, do is
that you? Is that you wanting to be like a
black person that you you like? Um, it's like America
wants to love the culture but can't really go all
the way and loving the culture in offering protection, offering freedom,
(24:52):
understanding the wrongs that have occurred in the past, and
then trying to move forward to that. It's almost like,
come on, we like everything, but let's let's not get
too hung up on that, you know, like when I
think that's the sort of this moment that a lot
of black people were waiting for in this country of like,
you love the culture, you take from the culture. It
gives you joy, it gives everybody, but you can't when
(25:14):
when are we going to When is that going to
be acknowledged in the sense of lifting us up or
providing the kind of support that has been asked for
since time immemorial. But yeah, I mean the music thing
is is truly like it's it's it's the it's really
the American thing because they say all the American art
forms they talk about where you know, like jazz, okay,
(25:38):
you're one of the most profoundly uh just in terms
of like how it's stereotypically imagined. Yacht rock. He opens
up by being like yacht rock is you know, mostly
associated with white dudes with mullets in the eighties, and
that is it is straight up just appropriating like you know,
(26:00):
soul music and other R and B music and other
forms of black music. That is just but it's just
put put in doctors, which is also kind of like
what my fascination is with Michael McDonald, you know, because
you know, and it's like what the Michael. And to
(26:24):
me it's funny because I'm like, this dude is really
she's he's going for it and it's but it's it's
there's still he can't quite get it there, you know,
because he's still Michael McDonald, but you know what he's
trying to do. Um, But it's all yeah, it's all
just part and parcel of you know, acknowledged are unacknowledged
taking and picking and choosing that we do and in
(26:46):
our culture. But yeah, and then he i mean he
talks about how Motown is like the peak of like
the achievements of you know, uh black artists, uh you know,
blending the you know, sensibilities that they knew that white
audiences would find appealing while also just like taking the
(27:10):
music to a higher level than had ever been achieved,
but just in terms of the thematic kind of peak
for for the article, he talks about Old Town Road being, um,
you know, the banjo is this instrument that is uh,
you know, starts with slaves and is then appropriated by
(27:34):
minstrel shows and in the South by white people, and
then you know, just it's this very kind of meta
um reversing of a lot of the music history while
like drawing a reference to it. And it's just so
interesting that I mean, he kind of points out it's
(27:54):
kind of a silly song, but it like tapped into
something so powerful and so like on point for American
music and like history of American music that it became
the biggest number one hit of all time right exactly.
And then because because even as you talk about like
the sort of aesthetic inception that's going on right the
(28:17):
banjo music, minstrel shows things like that, But then he's
sampling Trent resin Er, a white guy who that's this
that banjo sample comes from Trent Resoner, and then turns
it into a hit that made the country music gatekeepers
lose their damn minds because they're like suddenly now trying
(28:38):
to protect the sanctity. I think it was almost like
they have every other white art form country and now
what the heck, But you know what, that's that's what
this is. That's what it's. It's it's so it's so
weird of like America tries so hard to separate itself
from each other without realizing, like you know, in the
more toko Ville type vision, you know it, it's truly
(29:01):
this melting pot. Yeah, it's not like a segre I mean,
I know, people, it is segregated, but like the culture
of this is truly one of like all these other things.
And what level we can acknowledge that and embrace that
as a completely separate conversation. But yeah, for that, for
then that little Nazac song to become, you know, the
biggest song ever. I think it speaks to like this
(29:23):
this energy that exists, positive or negative, but it's just
very potent. Another name that I think a lot of
people don't know is Claudette Colvin, who nine months before
Rosa Parks was arrested Montgomery. She was a fourteen year
old who like kind of more organically without really planning
(29:45):
to Her and her friends were sitting in the you know,
back colored section of the bus and the bus was full.
A white person came back, sat there and said, you
guys have to move back so that you're not ing
as close to the front as I am. And she
just was fed up, didn't get up, did the same
(30:06):
thing that Rosa Parks is famous for, and got arrested.
And then the civil rights movement sort of grew out
of that. She was then befriended by Rosa Parks, who
was an official head of the civil rights movement and
organizations who were you know, part of the civil rights
movement at that part at that point, and they you know,
(30:30):
made the calculation that Rosa Parks will probably be more
palatable to a white audience. And it's just I feel
like Claudet Colvin gets written out of history because she
becomes a footnote because white people want to give themselves
credit for uh, the civil rights movement and like being
(30:52):
like coming around to be the press give of the
dominant culture, and the idea that they had to be
tailored to that they're kind of in built white supremacy
had to be like designed around by the civil rights movement.
(31:14):
I think is not is not something that the mainstream
culture wants to acknowledge about it so right, or that
even that the people in the civil rights movement. We're
even having to do that thinking too, of going, well,
we know how white people were going to respond to
this photo of Claudet Colvin versus Rosa Parks, who's from
a respectable family, has a little more social cash and
(31:36):
is lighter that this will play better, um again in
the pursuit of liberation. And yeah, it's just I think
it's her story too, is interesting because even like her mom,
they all kind of knew that They're like, this ain't
gonna be you, and he like Rosa Parks is gonna
(31:56):
take this one, and and we know, like that's what
should happen. But I or I mean, that's how they
were sort of strategizing in terms of the movement. But yeah,
I think it's also, Yeah, it has to be said
that this was it's activism takes all kinds of shapes
and forms, and the road to these like moments, there's
so much thinking, and it's still having to navigate sort
(32:20):
of these systems of oppression even to like get the
message out that you deserve dignity. Yeah, I mean, look
how the white media or just the mainstream media treated
Trayvon Martin after he's murdered Suddenly there's pictures of him,
you know that he posted the social media, like with
the headlines of like he's no angel, Like that's the
(32:45):
the idea that they you know, they they knew, they
were absolutely right that Claudette Colvin would have been uh,
you know, just discriminated against if if she had been.
Can you imagine us in a kid's history book, You're like, well,
hold on Rose, we know about Rosa Parks. But because
(33:05):
of colorism in this country and internalized white supremacy that
even the black activists knew themselves they were having to
overcome to optically present a case safe enough for the
consideration of Like that's how deep it has to get.
But I think that's what's necessary too, because you can't
just reduce these things to like it was one person
who sat down on the bus and that kicked off, Like, no,
(33:29):
this is it's a it's an continued effort um and
a lot of a lot of thought has to go
into these things, and unfortunately, these kinds of calculations have
to be made. Yeah, and then you know, one of
the more popular ways that people are you know, seeing
um activism these days is through you know, Colin Kaepernick,
(33:52):
NBA players striking, And I think there are a couple
sports stories where black history tree gets completely written out
or written around. Um. Horse racing was one that I
just wasn't even aware of. And I've been to the
Kentucky Derby, but African American riders were the basically the
(34:14):
first black superstars in American sports. They won fifteen of
the first twenty eight runnings of the Kentucky Derby. Uh
and then one and then that made them famous and
so uh the and that was also around the same
time that we were talking about with the Red Summer
and the Tulsa uh Black Wall Street massacre. Uh. They
(34:38):
started getting pushed out, like literally boxed out in in
the sense that white riders would like push them into
the rails, would uh you know, whip them while trying
to like literally whip them with the whips they were
supposed to be using to like get their horses to
go faster. Um. It's like fun because like when we
(35:00):
talk a lot about these about these stories, it's also
a story of how we American or white America or
the dominant American culture struggles to allow the success at
a certain level. Like it gets to a point and
then suddenly a circuit breaker has to be hit to
kind of like level the playing field really quick. Yeah,
(35:23):
we saw that again, even talking about this with the
concept of white lash or what if you wanna call
moral licensing whatever, and having Donald Trump elected after Barack Obama,
it got to a point and let's kind of let's
let's bring it down a couple of notches again. And
I think that's the thing that we also need to
bring more awareness to as a country as well, is
(35:43):
that there are these in built biases that a lot
of people have of like even seeing something like that
and not thinking twice about how discriminatory or awful that is.
It almost like, oh right, that's just part of the
subconscious of this culture. Um. But by talking about these stories,
we you know, hope to bring that kind of awareness
to people because you know, in talking about Kaepernick, we
(36:06):
we talked about how you and I both really didn't
know about Craig Hodges until we watched the Last Dance
and we knew who Craig Hodges was, you know what
I mean, Like when Craig Elo got that took that
shot in his face, or Mark Price and the Calves,
you know, Craig was right there. He was right there, uh,
in that one in that in the series against the
Detroit Pistons when Michael Jordan's got rocked and he's like,
(36:30):
I gotta start lifting weights if I'm gonna play against
Bill Amber and these maniacs. Um Craig Hodges scored more
points than Michael Jordan in that game where they went out,
and we forget that he suddenly vanished because in after
the Rodney King beating, it was the Bulls versus the Lakers,
and the game one of the championship, he was imploring
(36:51):
Michael Jordan's and Magic Johnson, two of the most visible
black athletes at that time, to boycott the game to
bring awareness to the just rampant racism that exist and
not just America, but policing specifically through the context of
this more Brodney King beating and how that just all
it took was that for him to stick up and say,
(37:12):
I think we should do this because this is a
real issue that when the powers that be within the
league caught wind of it, it's like, okay, so now
you're gonna start getting traded. Now you might not come
back from you know, you know, you were on the
injury reserve. Maybe your playing minutes are going to go down,
even though you're an All Star and you're shooting the
lights out on paper, um. And it's it's hard to
(37:32):
watch those moments because Craig Hodges he grew up in
a house of activists, and he was raised with the
knowledge and awareness of American history and systemic oppression and racism.
So when he's seeing it, he couldn't help but to
speak out. Unfortunately, this man was so ahead of his
time in just the mere idea of mentioning some kind
(37:54):
of act of solidarity to tell people that we're not
accepting this as black men was just way too much.
And it's hard to blame Magic or Michael too, because
that's a weird position to already be in as a
black man, is to have this power, but you are
also beholden to the white people that are paying you.
So it's this hand that feeds relationship that occurs. But
(38:16):
with Craig Hodges, he was very vocal. He he wore
a dashiki to the White House um and wrote an
eight page letter talking about all because he had been
raised to write letters to your politicians. If you have
something to say to your leaders, and he wrote an
eight page letter and all he got laughed at, and
that began the end of his career because he was
(38:37):
speaking up yeah and him, yeah, who was one of
the most lights out shooters at a time when the
NBA didn't value that as much as they should have.
But he dropped fifty one on John Stockton, one of
the great UH defensive guards in the history of the NBA,
just a lights out shooter, college teammate of Shaquille O'Neill
(39:00):
and yeah at l s U UH and he started,
you know, just conscientiously objecting by sitting during the national anthem,
like legitimately, that's what Colin Kaepernick did first before you know,
somebody was consulting with was like, kneeling would actually be
just like a better look, but sitting to just represent
(39:23):
that like there are I think he specifically said, like
there are uh countries around the world where that is
a symbol of oppression and violence and uh, you know,
so he was sitting. People weren't really paying attention to
that for a few games, and then once the league noticed.
(39:43):
At first, you know, Rod Thorne, who was like the
disciplinary and for the n b A, he talked to him,
and rod Thorn was like, I mean, there's no like
rule that says you can't do it. So and then
David Stern noticed and suddenly he was suspended in finitely right.
And then it became a compromise thing of like, well,
don't sit, do something else. He's like, what if I
(40:06):
pray or whatever, and like it was like this whole
back and forth and again he was just saying that
he was just observing the reality of America and commenting
on it out loud. But yeah, for him, it's funny
too because he had a bit of a different path
than Craig Hodge. Craig Hodges did because he only sort
of got into thinking critically about America when he was
(40:29):
handed a big autobiography of Malcolm X from his coach
at l s U. And that's when he actually converted
to Islam, and he realized He's like, oh my god,
I'm actually seeing all of these forms of systemic oppression
playing out in real time in front of my eyes
left and right in in the nineties or at the
time he was looking at it. So he had no
choice but to speak up because he was aware of
(40:51):
it all. And that's what's really interesting too, is like
when you see the NBA, uh, you know, trying to
get behind the players over the summer um and r
like the bubble postseason and things like that and a
lot of the Black Lives Matter messaging that was going on.
There's still a lot that the league can do too.
I would say, make people like Craig Hodges and mak
(41:11):
mud Adoro whole, because that countless dollars that were missed
from contracts, They were frozen out, they were both. Yeah,
especially if there's like literally no argument that dude was
lights out and they uh, you know, just basically screwed
with them, threw him off his rhythm, would hold him
(41:33):
out of games, would give them less playing time. There's
pressure on this coach to play him less. And you know,
at the very least they should be given a leadership
position with with the within the league to help with
these issues. Like just listening to both of them be
interviewed around the Black Lives Matter movement of last summer
(41:57):
and George Floyd's murder, they are just so compelling to
listen to uh and speak so clearly and so lucidly
about this because they've been thinking it and doing it
for decades now, like they need to be uh, you know,
part part of this conversation because for too long it
(42:18):
feels like it's been a statement crafted by Michael Jordan's
management to you know, and I don't know like that.
A hundred million dollars is a great start, which is
what Michael Jordan's wrote a check for, but it's still
I don't know like it people who are actually about
doing the work and making the uncomfortable, you know, having
(42:42):
the uncomfortable conversations right because they you know, because even
further back, you know, Craig Hodges and mak Mudobdor with
like they're inspired by Tommy Smith and John Carlos in
the six Olympics obviously like of seeing like right, these
are people who are representing a country that they have
a very tumultuous relations and ship with. But it's about
(43:02):
a vision that it can be better. That's why it's
not just I renounce everything. It's like, yeah, I'm here,
but in this moment where you're reflecting on the nation part,
I want it to be known that we can be
doing better. In fact, we must be doing better because
we are not fulfilling the full potential of what the
country can be um And for these two athletes merely
(43:26):
observing the reality at that time was just considered so provocative. UM.
And I think that's where we have to always keep
our eyes on how we treat people who are speaking
out against things and how we're looking at them, and
also how the media or just any powers that be
are trying to frame what is being said as being like,
what is it It's a hot take to ask for equality,
(43:49):
that's incendiary, that's not. And I think that's where we
have to open our minds a bit to understand that, like,
we're operating at like two of our capacity in this
country and we can be doing a lot more. And
so yeah, I think with that is being able to
to look back at what our history is, good and bad,
and understanding that there's even even the most inspiring people,
(44:10):
especially in like Black History Month, there's it's all about two.
It's not just not just observing and honoring these contributions,
but also honoring it in the sense that in your
lived life after this more than just February, you can
understand that a lot of these things that have given
us moments of joy and things to to gather around
these are all have been out of the pursuit of
(44:32):
liberation that is yet to be fully realized. And I
think that's where we all, we all owe it to
each other to begin to move in that direction. And
that's why we gotta keep you know, we gotta keep
talking about where we're coming from, because then we don't
know where we're gonna go. Yeah, uh and I mean there,
so you know, we we could give examples all day,
(44:54):
but I think that's a really good way to leave it.
Um that is going to do it for this actual
episode of Daily Zeitgeist. We will be back at the
regular time with episodes and episodes of trending uh, and
we will talk to you all then. I m
The Daily Zeitgeist News
Hosts And Creators
Jack O'Brien
Miles Gray
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