Throughout the readings, lectures, and research, I keep coming back to Dr. Early’s original question of “What is black music?” My feeling is that we, as a society, have been socialized to believe that there is such a category. Whether or not that category stands up to deconstruction, however, is another question altogether.
For the first annotation that I created, I wanted to look more closely at the attitudes of the time as conveyed by music critics during this time period. Specifically, I looked at a 1975 article from The New York Times in which the writer followed Stevie Wonder during part of his tour that year. Throughout the article, the writer discusses Wonder’s work in the context of “black music” and used this terminology throughout the article.
When several of us from this class had the opportunity to have dinner with Harry Weinger, I wanted to find out his perspective on how music is categorized in this way from the point of view of someone working in the music industry. As it turns out, one of Harry’s first job titles was “Black Music Editor” for Cashbox Magazine. I asked him how use of this category has changed, and he feels that in reality, the difference is one of wording, the new term being “urban” music. One positive he mentioned of having a black music editor in this era was having a staff member who had a particular interest in black popular music and a better foundation in the history of black popular music.
In my own work as a librarian, I face this question of categorization frequently. As our students are aware, almost all bookstores have an African American Literature section. Several students have asked me why we don’t have an African American section in our library. It’s a complex issue. The truth is, African American authors, historians, and artists have contributed to every section of our library, and pulling out the books from all of these sections would be a near-impossible feat. Also, it begs the question, what is African American Literature? Does it include every book written by an African American? What about books with African American characters? What about history, science, and art books written by African Americans? Generally, the students decide that the creation of a separate category doesn’t make sense, given the vastness of African American contributions to our body of research within the library.
I’m definitely not sure that this is the “right” answer. Many libraries have begun to have a separate African American category. I do think it’s critically important to collect library books that are written for a predominantly African American audience, no matter where you put them. I will mention that I had a very hard time finding Malcolm X: a Graphic Biography in the public library because it was in the African American section, and not with any of the other graphic novels, which have their own area in the Dewey Decimal System. This class is definitely making me reflect on this a lot more, which is a good thing.
-- Angela Watson
