Love in the Age of [Overt] Racism

Imagine you were in love with someone from another race. Now imagine that you were not permitted to marry that person because the laws of your land, the United States in this case, did not allow it. Mildred Jeter and Thomas Loving lived in Virginia and in 1958 when they wanted to marry, there was a state law on the books prohibiting miscegenation:

“If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony.”

Mildred and Thomas went to Washington D.C. to get married and returned home. In the middle of the night they were arrested and their one-year sentence was suspended pending their agreeing to leave Virginia and not return for 25 years. In his decision, the judge wrote:

“Almighty God … did not intend for the races to mix”

The aptly-named Lovings appealed the decision and the case eventually reached the US Supreme Court where all miscegenation state laws were declared null and void. Thomas died in a car crash in the late-seventies and Mildred died this past Sunday but their legacy lives on.

I’m reminded of the the story of Louis Gregory, a prominent African-American Baha’i who married Louisa Mathew, a British-born, Cambridge-educated Bahá’í in 1912. Louis spent his life lecturing on the Bahá’í principle of the equality of the races. He gave up his law and real estate practice in the pursuit of racial unity. When he was allowed to he would travel with his wife but in those days it was often illegal for Louis and Louisa to travel together so he often went alone.

Today the idea of racial equality is not a generally argued against-not publicly anyway. But to claim that racism does not still infect American society, and many others around the world, is to accept a failure which over time threatens the very values this country was founded upon:

“It is evident that both Black and White Americans in large numbers are feeling deeply disappointed and frustrated by what each group perceives to be a failure of the efforts in recent decades at effecting progress in the relations between the races. To rationalize this failure, both have been reacting by retreating to the more familiar ground of racial separation. As the problems with crime and drug addiction mount, the tendency is to use the seeming intractability of these problems as a measure of the failure of years of struggle on the part of both to overcome the barriers of centuries. Formidable as is the challenge yet to be met, can it fairly said that no significant progress has taken place since the days of the sit-ins at lunch counters across the South?”

- The Vision of Race Unity: America’s Most Challenging Issue

I am moved by the courage of both the Loving’s and the Gregory’s. May we draw inspiration from their example and work together towards the day when “[t]he diversity in the human family [will be] the cause of love and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend together in the making of a perfect chord.”

The Wizard from the album “Fur And Gold” by Bat For Lashes

Religious Music

The phrase religious music conjures images of clouds-with-rainbows album covers and reverb-drenched synthesizer pads. Well, at least with me it does. Because of this I’ve often shied away from it, preferring instead the less-overt spiritualism contained in the likes of U2. Sufjan Stevens represents a new type of spirituality in music, one that has at its core an authenticity consistent with the times. What’s sad is that it appears that the commercial viability of authenticity in this arena may have a commercial cost; that’s the perception anyway:

“So Stevens apparently believes the ”Christian artist“ stamp is a deal breaker. Likewise his publicist, who reminded me that ”Sufjan has asked that the topic of religion not be discussed in interviews from this point on.“ (Hmm. Does Kanye West feel the same?) But beyond railing at his own reception, Stevens, a trained oboist, also bemoans the decline of popular music and struggles to mediate the gap he sees between high art and folk.”
- Sylvester, Nick. “Without a Prayer”, The Village Voice, August 8, 2005.

All this pessimism about the state of music that reflects ones spiritual life hasn’t stopped the Dawnbreaker Collective from putting together an eclectic but coherent album which speaks to youth in a musical language they can understand (Arise, 2007). Rather than water the Bahá’í Faith’s message of the promise of world unity, the album brings it to the forefront, combining it top-rate production values that make the message that much more acceptable to those who recognize the modern sounds.

It reminds me of the time I met President Bill Clinton when he visited East Palo Alto. I was standing next to Jamal (last name forgotten) who was sharing the office next to College Track’s. As President Clinton made his way around the room, shaking every hand and introducing himself (“Hi, yes I know, Bill. Nice to meet you.”) he came to Jamal. because of my proximity to the Jamal-Bill meeting I was able to notice that the President gave Jamal what can only be described as a dap shake. You know the one, it starts with a regular handshake and goes through two additional transitions ending in the greeter’s fingers locked at the second metacarpals (how’s that for making something hip less so through description?). The president followed it with: “Hey man, I’m Bill.” Bill Clinton was modifying his delivery based on the recipient, in this case a young adult African American with shoulder-length dreadlocks. This might be interpreted by some as patronizing but on the contrary I believe it showed great cultural sensitivity.

This is all pretty close to home for me as a musician and one who cares deeply about the intersection of faith and the arts. My own explorations have yielded the following rough song which I present for the first time here publicly. Please feel free to use it for your own children’s classes if you find it useful. I offer it under creative Commons licensing.

We Are Drops 2008, Pedraum, Luc and Sophie Pardehpoosh

Are there other artists you know of that have infused their music with spiritual themes without preaching? Do you have a favorite album that has clouds and rainbows on the cover and I’ve offended you with that earlier comment? Tell me so in the comments.

Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois from the album “Illinoise” by Sufjan Stevens

Group Dynamics

I’m lucky enough that I’ve been afforded the opportunity to attend some fascinating conferences over the last month. The TED Conference was the most expensive simulcast I’ve ever attended and the SXSW Conference was the geekiest conference intersected with the most intense music experience I’ve had in a long time. It got me thinking about group dynamics and what they are affected by. Though not scientific, here are my observations:

TED :: It’s an expensive invite-only conference that smells of exclusivity. It seems that exclusivity breeds a sort of brotherhood amongst people though I might just be cynical. It feels the same as the few times I’ve been lucky enough to get upgraded to business class on a flight. “Champagne? Oh no thank you. These seats are lovely aren’t they? Shame about Darfur isn’t it? Ooh, cashews, yes please.”
SXSW :: I was there for the Interactive Conference but because I have friends in places that matter in such things, I was afforded access to parts of the music conference that were hidden to me in years past. Without getting into too much detail look out for the MTV documentary on The Wombats to see some of the antics. This conference is a mix of creatives types at all level and locals who are lucky enough to score wristbands that get them into the music venues where the likes of R.E.M., Billy Bragg, Vampire Weekend, The Ting Tings, The Cools Kids, and Kid Sister are playing. At any given time there are over 50 bands gigging within a two-mile radius. People spill into the middle of 6th street and it’s so loud you can’t even talk to your wife while standing in the middle of it.This conference makes me think about the power of music. There’s plenty of debauchery typical of a rock n’ roll lifestyle but despite that, in my observation, there is much more calm than I would expect given the mix of mass and mescaline.

I’m interested to hear from others and their experiences with conferences attended and the dynamics. What contributes to these dynamics? Can an individual affect these dynamics?

Action Figures from the album “The Bake Sale ” by The Cool Kids

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