File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0109, message 279


Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:00:16 -0400
Subject: from pop matters.com
From: cs <christina.sharpe-AT-tufts.edu>


Four Movements and a Coda: Perspectives on a National Tragedy
[with a nod to Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones)]
by Mark Anthony Neal
PopMatters Music Critic and Columnist

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It was the usual beginning of my day. Sitting at Starbucks, sipping an
Americano, reading Danzy Senna's Caucasia, eagerly awaiting my first listen
of an advance copy of Macy Gray's Id -- as usual as the beginnings of the
thousands of folks who would normally populate New York City's World Trade
Center Towers. My wife called via cell phone to check in and in passing
mentioned that a plane hit one of the towers. I went back to work. In a
later call she confirmed that both towers had been hit in an apparent
terrorist attack. 

A young woman, also on a cell phone, asked if I had also been just informed
of the drama. It struck me that cell phone technology had truly changed the
world. Only hours later would most of the nation truly understand how
dramatically important the privilege of owning a cell phone would be. Within
minutes I was in the car headed for my office, hoping to get more
information from my campus computer. On the car radio I listened to the
audio broadcast of Peter Jennings on ABC News. I was barely out of the
parking lot when I heard that the second tower had fallen. For the rest of
my life I will remember the pain, reservation, and despair in Jennings'
voice. His emotions reminded me of the broadcasts of the late ABC anchor
Frank Reynolds, in the aftermath of the Reagan assassination attempt in
1981. It would be hours later before I would sit in front of the television
and get detailed visuals of the attacks, but none of the various visual
narratives moved me in the way that Jennings' audio narration did earlier in
the day. 

After three days of looping visuals, interchangeable talking heads,
sloganistic banners like, "America Under Attack", and scrawling print, it
has struck me that Americans had been thoroughly sensitized and even
prepared for the inevitability of such an attack. Movies like The Seige,
starring Annette Bening and Denzel Washington, introduced Americans to the
concept of terrorist "cells", the CIA's collusion with such organizations,
and the possibility of martial law in American cities. Independence Day made
the logic of the attacks‹at least in the symbols that were chosen‹seem more
clear. Also, the recurring images of the plane crashes and collapse of the
buildings and the fires at the Pentagon recalled the looping visuals of
Reagan's shooting 20 years ago. This style of news presentation was parodied
in Saturday Night Live's "Buck Wheat", a skit on the attempted assassination
of President Reagan. As I and so many Americans have remained glued to our
televisions the last few days, it has struck me that there is no "new"
information; there is only the consistent rehashing of the already known,
and a repetitive reminder of what is unknown.

* * * 

With the exception of network and local news reporters, I can only recall
two or three black faces on TV during this ordeal; an African-American man
described as a former commercial pilot, Colin Powell, and Harlem Congressman
Charles Rangel. In their book, The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and
Race in America, Andrew Rojecki and Robert Entman suggest that black
commentators are rarely used to comment on national and international issues
unless they are specifically related to issues of Race. The next day I would
hear a steady flow of black commentators on the Tom Joyner in the Morning
Show: former UN ambassador Andrew Young, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and
Jesse Jackson would all appear on the program within a one-hour span.

Though the show leaves a lot to be desired and falls short in many areas,
its power as the "digitized chitlin' circuit" for the black masses was never
more apparent than during the days following the attack. The Tom Joyner in
the Morning Show in many ways recalls the powerful role of the independent
black press throughout the 20th century. It was in the pages of press organs
such as The Pittsburgh Courier, and The Chicago Defender, and magazines like
The Crisis (under Du Bois's leadership) and Opportunity that black
intellectuals and commentators measured the rising tide of radical American
nationalism against the realities of labor exploitation, poverty, racism,
and fundamental social inequities. Though we are far removed from the
"Double-V" campaigns of World War II, where African-Americans hoped for
victories at home and abroad‹and Tom Joyner in the Morning is far from an
independent voice in the media -- it is important to remember that various
racial and ethnic groups experience America is very different ways, even as
we are all affected and challenged by the tragedies of September 11th.

* * * 

Among a host of artists who have recently gravitated to political rap,
including Dead Prez, Black Star (Mos Def and Talib Kweli) and Mystic, The
Coup remains one of the most politically sophisticated acts to emerge in the
last decade or so. The group's three releases, Kill My Landlord (1993),
Genocide & Juice (1994) and Steal This Album (1998) feature decidedly
anti-capitalist tracks like "Fat Cats, Bigga Fish" and "Kill My Landlord".
Their forthcoming release, Party Music, was set to drop in November, but the
group was recently thrust into the spotlight because of the project's cover
art. The artwork, which was done two months ago, prophetically captures a
bomb explosion at the top of the World Trade Towers; primary lyricist Boots
Riley is shown doing the deed by flicking the remote control. The image of
the cover art was pulled from their label's website (Ark 75) within hours
after the actual attacks.

Coincidences aside, the cover art on Party Music raises the question as to
why two hip-hop artists would see the metaphorical collapsing of the World
Trade Towers as symbolically important. Few in "the hood" have read Gramsci,
and likely fewer have ever heard the word "hegemony". But clearly many of
these people -‹ forced to struggle day-to-day in a capitalist society where
the profit margins of shareholders are often deemed more important than the
health benefits of they who guarantee such margins with their own labor -‹
would find value in such a symbolic gesture. In this regard, Americans must
also ask why apparent terrorists would find value in destroying such icons
of a thriving capitalist society as well as the lives that labored within
them. The idea that these suspected terrorists -‹ who some deemed "freedom
fighters" just two decades ago -‹ are now enemies of Democracy is an insult
to the intelligence of the American public.

As the father of a young daughter, I am often faced with the task of
disciplining her. When I do, without fail she will run to my wife and
announce that I had punished her, to which my wife responds, "Well what did
you do to make daddy discipline you?" It would do the American public well
to ask such simple questions of its leadership.

* * * 

No doubt in the days prior to the attack there were a significant amount of
"hip hop heads" preparing to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of
Tupac Shakur. The prophetic nature of Tupac's Mackevelli recording, which
seemed to foretell his death, has led to the on-going belief among some that
the late hip hop artists is still alive. Many of these same hip hop heads
were probably unaware of the "symmetry of violence" that the attack on the
twin towers represented as the week of September 11th also marked the 30th
anniversary of the slaughter at Attica State Prison in September of 1971. On
that date, a multi-racial collective of prisoners had taken over the prison
to protest its inhumane conditions. Over thirty people were killed,
including eight New York State Correction officers. Though the yard of the
prison represented a legitimate crime scene, in the days after the prison
was retaken, the yard was bulldozed, effectively destroying the crime scene.

One can only hope that U.S. response to the September 11th attacks is not as
haphazard as those of the Attica State Prison protest 30 years ago, when New
York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the NewYork State Troopers
indiscriminately shot at people in the prison's courtyard. A measured,
thoughtful, and cautious response is the very least that this country's
leadership owes the victims and their families of these unprecedented
tragedies. 

Coda 

We spent the weekend after the attack in the Catskill mountains, on a trip
that we had planned months ago. This trip allowed us to insulate our young
daughter from the unfolding dramas. During the our stay we participated in a
late night prayer vigil which allowed me my first opportunity to really
mourn those who died on September 11th. Though we are usually some of the
few African-American faces on these twice yearly sojourns, we fit
comfortably in with a crowd of folks who were also impacted by the recent
events. As I dutifully followed the crowd in a rousing rendition of the Star
Spangled Banner (which I hadn't sung in close to 15 years) and listened
intently, though bemused, at Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA", the event
ended with chants of "USA, USA". At best, this made me uncomfortable.
Hearing that chant was a reminder that for some Americans the sight of
waving American flags has rarely been inviting, if only because many of the
folks who display these flags have been less than inviting to those who can
not easily be identified as "quintessential" Americans.

I have been deeply conflicted by the events of the last week and the prayer
vigil allowed me to finally understand that mourning the dead and valorizing
American imperialism are two radically different concepts. The differences
in these concepts will, unfortunately be will lost on some Americans. 



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