In the November 9, 2016, “President-Elect Trump” issue of
TIME Magazine, Princeton Professor Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. predicts that most
pundits and scholars “will talk about the discontent of working-class white
Americans, how elites dismissed them with scorn and treated them with
condescension, and how they, in the end, rejected the status quo and the economic
philosophy that has left them behind.”
And, indeed, most of TIME’s elite “insider” pundits, whether
part of the Democratic or Republican establishment, in licking their wounds
over their erroneous predictions, explore both the economic and cultural split
between whites. Zeke Miller writes of
those who don’t “feel like you’ve had a 2.5% GDP growth this quarter.”
Charlotte Alter claims, “Trump’s victory was fueled by a supersurge of white
voters from rural areas, motivated by economic anxiety with strong undertones
of racial resentment” as well as “the stench of sexism.” David Von Drehle
alliteratively calls it, “the rust belt’s revenge.” But on who? On blacks, and
other people of colors? On white elites? Or both?
J.D. Vance, in “What we can learn about---and do for---the
white working class,” states that the phenomenon of “The white working class”
in this election (the sequel to the “colorblind” post/racial media echo chamber
show of 08/09) is “a consequence of this incredible geographic and cultural segregation
we have in this country.” Vance appeals to the “elite” he assumes that the
primary readership of TIME magazine is more likely to identify with than the
working class. “We can’t have an elite culture isolated from the rest of the
country. It’s not a durable way to have a well-functioning society.” Since we
underestimate this segregation (between whites) at our peril, he calls for a
“cultural reconciliation…that can’t just happen in one direction.”
The only specific suggestion he offers is that “our country
would really benefit if those who went to elite universities, who started
businesses, who started nonprofits weren’t just doing so on the coasts.”
Vance’s suggestion may work for some, especially given the stratospheric rent
increases that is forcing many out of these “coastal elite” cities (I know
quite a few blacks feeling forced to repatriate the same south their
grandparents left only to find different forms of racism here in Oakland, and I
know many whites---mostly of the creative class—who are also being driven out
of the cities, but would these folks find open arms in what Vance calls these
“white working class” areas, or would they justifiably be called carpetbaggers,
colonizers?)
I believe that if we are genuinely interested in overcoming
“this incredible geographic and cultural segregation we have in this country,”
we first need to do away with the reductive distinction between “elite” college
educated (as if that’s “blue”) and non-college educated “white working class”
(as if that’s red), which still clings to anachronistic equation of “blue
collar” to “working class” to further fragment worker solidarity in this “consumer
era.’
Beyond that, I agree that it’s largely true that corporate
mass media, as well as its social media spinoff, has done little to nothing to
create channels that could reach across this cultural divide (between north and
south, city and rural, for instance) and has, in fact, created walls. This has
been the function, and achievement, of Mass Culture America for almost 50 years.
Often, this is most profoundly played out in the ostensibly apolitical areas of
culture. Since so much of our cultural (mis)understandings are mediated by mass
culture, I think back to a time when American culture was more regional than
national, when different regions could use the national media to dialogue with
each other.
Today, we have football, and some local character is
maintained (“They like to boo in Philly”), but think of today’s national music,
which is mostly centralized in Hollywood. Before 1970, in the 1950s and 60s
(which may be the era some Trump followers would call “great”), we see an
America in which Chicago had a series of overlapping scenes connected to
locally owned radio stations and record labels to brand a “Chicago sound,” and
the same was true for Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans, Houston, Philly, etc.
Today, as has been largely the case since the 70s (with a few brief
challenges), LA has swallowed up the nation’s music culture, with the possible exception
of Nashville, or Atlanta (and kinda sorta Austin).
This network of regional cultures didn’t totally bridge the
geographic and cultural segregation, but it at least put them in dialogue with
each other. Music at its best is a uniting force that relishes cultural differences,
but today’s LA based music industry prefers we forget this (as do the Silicon
Valley folks invading my town with their Pandora algorithms). Furthermore, it’s
no accident that most local economies (both in big cities and smaller towns)
did much better when the music industry was less centralized in L.A.
Yet Vance, like the vast majority of pundits in TIME, fails
to take non-white America into account, and thus ignores the more complex
triangular relationship. For if we’re going to talk about the necessity of
healing the rift between the “blue” whites and the “red” whites (as more
important than, say, the rift between the “red” working class whites and “blue”
working class blacks, or between the “blue” whites and the “blue” blacks), it’s
hopefully with the understanding that this is not to unify a divided white
culture at the expense of people of color (as has been done far too often,
going back to Bacon’s rebellion in the 17th century).
So, in order for this reconciliation to occur, we cannot simply
have a two-way reconciliation between the white working class and the white coastal
elites, but also with blacks and other communities of color. In contrast to
Vance, Eddie S. Glaude believes the deeper meaning of the election results is
that “White America—and I mean those who see themselves as white people, not as
those who happen to be white—has struck back.” While the first argument claims
a class conflict within “the white community” was more responsible for
Trump/Pence than race and race-ism, Glaude emphasizes stats that show that 45%
of college educated white women and 54% of college educated men preferred Trump
to show that these other “insider” scholars and pundits in TIME and elsewhere
are overemphasizing the split between college educated and non college-educated
whites, in order for the white “elites” to “other” the white working class (to
say nothing of non-whites).
In other words, the non-college educated white “rust belt”
(or rural) working class men and women do not have a corner on racism, and many
of the white ‘elites” (whether Democratic or Republican) in the pundit class
that claim so, are doing so in order to hide their own racism: “The ugliness of
so many white elites can’t be hidden behind the veil of so-called white working
class resentment. Black people know that business owners and politicians donned
white sheets and sat on White Citizen Councils. The election of Donald Trump is
just the latest instance of this collective sickness.”
Racism, first and foremost, is a policy pushed down by the economic
elites. While Joel Klein warns Trump (and his voters) that the future must be
“multi-ethnic and globalized,” Glaude knows that the future must be
multi-cultural, but that doesn’t mean it has to be globalized. “We announce the
bankruptcy of an economic philosophy that has decimated workers, no matter the
color of their skin.” Glaude suggests that the non-elite whites, and the
non-elite blacks may have more in common and points to an anti-racist future.
He holds out an olive branch to the white working class, who may or may not be
blinded by racial hatred. In a sense,
he’s doing more to reach out to, and understand the “white working class” more
than any of the elites in TIME are.
++++
The rift between white “elites” and white “working class,”
but also between whites and non-whites that may have played a greater role in
this election, may be understood better if we consider, for instance, the
relationship between the 3 popular music genres that have largely come to
dominate America’s musical landscape for 70 years now (post WW2): “Pop,”
R&B, and C&W.
In the 1940s, northern media networks and record label
conglomerates (say RCA/NBC) created a sense of American popular music that
excluded the vast majority of “race” records in Jim Crow America. It also
excluded much southern C&W. Both R&B and C&W made a virtue out of
necessity, and developed their own networks. C&W had a rebel separatist
pride that goes back to, say, 1861. R&B and its networks helped create a
mid-20th century black middle class.
This happened in an a “pre-corporate era,” when some New
Deal regulations remained intact, and the corporate media conglomerates had
foolishly abandoned radio for the seemingly more lucrative TV. In retrospect,
some, like Nelson George, have argued that this era of a more segregated music
culture—between R&B and C&W, and between R&B (and gospel) and pop
allowed not only more cultural self-determination, but also enabled more money
to flow into the black community than the subsequent (ostensibly less violent)
assimilationist regime, and certainly folks like Merle Haggard, who made
millions without ever really crossing over into white pop, witnessed analogous
trends happening in the “white working class.”
And though these two genres, and the cultures (or “races”)
they implied did certainly not work in tandem (for instance whites would
terrorize black radio stations, especially once they found their kids were
listening to them), it’s interesting to note that they shared a common enemy.
Most of the anger or defiant pride in C&W lyrics (from Loretta Lynn to
2004’s “Redneck Woman”) was/is not directed against black folks, but rather the
northern hypocritical white who thinks he’s less racist, the white that
applauds Martin Luther King when he’s fighting against “Bull” Connor and
Gov’ner Wallace, but that turns on him after his Chicago Campaign targeting
northern racism (while smug former Rick James sideman Neil Young pontificates).
Yep, I ‘get that strain of white resentment. The
white elite corporate pop industry, which often tended to be a tepid
compromise, and had a watered down lowest common denominator sense of
“America,” tried to seduce both southern C&W, and southern R&B to the
glorious elevation of “crossover,” but even many white youth found this
“talented tenth” of black artists plucked for the white pop culture by elitist
assimilationist “Svengalis” like Ed Sullivan or Dick Clark not nearly as
engaging as the R&B that was only played on the black stations (like, say, James Brown Live At The Apollo), as well
as the C&W that hadn’t crossed over from the country stations (“’and up
north ain’t no-one who buys them,’ and I said, ‘but I will.’”)—and this state
of affairs was threatening to the elites.
They had to lure these whites, as well as these blacks, to
their idea of national pop culture. RCA’s “Elvis” did some of this work. The
“British Invasion” did too, yet when the Pop Industry elites declared the end
of a separate R&B (“Race”) playlist in 1964 (as Malcolm X was popularizing
the word separatism), there was a tremendous push-back against a move many in
the burgeoning black music industry saw as a sign of forced assimilation—so
soon they had to reinstitute a separate R&B chart and devise more insidious
ways to undercut black self-determination.
From the perspective of rhythm & blues, the invention of
FM/Album-Oriented, “counter culture” Arena rock was even more successful in
helping effect a kind “backlash” (or “white-wash”) or “white flight” from the
AM/Top 40 multi-racial communities. From the perspective of country &
western, this FM/Album-Oriented cultural revolution paralleled the invasion of
the suburbs and exurbs onto what had once been rural America. Pop artists
started “going country,” but more profoundly they were “going LA” (The Eagles,
for instance), or going suburban.
In the 70s, two trends that may seem to be opposite
occurred. First, radio was, as James Brown put it, re-segregating—not just
between blacks and whites, but by genres. Soft Rock/Southern Rock/Heavy Metal;
Quiet Storm V. Funk. Second, R&B and C&W became more like “pop.” There
seemed less variety as the music industry centralized in the coastal elite city
of LA. By the end of the decade, funk became whitewashed into disco (Frankie
Crocker added Queen to the playlist of the nation’s premier black radio
station), and country became countrypolitan (Kenny Rogers’ #1 hit by Lionel
Ritchie, for instance). Newer technology and increased corporate control had
allowed the elites to declare victory over the small town (or even bigger city)
C&W and R&B stations where the DJS had some autonomy and could break
local talent like back in the days of Johnny Cash and Rufus Thomas.
Both C&W, and R&B suffered from this, and, in
retrospect, one might ask, just how great America could have been if these two genres could have (strategically)
united against the northern, and Hollywood, culture elites (the closest they
got was that both the black and white churches criticized The Beatles “Bigger
than God” stunt).
Soon, these elites could go further and take music off of AM
radio, and replace it with Rush Limbaugh and the like. As a music lover, this
would signify an anti-populist trend even if Rush Limbaugh had been as
“left-leaning” as, say, Amy Goodman. Why? Because too much talk, and not enough
music, divides!
Donald Trump certainly knew music’s power to unite as well
as to divide, and it’s not really an “accident” that Trump’s soundtrack is
largely that of the northern (& LA) corporate assimilationist backlash to
(and baby boomer white flight from) the threatened de-segregation, or musical
“miscegenation” of the 60s between black and white (and created a culture war
between rock and roll and country). His largely 70s/80s white rock soundtrack
included working class anthems like Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,”
but was certainly not going to include a black working class anthem like 1982’s
“The Message” by Grandmaster Flash.
When considering Trump’s playlist, it might seem a little
odd that a man who promises to make America great again would emphasize the
songs by a band that was part of the phenomena known as the British Invasion,
The Rolling Stones, over, say, Merle Haggard or Motown songs. According to The
Washington Post:
Before he's taken the stage at his events, and as he's
worked the crowd afterward, those who come to hear him speak are reminded that
they "can’t always get what [they] want" via one of more than half a
dozen Rolling Stones songs in regular rotation, including the eyebrow-raising
“Brown Sugar” and "Let's Spend the Night Together," the pill-popping
anthem "Mother's Little Helper" and the patiently confident “Time Is
On My Side.” (“Now, you always say that you want to be free. But…you'll come
running back to me...”)” Some of his song choices “might come across as a
wink of sorts -- perhaps a self-aware mogul poking fun at his public
caricature. “Sympathy for the Devil” is a Trump trail standard: “Please
allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste,” Mick Jagger
sings -- in Satan’s voice.”[1]
Indeed, Trump could “laugh at himself” in his Mick Jagger
clothes in the “eyebrow-raising” song where he identifies with the plantation
owner who rapes the slave women (and then calls them fat), while certainly not
making equal (or any) time for a black perspective as in, say, “Bid Em In,” by
Oscar Brown, Jr.[2]
Trump’s Stones playlist also features the first song that
really allowed the Stones’ to “invade” America’s top 40 in 1964. The song was a
cover of a follow-up to the first big crossover hit of American artist, Irma
Thomas (known as The Soul Queen of New Orleans); or might say “cover up.” The
Stones, with help of the northern and LA based national musical establishment,
were able to secure more play for their version than she did for hers, and
money drained out of America (both black and white, after all, there were quite
a few white people making money off of Irma Thomas) to the land of the
Anglo-Saxons.
For the Stones, the rest is rock and roll history (while
Irma Thomas got a job in a K-Mart or was it a Montgomery Ward?). This was not
an isolated incident in the music industry of this time, yet if Trump truly
wants to make America Great again, why not at least play the Irma Thomas original (made in USA) over the Stones?
It seems for Trump that part of the essence of this era when
America was great is that exhilarating feeling when Northern White elites, like
the teenage New York Donald Trump who first started wearing his hair all more
Beatle-esque, could be rescued by the British from the fearful onslaught of
southern R&B, and (I might add) southern C&W. Ah, 1964, when both C&W and R&B had
more self-determination (and some whites in power who didn’t like that were
plotting). Musically speaking, the north always had a hard time seducing the
south (whether black or white) to its playlists. And over the previous decade
these forms of music rooted in the south had been seducing white northerners
away (to say nothing of the northern migration of blacks changing northern
white culture despite itself).
Using Jagger, however, to erase original versions of both
R&B and C&W tunes (he certainly could rock more than, say, Pat Boone)
could seduce more into the arms of assimilation in the classic rock (70s and
80s) era Trump emphasizes--the generation that smoothed over—if not resolved--
the culture wars between the white north and white south (in ways hauntingly
similar to the unification of southern and northern a century earlier) with “southern rock” (and
don’t get me started on so-called “fusion”); the generation who even considered
disco (or “Funk in Bee Gees whitefoot”) too black (and/or too gay), and worthy
of burning, while some black youth, on the other hand, considered it too
“corporate white” and the punks had to agree, damning Disco with the same
finger they damned dinosaur-yacht rock); ---the generation that was raised on
Journey (and not offered much of a black rock and roll alternative by the
corporate radio).
Some of them also
loved C&W, or at least countrypolitan or so called Contemporary Country (which
often sounds more like 70s rock than it does like classic country), but some
scorned country as redneck music or perhaps their father’s music, and felt left
behind when rock and roll “lost the battle to hip hop.” But Rolling Stones,
once allegedly a threatening “counter culture” or “white youth drug culture”
band had now before easy-listening, a safe bet, a unifier of white culture.
I, too, still love many Stones songs, just not the few
overplayed hits Trump used (and even, perhaps, breathed new life into)….enough
black folks like it that it’s not as specifically white, yet the Stones,
perhaps more than any other band, could kind of effect a culture reconciliation
between southern and northern, or rural and and rust belt working class whites
which signified Trump’s coalition….and, for the younger folks, he’s got Adele.
But for a man who boldly claimed at his acceptance speech that “the forgotten
men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he, like many
Americans, seems to have forgotten the American
musicians (both R&B, and C&W) who made America great (and made the
Rolling Stones possible). I’d argue that Trump’s campaign playlist featured
more of the kind of white classic rock pushed by the post-regional
Hollywood-based music industry than it did contemporary country and R&B for
the same reason he favors tax cuts to the richest Americans at the expense of
working class Americans of all races. If his choice of music is any reflection,
Trump will not be bringing back many jobs to rust belt, rural, much less
inner-city America.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5joRRYNypKM
though he does play Oscar Brown’s “the snake” the subject of another essay…
