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From: Fellha~ol.com
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 10:38:36 -0500
Subject: re:art and culture

some notes cast into the ongoing firestorm.

i am _not_ saying that white boys can't play the blues. i do it pretty well
myself, and so do a lot of other folks. what i am saying is that it is
primarily an african-american form, and it's inconceivable that it could have
arisen and developed without a whole racial and cultural context. africans
did not play the blues (until recently!) as bbean points out, and it has
always been a matter of cultural interchange. but then the whole concept of
"race" in america has little or nothing to do with biology and everything to
do with forms of oppression, exploitation, and self-definition.

that's why i disagree with jim, who says he has no race. i think that means
you're white! (_our_ race is invisible to ourselves.) but having a race is
not a matter of personal decision; it's a matter of cultural organization.
one can claim all dy not to have a race, but if one is white one will
continue to reap all sorts of structural benefits from it (start with poor
black folks as a source of cheap labor that allows us to buy cheap burgers or
whatever).

what i _am_ saying is what several people have said: that it's one thing to
use and extend the form in creative directions, another to _appropriate_
someone else's cultural productions without understanding and deep
self-reflection. but i also agree that art speaks across the lines that
divide us, and it's obvious that the blues does!

crispin