It’s Just The Whiteness of Youby sam enderby |
Eliza Gilkyson
Its
probably an indication of my age that most contemporary music is a
distant planet for me. I realize the marketing geniuses cater to a much
younger crowd and, I guess, why not, as I was that crowd once but of
course a funny thing is I didn't have much to spend once upon a time and
now in my yeatsian gray years I still don't which just goes to show how
I have managed my erstwhile earning years however thats for another
time for right now I wish to relate before the daily haze of my
existence sets in another fortunate connection (because here at the
Joyful Moocher we're always trying to connect) that makes my unemployed
hours (except for this pecking time) almost bearable for it involves my
Ipod- yes, I did splurge a while back during a win streak (i.e. my
wife's credit card) and a few tunes that I hadn't heard before kind of
caught me by surprise- a happy surprise. The tunes were written and sung
by someone named ELIZA GILKYSON, whom I never heard or
at least couldn't remember hearing before although she does sound a
little like a singer I had heard long ago but never got the name but
there was something about the voice and the melancholy lyric long since
forgotten and, anyway, I was and am particularly taken with the songs on
this album- called , uh,uh -wait ..."Roses at the End of Time" and one
especially- a satirical gem called 2153 - as in the
year 2153 ( and no, it ain't like Zager and Evans or whomever ). You
never hear this on the radio, at least I never have and so far still
haven't - and the album, I believe, is a few years old already. One of
the verses states :
" Oh, they went for the literal translation
Of every text and symbol sacred work and screed
They obsessed over minor variations
Misconstrued the truth to justify their deeds."
Of every text and symbol sacred work and screed
They obsessed over minor variations
Misconstrued the truth to justify their deeds."
Another
title, "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" also appealed to my yeatsian
yearning and what a state of affairs it is between the cable companies
and the commercial radio conglomerates ( I haven't even heard her on Jonathan Schwartz).
Still whats a redblooded American old man listening to music do when
confronted by an unknown voice and song? I googled.( Not bing-ed. Bing
is for Johnny Burke and Harry Warren.)
And I found her, natch, and found out that not only has she been
recording off and on for over 40 years (they don't show) but that she
had recorded on a label that
The Wonderful Utah Phillips-Labor Organizer, Folksinger, Poet, Gandy Dancer
also recorded that lovable Bruce UTAH PHILLIPS
who I once saw perform in a basement of a Greenwich Village apartment
building way back when when I was part of the crowd enjoying moose turd
pie and she has a husband, Robert Jensen, who is sort
of a radical professor of journalism at the University of Texas at
Austin who is forever tweaking the noses of the school machers and
speaking out against American imperialist interests and has
distinguished himself by writing (teaching?) about the insidious racism
that has infected this country for hundreds of years (there are some
good things going on down there at least in Austin, I mean, c'mon
doesn't Willie Nelson still cook there?). I have read
one of his essays, "White Privilege, White Supremacy" - originally
published by CITY LIGHTS ( remind me to tell you of the time I walked
out on Allen Ginsberg at Brooklyn College) in a book called the Heart of Whiteness. It has been included in another book called WHITE PRIVILEGE, Essential Readings On the Other Side of Racism.
Professor Jensen cites a 2004 study by United for a Fair Economy that
just shreds any doubt anyone may have regarding inequality in the United
States. If I may mooch some examples:
- At the slow rate that the black-white poverty gap has been narrowing since 1968, it would take 150 years, until 2152, to close.
- Black unemployment is more than twice the white race, a wider gap than in 1972(Prof. Jensen uses "race" in this fashion although I would qualify such usage before)
- Black infants are almost two and a half times as likely as white infants to die before age one, a greater gap than in 1970. ( In other words-from the time I graduated from high school (!)- I know its hard to believe- until now this stat has only gotten worse. Thanks "Sam's Generation".
- White households had an average net worth more than six times that of Black households -in 2001 (!)
Dr. Dorothy Brown, Professor of Tax Law at Emory University Law School, writing in the December,2012 issue of Forbes,
wrote that "the median net worth of white households is now 20 times
that of Black households." Dr. Brown explains some of the huge disparity
in house-value as a harsh corollary to the old
there-goes-the-neighborhood response:
"If
you think this is class and not race, you are wrong. A 2001 Brookings
Institution study showed that “wealthy minority neighborhoods had less
home value per dollar of income than wealthy white neighborhoods.” The
same study concluded that “poor white neighborhoods had more home value
per income than poor minority neighborhoods.” The Brookings study was
based on a comparison of home values to homeowner incomes in the
nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, and it found that even when
homeowners had similar incomes, black-owned homes were valued at 18%
less than white-owned homes. The 100 metropolitan areas were home to 58%
of all whites and 63% of all blacks in the country.
Those
conclusions are supported by a large body of research. Put simply, the
market penalizes integration: The higher the percentage of blacks in the
neighborhood, the less the home is worth, even when researchers control
for age, social class, household structure, and geography.
A 2007 study by George Washington Universitysociology
professor Gregory D. Squires comments on why most whites avoid racially
diverse neighborhoods: “Evidence indicates that it is the presence of
blacks, and not just neighborhood conditions often associated with black
neighborhoods (e.g., bad schools, high crime), that accounts for white
aversion to such areas. In one survey, whites reported that they would
be unlikely to purchase a home that met their requirements in terms of
price, number of rooms, and other housing characteristics in a
neighborhood with good schools and low crime rates if there was a
substantial representation of African Americans.”
When
blacks buy homes in majority minority neighborhoods, we increase the
racial wealth gap. Whites who want to experience racial diversity at
home also pay dearly."
Of
course Prof. Brown IS writing for Forbes here and there is some of that
"Blacks should try investing more in the stock market like the white
people" and perhaps some of this income-wealth disparity will diminish.
Anyway what's important to see is that these brutal statistics still
continue. Our (white) privileges still have fatal consequences whether
we care or not.
Chris O’Meara/Associated PressOutside JPMorgan Chase’s annual shareholder meeting in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday.