Brother to Brother
The movie Brother to Brother was about a young gay black man, who struggles to cope with his new life under the supportive eye of Bruce Nugent, a gay poet from the Harlem Renaissance. Like black women in that time period, black homosexual men have twice the struggle of black heterosexual men. They have to fight a battle for both their equal rights as black, and their rights as gay. They feel as if they have to choose which identifier is more important to them; which one they primarily identify themselves as. Though the man in the movie (Cleaver) believed that they were two separate battles, the goal for which they are fighting for is the same: equality.
According to Cleaver it was James Baldwin’s priority to struggle for his rights as a black man rather than as a gay man. He felt as though it would be disloyal to their race to put his orientation over his race, especially by having sex with a white man. To this Cleaver said he was “Letting the white man F*** him in the ass.” and this was a complete surrender to the white race. He said by doing that it was as if you are submitting to their superiority.
Perry, the young man in the movie was at one point attacked and beat up by several men while walking down the street. As they pushed him down and kicked him violently they yelled “Faggot!” This attack was within the black community. Clearly the battle for rights as a gay man had to be fought even within Perry’s own race.
When one group of people is in the receiving end of slews of hate and anger that is what they become. A straight black man will have to deal with racism, and he in turn will have to place the blame on something else; the next minority, homosexuals. What it all comes down to is the need to have same rights as the next person. Struggling for both an end to racism and an end to homophobia is really the same thing.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
“It isn't where you came from, its where you're going that counts.” – Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald was a very, if not the most influential musician this world has seen. It is hard to escape ones singing being compared to her voice. Singers these days, especially if they sing jazz or blues will model themselves after Ella. She has inspired many people with her voice.
Ella was born in Virginia, in 1917. She loved music and dance from a very early age, from listening to Louis Armstrong and the like. Her mother died in a car crash when Ella was fifteen and she had a hard time dealing with this. After some trouble with authority and struggles with an abusive stepfather she was moved to a Colored Orphan Asylum. Than she was moved to a reformatory in New York, escaped, and lived homeless for a while.
Through all these hardships Ella continued to sing, and eventually made her debut at the age of seventeen in New York. She then went on to sell at least two hundred albums and be one of the most influential singers. I chose Ella Fitzgerald because throughout all of the struggles she had to face, not only as an African American woman, but also as an orphan, she still held her head up high and pulled through with a voice that broke through the doldrums of inequality in the 20’s.
The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes
1 Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
2 Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
3 I heard a Negro play.
4 Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
5 By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
6 He did a lazy sway ....
7 He did a lazy sway ....
8 To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
9 With his ebony hands on each ivory key
10 He made that poor piano moan with melody.
11 O Blues!
12 Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
13 He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
14 Sweet Blues!
15 Coming from a black man's soul.
16 O Blues!
17 In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
18 I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
19 "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
20 Ain't got nobody but ma self.
21 I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
22 And put ma troubles on the shelf."
23 Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
24 He played a few chords then he sang some more--
25 "I got the Weary Blues
26 And I can't be satisfied.
27 Got the Weary Blues
28 And can't be satisfied--
29 I ain't happy no mo'
30 And I wish that I had died."
31 And far into the night he crooned that tune.
32 The stars went out and so did the moon.
33 The singer stopped playing and went to bed
34 While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
35 He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
This poem is about listening to a melancholy piano player on the streets at night. The author writes on how much he shares the mournful emotions as the musician. The poem describes clearly how swept up the piano man is getting with his music: “swaying to and fro on his rickety stool.”
Rhyme is a definite poetic device used here, for example: tune and croon, night and light. Repitition is used when he says “He did a lazy sway…” Hughes uses Hyperbole to describe the extent of how much the Blue song drained the pianist by saying “He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.”
This poem gives the audience a shared feeling of sadness in the lonely night. Over the depressing theme of hopelessness it instills the comfort of music, which is a large focus of the Harlem Renaissance.
1 Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
2 Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
3 I heard a Negro play.
4 Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
5 By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
6 He did a lazy sway ....
7 He did a lazy sway ....
8 To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
9 With his ebony hands on each ivory key
10 He made that poor piano moan with melody.
11 O Blues!
12 Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
13 He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
14 Sweet Blues!
15 Coming from a black man's soul.
16 O Blues!
17 In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
18 I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
19 "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
20 Ain't got nobody but ma self.
21 I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
22 And put ma troubles on the shelf."
23 Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
24 He played a few chords then he sang some more--
25 "I got the Weary Blues
26 And I can't be satisfied.
27 Got the Weary Blues
28 And can't be satisfied--
29 I ain't happy no mo'
30 And I wish that I had died."
31 And far into the night he crooned that tune.
32 The stars went out and so did the moon.
33 The singer stopped playing and went to bed
34 While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
35 He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
This poem is about listening to a melancholy piano player on the streets at night. The author writes on how much he shares the mournful emotions as the musician. The poem describes clearly how swept up the piano man is getting with his music: “swaying to and fro on his rickety stool.”
Rhyme is a definite poetic device used here, for example: tune and croon, night and light. Repitition is used when he says “He did a lazy sway…” Hughes uses Hyperbole to describe the extent of how much the Blue song drained the pianist by saying “He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.”
This poem gives the audience a shared feeling of sadness in the lonely night. Over the depressing theme of hopelessness it instills the comfort of music, which is a large focus of the Harlem Renaissance.
This is a painting of a typical club during the Harlem Renaissance. It portrays a woman in the midst of a dance performance, the other patrons in the club enjoying the show, smoking and drinking and generally just having a great time.
The painting has a theme of Identification with race, and pride. Everyone painted looks like they are very proud to be there and very proud to be black, which is what the Harlem Renaissance was all about.
I really like this painting. It just seems to scream out “jazz!” The colors, black and dark red are jazzy colors, as well as the curvy yet sharp lines. Looking at it, it is almost as if you can here the music that is playing and smell the cigarette smoke. It really sums up the era, in a typical Saturday Night.
This is a very nice picture to represent the musical expression during the Harlem Renaissance. It has many layers, each with a meaning of its own.
In the first layer we can see that there are shadowy shapes of men, one with a wind instrument. There are green ribbon-like tendrils going across, implying that they are coming out of the instrument. This represents the power of the music that was played during the Harlem Renaissance.
The figures appear to be within trees, with what looks like the statue of liberty outside the trees in the distance. It represents the way that the musical expression of the young black people in the 20’s stemmed from their roots and ancestors in Africa. Though they are in America they remain connected to their heritage.
There is a definite theme of Negro heritage and history in this painting. There is also a sense of pride, as the man in the middle is standing up tall playing his music for all to hear. I like this painting, the colors are very organic and the sense of layers is very thought provoking.
Outcast by Claude McKay
For the dim regions whence my fathers came
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
I would go back to darkness and to peace,
But the great western world holds me in fee,
And I may never hope for full release
While to its alien gods I bend my knee.
Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;
For I was born, far from my native clime,
Under the white man's menace, out of time.
This poem is written by Claude McKay, a well-known poet from the Harlem Renaissance. Within that era of time the young black artists used their art form to express their personal experience during the twenties. McKay seems to be speaking from the point of view of that generation as a whole, addressing their common need to remember their roots.
His tone is very clearly one of longing; of hopeless resistance to the world he is currently in. For example he says “My spirit, bondaged” as if he feels trapped in his present, and wishes to be elsewhere, more specifically back to where his ancestors lived: “forgotten jungle songs.” With “to its alien gods I bend my knee.” He is implying that this new world is still a mystery to him; he doesn’t understand the impetus of their faith.
This poem clearly uses rhyme as its primary poetic device, example: Came and frame, longs and songs. It also uses symbolism, when saying that his spirit is held in bondage by his body, to say that he feels trapped by the limitation of space and time. Because he is bondaged by his body he can not go back to when and where his ancestors were free in their homeland, out from “under the white man’s menace.”
This poem expresses a theme of desire to reconstruct the meaning of “Negro” and of exploring Negro heritage and history.
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
I would go back to darkness and to peace,
But the great western world holds me in fee,
And I may never hope for full release
While to its alien gods I bend my knee.
Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;
For I was born, far from my native clime,
Under the white man's menace, out of time.
This poem is written by Claude McKay, a well-known poet from the Harlem Renaissance. Within that era of time the young black artists used their art form to express their personal experience during the twenties. McKay seems to be speaking from the point of view of that generation as a whole, addressing their common need to remember their roots.
His tone is very clearly one of longing; of hopeless resistance to the world he is currently in. For example he says “My spirit, bondaged” as if he feels trapped in his present, and wishes to be elsewhere, more specifically back to where his ancestors lived: “forgotten jungle songs.” With “to its alien gods I bend my knee.” He is implying that this new world is still a mystery to him; he doesn’t understand the impetus of their faith.
This poem clearly uses rhyme as its primary poetic device, example: Came and frame, longs and songs. It also uses symbolism, when saying that his spirit is held in bondage by his body, to say that he feels trapped by the limitation of space and time. Because he is bondaged by his body he can not go back to when and where his ancestors were free in their homeland, out from “under the white man’s menace.”
This poem expresses a theme of desire to reconstruct the meaning of “Negro” and of exploring Negro heritage and history.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
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