Month: September 2019

 

“Other People Would Be Suspicious of You” from Desperate, Scared, But Social (1995)

“Did I try enough

To convince you

Of what I really mean?

But now I see

You all are here

For me

How did things turns out this way?

I’m living my dream each day

Giving what I can

And learning who I am

Now I look around me

And friends are all that I see

Everywhere I go

I hope that my heart shows”

I first encountered their music upon researching the Yao sisters — Amy Yao, a visual artist based in NYC, and Wendy Yao, founder of Ooga Booga, a DIY indie-punk bookstore previously located in LA’s Chinatown. Together with their friend Emily Ryan, they formed Emily’s Sassy Lime in 1993, one of the first teen Riot Grrrl bands fully comprised of Asian American women.

The trio, all attending high school in Southern California at the time, pursued Emily’s Sassy Lime as their own spontaneous project; each coming from very “strict Asian households”, they recount having to constantly navigate their “music stuff” in collaborative, slippery, indefinable ways— their sound is characterized as heavily lo-fi, with each song recorded on singalodeons, performances assembled with barely-practiced instrumentals, and song-writing half-completed through answering machines.

Perhaps this elusive sound partially contributes to how ESL becomes part of this larger narrative of women (of color) in punk, rendered invisible—their music buried underneath punk histories dominated by white culture. Rachel Kuo’s statement for “Building An Asian American Feminist Movement” speaks to this in some ways — “we seek to address the multi-dimensional ways with which the Asian/American community, particularly women, queer, and/or trans and gender-nonconforming people, confront systems of power…”. The abject spirit of zine/punk culture intertwines closely with the histories in making Asian-America in so many aspects, and looking into the motivations/stories behind largely forgotten projects such as Emily’s Sassy Lime allows us to explore that with more clarity (or informed uncertainties).

 

When I watched this movie, I was actually pretty perplexed at every moment of it but I thought about Flying Lotus’s song “Do the Astral Plane”. The whole idea of space and what Sun Ra would talk about really made me think of a space in reality that is far removed from this reality. Especially the end of the movie when Sun Ra starts teleporting everyone away from this planet. Do the Astral Plane has the feeling like you’re transcending many different areas and you’re being transmitted into the Astral Plane.

Hi everyone, here is the song I mentioned during the first or the second class, because obviously, it was so close to Sun Ra’s movie’s title.

Farai is an English Afro-punk singer/musician, with Zimbabwean origins.

I find interesting the fact that what was “THE place” for Sun Ra became “A” place for Farai : is it because we now have more possibilities/alternative, or because we don’t believe in a kind of magical Destiny anymore ?

 

 

If Space is the Place had an updated, 2019 soundtrack, I think Sicko Mode would be a great choice. Throughout the movie you see black people’s moves, thoughts, and choices being directed by several different music selections. In Sicko Mode, there are various times that the beat changes, where it seems as though an entirely different track has been put on. If this song was chopped up into these different tracks, I think it would be a very interesting way to remix and update those moments in the Space is the Place where music takes control of the plot, setting, and characters. It would give the movie a more 21st century sound, but also give the movie that same variety in music selection through the 3-4 different “moods” of this song.

“This ain’t no time for segregatin’
I’m talking ’bout brown and yellow two
High yellow girl, can’t you tell
You’re just the surface of our dark deep well

If your mind could really see
You’d know your color the same as me…”

We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue is the last track on Side A of Mayfield’s 1970 debut solo album, Curtis. With a title echoing the American constitution, this song serves as a curious articulation of solidarity, of racial triangulation. Mayfield invokes a relationship between Black, Brown, and Yellow racialization, even suggesting a Yellow (Asian American) proximity to Whiteness – but that Asian America cannot truly attain Whiteness, and in fact maintains a struggle closely related to that of Black America. Throughout the song, Mayfield remains hopeful, calling for collective action across people of colour.

With this album created during a time of increased political and specifically racial (turmoil? happening? consciousness?) Mayfield was among the first African-American musicians who openly spoke about social and political issues in their work. Mayfield’s musical and political influence however, extends far beyond his own space and time, and is intimately linked to our course’s considerations.

The song also inspired the title of the paperback edition of Paul Gilroy’s W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures (entitled Darker Than Blue: On The Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture). In this work, Gilroy (author of The Black Atlantic, as invoked in these last few classes) calls for a revitalization of Black Atlantic studies, and reflects on the fading political voice of Black music in America to discuss larger questions of Black intellectualism. In particular, Gilroy looks closely at Mayfield’s influence on his own musical and political formation, and that of artists like Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley across the Black Atlantic.

“I’m not real. I’m just like you. You don’t exist in this society. If you did, your people wouldn’t be seeking equal rights. You’re not real, if you were you’d have some status among the nations of the world. So we’re both myths. I do not come to you as the reality, I come to you as the myth because that’s what black people are..myths.” Sun Ra 24:33- 24:58

Sun Ra’s explanation of the black people being myths seems like a very negative and untruthful statement, how can a race be a myth, one might ask. However, if you break down his explanation into just looking at the symbolism that Sun Ra specifically gives black people, (weakness, oppression, dehumanization) the meaning of the word myth takes on a different, more understandable definition and connotation. Sun Ra’s definition of myth almost means lacking racial superiority. The way that Sun Ra describes black people as “not existing in this society”, “seeking equal rights”, and not having “status  amongst the nations of the world”, implies that socioeconomic status, human respect, and ethnic oppression uphold the standards of what Sun Ra believes a myth is or isn’t. Looking at a the Merriam Webster definition of myth, “person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence”, his definition of myth doesn’t indicate this definition being false either. Thinking of African American history, where most of what is taught in school is the white man eradicating the people, destroying the history and culture, ethnic genocide and oppression, taking away the rights, resources, health and lives, that almost exactly lines up with African American history becoming more and more unverifiable in existence. If you destroy everything and have no way to preserve the culture, history, or information, not only does that race lose racial superiority, they also become unverifiable in existence. Maybe Sun Ra’s paralleling black people to myths was not as harsh and untruthful as it may seem. This also brings up a stylistic question on costume choice. Throughout the movie Sun Ra dresses up as some form of an Egyptian elite, whether its Ra, the sun god, or just in ancient Egyptian garb. In Ancient Egypt, Black people were definitely not myths. They held the highest ranking in verifiable existence and definitely had all of the social status, whether it was a black person being a king, god, or just a peasant. It is interesting how Sun Ra comes to Earth as “just a myth”, but is not dressed in clothing that would assume so. He could have been dressed as a slave or even from the time period he was in. Is this stylistic choice there to indicate that he is a superior amongst the black race, a leader off of Earth, or a savior??

Near the end of chapter 4 of And China has Hands, the story the old man told Wan-Lee Wong had me contemplating time and the value of time which led me to this song.

“He said that as a young boy in China he was old that America was full of gold and one could pick as much as he liked… He had worked in a gold mine and he had worked building a railroad, been a gandy dancer.  He worked hard, but didn’t save money. Yes, he did make something, but he didn’t know where all his money went… As the years went by, his hair turned from black to gray and from gray to white.  And from white-haired old man he turned to a bald-headed old man.”

“Nations and peoples can be part of the Third World (by definition) and still be oppressors and exploiters, however. Japan is the classic example of this reality. Several African countries are run by puppets of neo-colonialism and are a further example of this fact. And need we mention Roy Wilkins again, or Governor Ferre? or Chiang Kai-shek or Mobutu and on and on.

It would be a mistake, therefore, to think that the concept of the third world represents an ideology unto itself. When we use this term, it merely describes lands and peoples who have suffered the oppression and exploitation of colonialism.

What is the third world?

You cannot be neutral in the world today. There can be no fence straddlers. We are engaged in a war to the finish between the oppressed and the oppressors; between those who produce the wealth of the world and those who own it.”

Following a historical and geopolitical definition of the Third World, this section of What is the Third World? by the Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) exemplifies a number of clarifications, criticisms, and calls to action, through their careful use of rhetorical devices.

In this first paragraph, the TWWA clarifies a key point of understanding the Third World – that nations and people within this grouping can be oppressors. Situated in America, the TWWA alludes to the commonly understood example of Imperialist Japan, and then the more contemporary examples of African puppet-states propped up by colonial powers; these states concretely reflect the fickle nature of Third World peoples and nations as potential oppressors or exploiters. The TWWA also brings in contemporary examples closer to home – such as the NAACP’s Roy Wilkins, a proponent of American imperialism and staunch anticommunist.

Also noticeable is the TWWA’s employment of rhetorical questions, to affirm these guiding principles. “And need we mention Roy Wilkins again, or Governor Ferre?” or even the overarching question of “What is the third world?” The former of these questions is met with the TWWA’s affirmation that the Third World is not an ideology, but rather a term to describe and unify people and places oppressed specifically by colonialism in its various forms.

Further responses to the latter question lead to more direct affirmations and calls to action; the TWWA makes specific use of a language divided between “you” and “them”. “Some people use… They talk…” “… fence straddlers.” all make clear a distinction of an other which misappropriates the Third World and/or attempts to maintain neutrality. However, the TWWA counters this by using the pointed language of affirming “You cannot be neutral today.” “We are engaged in…”; their blunt and unforgiving language, especially in describing the danger and impossibility of neutrality, reflects the high stakes of revolutionary struggle. Lastly, the TWWA asserts its urgency by framing this struggle as “a war to the finish”.

In this brief section, the TWWA’s terse and confrontational rhetoric of questions, clarifications, counters, and calls to action make clear the definition of the Third World and its relation to their revolutionary struggle, as an international, cross-racial one, as rooted in class: “between those who produce the wealth of the world and those who own it.”