From: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org (harbinger-digest) To: harbinger-digest@smoe.org Subject: harbinger-digest V5 #136 Reply-To: harbinger@smoe.org Sender: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk harbinger-digest Thursday, August 24 2000 Volume 05 : Number 136 HARBINGER DIGEST To post, mail harbinger@smoe.org To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger-digest To get list info file, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info harbinger-digest Today's Subjects: ---------------- Re: (harbinger) Donna DeLory ["Steve Bornstein" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 09:09:28 GMT From: "Steve Bornstein" Subject: Re: (harbinger) Donna DeLory I'm going. I may be blown out from the Philadelphia Folk Festival, but I'll be there. >I wish I could go! If you get a chance to talk to Jay or Donna, make sure >you tell them I said hi!! >:) paulaR Sure will. Shall I say "Paula" or "Ms Remick"? > > If anybody else is gonna be there, perhaps I will see some faces behind >the > > screens :-) Look for me. Not hsvimg a fez of my own, I will most likely be wearing my Indigenous baseball cap - lately it seems to have been grafted to my head. JourneyBear ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Btw, if you are an AOL subscriber the above instruction will work for your EVERY time. Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 15:20:27 EDT From: "Kenneth Carpenter" Subject: (harbinger) God Is Watching Steven wrote: >Does anyone else feel that way? That she already did the same theme >much >better in an earlier song. Whereas HB has a wicked pulse and the inventive >and unique whistling as well as a tight and descriptive story line that >draws the listener into it's vignettes, what does WATCHING offer that is >new? It just sits there and preaches. To me, "God Is Watching" defines Amen and most of my misgivings about the lyrical content of the album can be summed up using "GIW" as an example. The other 8 tracks are guilty of at least some fraction of the lyrical sins I want to talk about in a moment, but "GIW" has it all. Here, Paula's heart bleeds for the plight of her raison d'etre - the undervalued, misunderstood, downtrodden black man who is being crushed under the all-powerful, unfeeling heel of the white devil. It's the kind of myopic sentimentality and pseudo-intellectualism I was talking about in my recent post. Most of "GIW" positively reeks of it, but one instance in particular just takes the cake. In the song's second verse, Paula holds up statistics on ethnic ratios of American prison populations and then blames the white überman for their unfortunate incarceration. She says Whitey is making gazillions of dollars by shrewdly taking advantage of what Paula seems to imply is a dimwitted, easily dominated subhuman culture whose components have no free will and no apparent powers of discernment. Instead, blacks are somehow largely predisposed to becoming so overwrought by the depression and desperation brought on by the cultural, economic and intellectual poverties Whitey has forced upon them that they have no other resort than to rape, steal and kill. Of course, that lands them in Whitey's correctional facilities where Whitey turns them into a form of modern-day slaves. Only these darkies aren't pickin' cotton anymore - they're out on parole and making babies who will grow up to serve Whitey his french fries and ask him if he wants it Super-Sized. Isn't that really the idea she's trying to convey? Isn't she somehow suggesting some kind of conspiracy theory? Now, to an extent, Paula's accusation is accurate, although it's unquestionably overdramatized and tainted by the pen of a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. I'm sure she is probably legitimately affected by the atrocities whites have committed against blacks in centuries and decades past, but things always aren't like they used to be in the U.S. Admittedly, the cards are often still stacked against blacks. They do not always get a fair shake in this country when they are dealing with whites. But that doesn't mean that being black is a dead-end street that leads to subservience any more than being white guarantees a life in the land of milk and honey. It might be harder for a black man to succeed, but the fact that a great many blacks have succeeded in even crueler racial climates than we experience today and that so many blacks continue to achieve greatness and happiness, disproves any theory that to be black is to be set up for certain failure. To me, Paula's sentiments contradict this notion. But back to the song.... she finishes the second verse and right when you think she might take the Bob Marley "one love" approach in the next verse and at least partially redeem herself from the heavy-handed crusading of the first verse, she takes a breath and uses a ridiculously outdated racial slur against Caucasians (that's the silly ghetto posturing I mentioned before) when she includes "crackers" in a list of other ethnic groups who receive similar treatment by having their skin colors linked to the corresponding Crayola crayon, just like every other trite song of unity you've ever heard. Reminds me of the "Jesus Loves The Little Children" song on the Christian Children's Fund commercial. At first, I was pissed off that she used the word "cracker" to refer to whites. I saw it as a confirmation that Paula was dealing with some self-loathing issues I've suspected since certain interviews back during the This Fire days. Then I just thought it was sad that she preferred another race to her own. I'm not talking about her romantic couplings. Like they say, you never know who you're gonna love. I'm just saying that she has publicly claimed to have a stronger attachment to black culture than white culture. She has her own rich ethnic background - Italian, Irish and Polish on her dad's side; Mayflower immigrants and Wampanoag Indians on her mom's. But she doesn't outwardly appear to have a strong sense of attachment to her own family's background. Seeing it from where I stand, it's sad because I am very much involved and interested in finding out more about the cultures that comprise my ethnicity. There is some gratifying sense of identification, of belonging, that comes with that. Then I just chose to believe that she was just trying to use a term that an ocean of black fans Paula might be able to latch onto. I think she hoped they'd believe that she really felt them and that they'd see her as kindred and accept her into the fold. We know how that turned out. So ultimately I just the "cracker" reference as an empty, rather silly gesture. Far be it from me to criticize without offering other alternatives. I think if she wanted to say something honest (or be somebody or make a difference), it might have been better to go with the flow of the racial slur she started off with and keep using more epithets to try to drive home a more meaningful message. Pardon my French but here's a half tongue-in-cheek suggestion: Whether we be cracker or chinks or Spooks, spiks, dot-heads From the land or sky or sea We are family Wake up and see This kind of approach would have been a much more powerful statement to make regarding our perceptions of differences among us, even though the rhyme scheme, alliteration and flow of my suggestion are sorely lacking - but then, I never claimed to be a songwriter. To me, this lyricism would show that no matter what stupid labels we choose to foist upon one another or how we see one another on a scale of superiority (culturally and ontologically speaking), we are all part of the same life - humans, animals, plants - all equal, life is life is life... and since all life is one we should learn to love and respect it, and thereby love and respect each other. It's still be idealistic, but at least is drains away the "We Are The World" sappiness that accompanies Paula's choice of words. It's still stagey, but racial slurs can be strong medicine if used to teach. Naturally, she'd still have to work on the asinine Rodney King quote she co-opted and the dated millennium reference that comes up in the next verse, but I just don't feel like tackling that right now. The second half of the third verse is an abomination that would have killed the entire song even if all the other lyrics were awesome - sort of like the cheesy rip-off of Shakespeare's As You Like It at the end of "Rhythm Of Life." I didn't totally loathe that song until I heard that quote. Besides, if she's going to use something from that Willy S. soliloquy, I'd have rather heard about the man's "youthful hose." ;^) Although on the surface it might seem I'm trying to beat up on Paula, that's not where I coming from with this. I'm still trying to figure her out. I mean, I definitely recognize that she grew up in an environment where acceptance of other races were either nonexistent or, at best, discussed in hushed, shameful tones. I suppose that's part of why I've always been attracted to Paula's music and have had a lot of interest in her career. I see parts of myself in her. My past is filled with much of the outrage and anguish she appears to be feeling on behalf of blacks and her preoccupation with their community. I still don't understand why I chose that approach when I went through that stage of my own life. Maybe that's why I try to figure out why she's doing it in hers. In the end, I will always believe that Paula's liberal ideologies just got the better of her when she wrote "GIW" and, in turn, the song, the album and her image are all the worse for it at this time. I'm sure she probably believes that what she's singing is honest (and, for her, it probably is coming from what she's perceives to be an honest place), but I believe hers is a distorted view of the truth seen through the eyes of someone who is very strongly biased in her outcries against racism. But, at least she's crying out, even if I sometimes question her methods and motivations. I have to give her credit for that much at least. Kenn ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Btw, if you are an AOL subscriber the above instruction will work for your EVERY time. Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html ------------------------------ End of harbinger-digest V5 #136 *******************************