Notebook 3
Notebook 3
1. With the transnational movement of African musical instruments such as the marimba, this suggests the transnational movement of African music as well. This genre of music is evident through the very first spiritual slave songs such as, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” from Notebook 1. These spiritual slave songs were sung to help pass time and were also sung as a form of hope for a better life. Many of these slave songs resurge at a time of difficulty for African Americans such as slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and present-day’s Black Lives Matter Movement.
Below is the original spiritual song sung by The Plantation Singers:
Below is a jazz remake by Dizzy Gillespie during the during peak of the Civil Rights Movement:
Below is a Black Lives Matter Protestor singing the song during a protest:
2. Relational Analysis
When we hear the word “slaves” most of us automatically assume an African American slave. That is exactly how this group’s racial formation originated—through the transatlantic slave trade. These people were initially deemed as an object due to the color of their skin and nobody wanted to be “black.” As discussed in Christina Sharpe’s “In the Wake,” there is a form of anti-blackness that has carried on throughout history. The Irish were considered indentured servants, but in today’s society, they are considered part of the “white” category. Although African Americans were freed on paper after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, people found loopholes to limit the rights and quality of life of this group such as the Jim Crow Laws and today’s “New Jim Crow” referring to the nation’s prison system and War on Drugs. If we ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be black?” a lot of us would answer, “your skin is black.” However, that is not the case. The term “black” is a very loaded word, meaning that it carries a lot of deep meaning that is not just meaning the color of one’s skin. To be black means to be associated with slavery, to be automatically prejudiced against, and to be not white. Whether we like it or not, that is what majority of people think about when they think black. African Americans have struggled with rights and politics throughout history such as the Civil Rights Movement and today’s Black Lives Matter whereas after the potato famine in Ireland, the Irish indentured servants were only considered servants only for a short while but now they have assimilated under the “white” category because of the color of their skin.
Cover of Zine:
Page of Zine:
