[ebooks] Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith by Michael Stipe at Arts-Photography

Description

All too often an incident or accident; such as the eruption in Crown Heights with its legacy of bitterness and recrimination; thrusts Black-Jewish relations into the news. A volley of discussion follows; but little in the way of progress or enlightenment results--and this is how things will remain until we radically revise the way we think about the complex interactions between African Americans and Jews. A Right to Sing the Blues offers just such a revision."Black-Jewish relations;" Jeffrey Melnick argues; has mostly been a way for American Jews to talk about their ambivalent racial status; a narrative collectively constructed at critical moments; when particular conflicts demand an explanation. Remarkably flexible; this narrative can organize diffuse materials into a coherent story that has a powerful hold on our imagination. Melnick elaborates this idea through an in-depth look at Jewish songwriters; composers; and perfomers who made "Black" music in the first few decades of this century. He shows how Jews such as George Gershwin; Irving Berlin; Al Jolson; and others were able to portray their "natural" affinity for producing "Black" music as a product of their Jewishness while simultaneously depicting Jewishness as a stable white identity. Melnick also contends that this cultural activity competed directly with Harlem Renaissance attempts to define Blackness.Moving beyond the narrow focus of advocacy group politics; this book complicates and enriches our understanding of the cultural terrain shared by African Americans and Jews.