Circulations of Difference

Brooke Ryan--Math/CS major and Ethnic Studies student at the University of California, San Diego. I'm posting 'Zine blog posts every week, where I discuss how the circulation of the blues song "Catfish Blues" throughout genres and artists is a circulation of blackness.

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All thought is Black thought

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Final Reflection

There were several concepts taught throughout the course that I think had a really profound effect on me.  One topic in particular that really interested me was the chapter on IT workers in India from Kalindi Vora’s book Life Support.  I myself am a math-computer science major, and I am planning on working in the technology industry where it is very common to outsource engineering labor to places like India.  Prior to taking this course, while I recognized that technology companies most likely underpaid these workers, I did not think that it was problematic in and of itself for Indian workers to perform mundane tasks they are outsourced with like manual testing.  After reading the book and taking this course, I realize that the underlying structures and history that led to Indian workers performing this task is a result of settler colonialism and racialization of the Indian body as servile, easily replaceable, and made to perform reproductive labor.  I think Vora’s claim that the engineering labor they are tasked with can be considered “reproductive” labor is a really strong claim.  Structurally, people in these third world countries are prevented from advancing themselves because they have to perform this reproductive labor such as the IT workers do.  This class also has deepened my understanding of the effects of settler colonialism.  I didn’t know too much about neoliberalism before.  It is really intense seeing how strong of a connection there is between the original colonial countries and how they currently participate in things like Haitian debt and structural adjustment programs.  I think the biggest thing I have taken from this class is that fundamentally, the world really hasn’t changed that much.  The underlying power structures are really quite similar between now and the 15th century.  I think what has changed is that now we have a dialogue to use to discuss these issues with courses like Ethnic Studies, and it is not lost upon me that that has come at the hands of people of color who were willing to take those risks to change the master narrative.

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Catfish Blues

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A demo of my Zine is live! Please click the link and check it out.

Overall, I really like the layout of my ‘Zine.  A couple of things I’d like to get feedback on for the final Zine:

- Is the cover page too plain?  Currently I just have it as a black background because there are no videos of Robert Petway.  What should I put in there if it is too plain? 

- Is the ‘Zine considered long enough?  Prof. Wayne suggested 6 pages but I think since the quality of my ‘Zine is high, perhaps my 4 should be considered sufficient.  

I do have to note, the text in my ‘Zine is not final.  I do plan on using the general themes from Notebooks 1, 2, and 3 on the Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, and Gary Clark Jr. Pages respectively, but I haven’t gone back and re-edited those notebooks for the ‘Zine.

Let me know what you think! 

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Notebook 4 Feedback

Brooke's zine is called ":catfish blues", and it describes the circulation of "Catfish Blues," a song released in 1941 and popularized by Black musicians such as Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix. In it, she is analyzing how the song has survived the test of time as a circulation of Blackness to be covered again and again by Black artists. At first glance, I really like Brooke's cover. It has a minimalist, pop art feel to it. The color pallet is inspired by the album art for Jimi Henrix's album Blues, and gives the visuals of the zine more depth. Another page includes an extension of the pop art aesthetic, and features a stanza from "Catfish Blues". This is definitely important to keep in the book, as it serves the double purpose of creating an aesthetic page, as well as providing the lyrics to the song so she doesn't have to do it in the middle of her writing.

Another thing that stands out to me about ":catfish blues" is its unique digital format and the leeway it gives Brooke in her creative process. She plans to include recordings of Catfish Blues so that she will be able to better highlight the the differences and similarities between the recordings over space and time.

Another part of her work that I find interesting is her plan to discuss "why [Robert Petway, the original writer of "Catfish Blues"] is excluded from mainstream musical knowledge and the dynamics of anti-blackness that led to that exclusion." Especially when analyzing Circulations of Blackness, it is important to note who is doing the circulating, who is being circulated, and why. I am excited to read more about this point in the final edition of ":catfish blues".

Initially, Brooke wanted to do a relational analysis between Black migration to the North as an escape from racial violence and refugees fleeing terror in Syria. While both groups experience racialized violence, I suggested that she narrow the scope of her project to analyzing early 20th Century cirulations of Blackness to contemporary circulations of Blackness, so she did not run the risk of comparing the experiences of Syrian refugees and Black Americans post-slavery.

One quote I think definitely needs to be included in the final zine is “There are very few people who have an awareness of how widespread this terrorism and violence was, and the way it now shapes the geography of the United States. We’ve got majority black cities in Detroit, Chicago, large black populations in Oakland and Cleveland and Los Angeles and Boston, and other cities in the Northeast. And the African Americans in these communities did not come as immigrants looking for economic opportunities, they came as refugees, exiles from lands in the South where they were being terrorized. And those communities have particular needs we’ve never addressed, we’ve never talked about. We’ve got generational poverty in these cities and marginalization within black communities, and you cannot understand these present-day challenges without understanding the Great Migration, and the terror and violence that sent the African Americans to these cities where they’ve never really been afforded the care and assistance they needed to recover from the terror and trauma that were there.”

However, I might paraphrase it as:

“Anti-Black terrorism was systematic and omnipresent in the 1940s, and few people acknowledge the extent to which this violence influenced the geography of the U.S. Cities today that have significant numbers of Black people, such as Oakland and Detroit, can be directly traced to cities in the South. While text books paint this out as Black Americans migrating simply for economic opportunity, fulfilling the narrative of the “American dream”, according to Michael Goldfield, “they came as refugees, exiles from lands in the South where they were being terrorized”. Because these communities were never given the infrastructure or social services required to survive under capitalism, African American communities even today are marginalized at the intersections of race and class.”

I find this quote particularly poignant because it directly ties back to the migration, one of the central themes of “:catfish blues”, and it also provides an intersectional analysis of race and class for Black communities both then and now.

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This is my notebook 4 for Ethnic Studies 2, here is a demo of my digital Zine.  I used the Parallax scrolling technique in web development.  I created Slide 1 and Slide 2 of my Zine.  I plan to add more in the Zine draft.

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Notebook 3

Focus or Changes

So!  That Angela Davis “article” on Blues Legacies and Black Feminism...turns out it's actually a book, not an article.  I must have included the link to a book review or summary Angela wrote for the New York Times.  Anyways!  I also found another really interesting book, The Color of Politics by Michael Goldfield.  Great quote in there relating to my discussion of National Binds and understanding the “Great Migration” as a refugee crisis:

There are very few people who have an awareness of how widespread this terrorism and violence was, and the way it now shapes the geography of the United States. We’ve got majority black cities in Detroit, Chicago, large black populations in Oakland and Cleveland and Los Angeles and Boston, and other cities in the Northeast. And the African Americans in these communities did not come as immigrants looking for economic opportunities, they came as refugees, exiles from lands in the South where they were being terrorized. And those communities have particular needs we’ve never addressed, we’ve never talked about. We’ve got generational poverty in these cities and marginalization within black communities, and you cannot understand these present-day challenges without understanding the Great Migration, and the terror and violence that sent the African Americans to these cities where they’ve never really been afforded the care and assistance they needed to recover from the terror and trauma that were there.

Relational Analysis

Since the circulation of Catfish Blues occurred during the time of the “migration” period in the early twentieth century, I shall analyze relationally the experience of black Americans fleeing violence and terror of the south with the present-day Syrian refugee crisis.  The experience of black Americans can be analyzed relationally in comparison to the Syrian refugee crisis in the present day.  As discussed in lecture, the experience of being designated as a “criminal” or “outlaw”, which black Americans and Syrian refugees experience, and not having a permanent home originated out of anti-black sentiments.  The experience of Syrian refugees is directly related to that of both chattel slavery and the prison industrial complex.  Christina Sharpe relates these experiences in In the Wake, and describes how the physical conditions migrants and refugees in the boats in the Mediterranean were very similar to the physical conditions that occurred in the slave ships in the Middle Passage.  Their bodies have been racialized to be cheap and disposable.  

Zine Cover

Below is the ‘Zine cover I designed.  I used similar colors as found in Jimi Hendrix’s album Blues.  

Single Page

Here’s one of the stanzas of catfish blues lyrics that I’ll include as a page in the ‘Zine.

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Notebook 2

Object: “Catfish Blues” by Robert Petway, Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimi Hendrix, Gary Clark Jr., …

Focus

No changes have been made to my object.  I considered changing my object to something related to Syrian refugees in light of the crisis as caused by Trump’s immigration/ Muslim ban, because I really want to make sure my project is relevant, particularly in situations like these where such legislation has immediate life and death consequences.  However I really do like exploring the idea how this little blues song from the Mississippi Delta, which so little is known about it it is not even clear who the original songwriter is, became so influential for artists of a generation like Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix.  It would also be interesting to explore the idea of “Catfish Blues” in relation to a refugee crisis.  I recall Professor Wayne describing “The Great Migration” itself as a refugee crisis, because black families were fleeing the South from KKK terrorists ( actual terrorists, unlike the ban of “terrorists” Donald Trump proposed even though nobody from those seven countries has committed an act of terror in the United States since 9/11), and it is an injustice to describe it as anything other than that because otherwise it mitigates the violence and murders that were inflicted against the black community.  It would be very fascinating, I just realized, to make that connection with Catfish Blues somehow in the ‘Zine and relate it to immediate events in the present day.

Sources and details

For sources and details, I would really like to include some recordings and various versions of Catfish Blues to showcase the different genres and styles it was played in and how it affected future versions of the song.  My goal is to use different versions of the song to highlight a particular point in time, and how notions of racial formation, anti-blackness, and particularly blackness, formed along with the evolution of the song.  

I want to include what is considered the original recording by Robert Petway. This song was recorded in the Mississippi Delta region in 1941.  Goal with this section would be to include a discussion about institutions such as the Black Codes and Jim Crow and how those institutions were counteracted by Blues music in that region.  I also find it interesting that so little is known about Robert Petway himself, who is a highly influential musician, and I’d like to discuss why he is excluded from mainstream musical knowledge and the dynamics of anti-blackness that led to that exclusion.

My plan is to include the version by Muddy Waters, which is actually titled “Rollin’ Stone” but it utilizes several lines from the original song.  As I talked about in the Focus section, I want to talk here about how the Great Migration was really a refugee crisis.  Although Muddy Waters predated Dr. King by a few decades, I found an interesting article from the LA Times that talks about how the anti-blackness Dr. King encountered in the Northern states was in many ways far worse than that he encountered in the South.  http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mlk-chicago-20160118-story.html  

I’d also like to include “Voodoo Chile” by Jimi Hendrix.  I still haven’t formulated exactly what I’m going to discuss in this section, I’ll admit.  But Jimi Hendrix is so influential and outside the genre of blues music that Catfish was originally created in, I think it would be really valuable to include him in the discussion about how this song circulated through black genres and musicians.  He was heavily influenced by Muddy.  Here’s a 14 minute long live version of Voodoo Chile I found: 

National binds

I think citizenship and the idea of how the “American citizen” is constructed might be an interesting topic to explore here, particularly for the transnational context within the Muddy Waters version of the song is contained -> “The Great Migration” as a Refugee Crisis.  Notions of citizenship would be particularly interesting to discuss in this context because of how the Northern States were systematically designated as anti-black, whites-only states.  When blues artists fled to the North, they were in regions were structurally designed to be anti-black.  The idea of colonialism would also be a national bind to discuss, because even though that land is designated as “white” land, it was land stolen from indigenous people.  

Intersectional analysis

I think an intersectional analysis of gender would be particularly relevant.  I actually found an interesting article by Angela Davis (fangirl eyes) titled “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism.”   An interesting quote from the article, she argues that themes of blues music reflects sexual liberty, “For the first time in the history of the African presence in North America, masses of black women and men were in a position to make autonomous decisions regarding the sexual partnerships into which they entered.”  I love how she brings an intersectional lens, I hadn’t considered this perspective before.  There is actually a line in Catfish Blues that could reflect this idea of sexual and romantic independence, “Well, if I were a catfish, mama  / I says, swimmin' deep down in the blue sea / Have these girls now, sweet mama  / Settin' out, settin' out hooks for po' me.”

For next week, I’m looking forward to exploring and analyzing these ideas deeper.  Until then!

List of sources with hyperlinks: 

Professor Wayne, Lecture

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/d/davis-blues.html

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mlk-chicago-20160118-story.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmywB9Fnfn0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHJRIlNXwdk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2hygHu8CI

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Notebook 1

The object of circulation I have chosen is the song “Catfish Blues.”  A traditional blues song that originated in the Mississippi Delta region with the first known recording from 1941 by blues musician Robert Petway, the song has been circulated through several genres of music and periods of time.  While the musical style in which “Catfish Blues” is played has varied, the preservation of the song from the traditional genre of Mississippi Delta Blues which arose as a result of systematic oppression under the Black Codes, makes the song a Circulation of Blackness.

One trans/national context in which this song can be considered is during the Great Migration period, specifically during the 1940s when blues music was also being brought to the northern states as a result of fleeing violence from terrorist organizations in the south.  As discussed in lecture, the illegality of slavery in Northern states caused the region to be systematically designated as “anti-black” states.  Bringing blues music from the south to the Northern states was in itself an act of defiance and preservation of blackness and black culture.  Muddy Waters utilized lines from “Catfish” for the song “Rollin’ Stone.”  Another trans/national context in which “Catfish” has circulated is during 1968.  Jimi Hendrix adapted lines from “Catfish Blues” for the song “Voodoo Chile.”  Jimi Hendrix performed the song at Woodstock music festival.