On March 7, 2018, our HIST 390 class continued to discuss the unique history of music within the U.S.  Back in the day, the segregation between blacks and whites socially was noticeable.  American music executive of King Records, Sydney “Syd” Nathan, was able to make a noticeable amount of profit by selling songs twice to the public with one song being sung and performed by white artists and musicians and another version of it being sung by black artists and musicians.  Twice the songs, twice the profit.  With music being this segregated and this calculated, it makes one wonder what songs were real and which were simply subtle and calculated political and social moves.  What was the true soul of music if behind the scenes, music was always so meticulously and carefully thought out and made?  One of the biggest examples that give credence to these seemingly pessimistic fears was the concept of racial nationalism.  Racial nationalism is a belief system that advocates and tries to preserve racial definition of national identity.  The problem with the U.S., however, is that with both whites and blacks living within the country, it wasn’t as easy to define who U.S. citizens were as compared to, say, the almost completely white Ireland.  It then simply became a matter of defining what each race was.  When it came to the music industry, music executives and producers went out of their way to look for their idea of “authentic” black and white folks to sing the songs designed for black and white folks respectively.  In the end, both races ended up being romanticized to look better or worse, but always inaccurately, to the general public.  The music industry sought out singers, artists, and musicians who, in their minds, looked like customary and traditional examples of what their races were.  A clear example of this was the signing of Huddie William “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, who was signed by John Lomax all the way from his prison cell and was forced to maintain the image of a poor, black farmer or peasant that he definitely wasn’t throughout a good chunk of his career.  As much as he wanted to sing his own songs and show people the real him, his old image and what he used to be never truly left him.

What no doubt encouraged this thought process and behavior was the strange and unique relationship black musicians had with their white audiences.  As Karl Hagstrom Miller noted in his book, “Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pp Music in the Age of Jim Crow, “Some black musicians found that they could make more money playing for white audiences than they could for black patrons” (65).  When comparing the amount of pay and tips a black musician would receive when performing in front of a black audience to performing in front of a white audience, the difference was as clear as night and day.  With black audiences, there wouldn’t even be enough for the musicians to buy themselves food and drink, but with white audiences, they would continue to pay and tip them for playing recommendations, serenading, and dances and bring plates of food along with them. It also helped that shows with white audiences always seemed to end around midnight while shows with black audiences seemed to continue on to the early morning, something that black musicians took notice of and appreciated, as they could get some much needed sleep for the day ahead.  What certainly didn’t help black audiences  was how much more rougher and less safe they seemed to be when compared to white audiences and how racial attitudes towards black musicians, when compared to blacks in general by both average white citizens and law enforcement, was very noticeably nicer.  With all of the perks that came with playing the music white people and the music industry expected from them, black musicians and artists were probably less inclined to step out of line and stand up for themselves creatively.

In the end, it is truly frightening how easy it potentially is to make people believe in something that is simply not true.  To be fed what were essentially beautiful lies about one another while also probably noticing the truth about each other that came with living with one another probably did not do the two racial sides any favors or relieved any actual tension.  After all, if you knew that what was being portrayed in the media about you was a lie and people constantly made assumptions about you because of it, it would probably get under your skin pretty quickly.  Likewise, if you saw how the opposite side was being portrayed in the media and knew first-hand how that wasn’t how they presented themselves of acted, you might grow bitter to how much the truth was being manipulated and resent the other side even more.  Sure, there was probably some good that came out of this, and perhaps there were some racial tensions that were relieved due to these practices, but in the long term, I just can’t see how this would all work out in the end.  If all we tell is lies, those who demand the truth will simply assume that everything else is also a lie and will try to fight against it, and more fighting is the last thing two sides would want if both sides desire peace and understanding.