Klarinet Archive - Posting 000557.txt from 1996/02

From: "Susan E. Pontow" <FBVB@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Re: rap music
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 18:54:51 -0500

This is the continuation of my response to Bethany:

from Chaika, "Language: The Social Mirror"

p. 218

"The game" is the way things are. Labov et al point out that the toasts do not
claim that the game pays off in any way. The satisfaction comes from playing
with dignity, and, according to the rules. The rules dictate that one never
complains about what happens. Justice is not expected, nor is injustice
bemoaned. Heroism consists of great courage as it does in the middle-class
world, but, in the toasts, the courage consists partly of being willing to face
the penalties of crime.
Certainly, these are poems of despair. Achilles had a battlefield with
potential honor. Beowulf could become a bonafide hero by killing Grendel.
These were heroes to their entire people. African Americans in the slums often
saw no way to become the kinds of heroes general American society set up(4), at
least not before the 1960's and the first glimmerings of the Civil Rights
movement. This does not mean all black males sought their honor in playing the
game of drugs and pimps. Most Blacks did not and do not. But the message was
the same to all: "You keep on tryin' as you go down cryin'. You take all odds"
and you don't complain.
-------------------------------------
(4) Even in World War II, most Blacks were relegated to janitorial and other
personal service capacities. The Army camps were segregated, and Blacks were
given little battlefield operation. This in a war which stressed human rights
as its motivation.
-----------------------------------------
p. 219
The toasts taught other lessons as well. Clearly, throughout, no
sympathy is to be shown, no self-pity, no pity for others. This is
well-illustrated in "The Sinking of the Titanic" when Shine, the hero, starts
swimming across the Atlantic away from the disaster. He encounters several
doomed passengers who plead with him to save them. Despite the rewards they
promise, he rebuffs them all harshly and coldly. Finally, he meets a crying
baby.

7. Shine said, "Baby, baby, please don't cry.
All little m--s got a time to die.
You got eight little fingers and two little thumbs
And your black ass goes when the wagon comes."

Labov et al (1968, p.60) compare this to Achilles' speech in the "Iliad".

8. Ay friend thou too must die: why lamentest thou?
Petroklos too is dead, who was better far than thou.
See thou not also what manner of man am I might and
goodliness?
Yet over me too hang death and forceful fate.

However, Achilles says this to another adult, not a helpless babe. What can
this mean, and why is it in the toast? Certainly, blacks love their babies as
others do. Clearly, Shine shows some feeling for the baby, "Please don't cry."
In fact, the baby is the only one of the doomed to whom Shine uses politeness
markers. To the others he is brutal. We have ample evidence from this toast
and others such as "The Fall" that pity for others is to be squelched at all
costs. Many verses in "The Fall" are devoted to first establishing that the
prostitute served her man fantastically well. When she becomes ill, however,
he throws her out and, again, several verses recount the particular
heartlessness with which he does so, such as:

8. You had your run. Now you done...
I can't make no swag off some swayback nag.
Whose thoroughbred days are past.
Why I'd look damn silly puttin' a cripple filly.
On a track that's way too fast.
(p. 57)

My interpretation of such passages is that they are intended to underscore an
important message to the urban slum dweller. It is not good in that life to
have too much pity for others. In a world as harsh as that pictured in

p. 220
these toasts, the only way to survive is to cut off compassion. The passage
from the "Iliad" had the same message for the ancient Greek youths: In war one
must not be compassionate. In essence, the world of toasts is a world always
at war. Just as Shine's swimming the ocean to safety is a tremendous
exaggeration, so is his encounter with the baby. It is the message "be
dispassionate" carried to the point of hyperbole.
African American storytelling is suffused with tales that teach people
not to trust, not to pity. Thsi theme has even been grafted onto stories
originally from Africa, such as the talking animal genre like the "Bre'r
Rabbit" stories. The difference is that in Africa, these stories were used to
teach children to beware of antisocial creatures who disrupted friendship. In
America, these were changed so that they taught instead that everyone must look
out for him- or herself. Thus are the realities of society mirrored in speech
activities.
The attitude toward women in the toasts goes beyond mere lack of pity.
It is actively hostile.

(to be continued)