XPost: alt.banjo, alt.banjo.clawhammer, alt.music.african   
   XPost: rec.music.country.old-time   
   From: djbanjo@comcast.net   
      
   "RobertM" asked:   
   >     Why is it that Afro-Americans don't like the banjo today? In spite of   
   > their wanting to associate with their roots, have they purposely distanced   
   > themselves from their roots? Or is it because they want to distance   
   > themselves from the slavery association where they had to play for the   
   > master or be killed? I've never seen a colored bluegrass banjo picker,   
   > although I don't deny that a few may exist. Bluegrass banjo picking began   
   as   
   > white, racist, male dominated, anti-Yankee music. With these traits, it   
   must   
   > surely be a Southeast American invention.   
   >   
   Bob:  I think it's much simpler than that, Bob, it's because to them, it's   
   "cracker" music.  And I guess it is.  At this point, I'll bet probably not   
   one in twenty young blacks have any idea that the banjo is African in   
   origin, or even know what minstrel music was, any more than young white   
   folks do.  Years ago, I worked for a black non-profit organization in   
   Boston's Dorchester neighborhood.  I was the only white employee in an   
   organization of 120 employees.  On my last day on the job, after having been   
   nagged for weeks by my crew, I brought in my banjo.  It was wierd, though,   
   the minute I opened the case, the laughing and joking stopped, even before I   
   took it out.  Most of them had been born in the south; this was before the   
   great migrations from Haiti, the rest of the West Indies, and the Cape   
   Verdes began in the 80s, and they knew what a banjo was.  I guess when they   
   saw the banjo up close, though, they suddenly realized I was just another   
   white guy playing the music of the people they and their families had left   
   behind years before.  I picked a really quick tune, and then put it away,   
   and we all went to the going away party.  We didn't speak about it.   
      
   I remember quite a few years ago, just a few years after my wife passed   
   away, I took my two kids on a vacation to Williamsburg.  One evening we   
   attended a presentation about early African American music and dance which   
   was held in the slave quarters of one of the big houses.  The leading   
   presenter, if I remember right, was from Ghana, West Africa.  It was a very   
   detailed presentation, both educational and enormously entertaining, but   
   there was not even a mention of the banjo, nor any of its predecessors.   
   They had done a great deal of research for their presentation, so it had to   
   be a deliberate omission.  So even when they know about the history, they   
   may choose to ignore it.  I did not ask about it, though.  When you are a   
   guest in someone else's home, you don't criticize the meal, and that's how   
   the situation felt to me.   
      
   Leve wrote:   
      
   > In South Carolina, we provide a free tank of gas to all   
   > Northern left wing loons to ensure they will continue   
   > driving right out of the state.   
      
   Trust me on this, the feeling is mutual.   
      
   Pete wrote:   
      
   > P.S. And as Joe accurately noted; it *is* a drone string. }:-)   
      
   Jeez, Pete, you still wanting the last word on that one?  Okay, you win- it   
   *is* a drone string. }:-)   
      
   - Don Borchelt   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)