Growing up in Augusta, GA, James Brown's hometown, shaped my understanding of the history of music.
Most people point to jazz and bluegrass, and lately, Hip Hop. Funk deserves to be added to the list of great musical forms that black genius at work on this continent has given the world.
I'm writing this from a cafe in New Orleans, home of The Meters, reading about a revival of interest in Sly Stone, who did his thing in California, while a Stevie Wonder song recorded in Detroit plays on the sound system.
Given the history of this place since people started crossing the Atlantic Ocean, "What is going on here?" is asking a similar question as "What is Black genius?"
Yes, "What's going on here?" Is in many ways the animating force of a lot of Black art, particularly literature in my experience, which is why it reads as so interesting and vital to me. If I had the space I was going to go on about the writers who shaped my understanding of the world because of that lens.
I'm envious! I never saw him in person. I just looked him up and apparently he's changed his name to Sananda Maitreya and is still releasing lots of music.
I am a Boomer white lady, of Scandinavian descent. Just saying. My role models were submissive housewives. I could relate, because I am a natural homemaker. Arranging the nest is my happy place, but that's just me!
I don't see myself in today's media, either. I see brown skins, curly haired children having adult adventures they cannot possibly do in reality. The Upsidedown is pervasive and deceptive.
Today's feminine humuns have ball-busting warriors for role models.
Neither one is accurate or desirable.
Over compensation is a problem in any age and yet we cannot help but explore the edges of our cave.
Today's Hollywood presentations will, in the long run damage girls, when they go into a dark alley only to discover that their ability to overcome even a slender out-of-shape man's aggression will fail them miserably. When these wimmin are blasted with the indignities of reality without a man, they will find the edge, look into the abyss, a back away.
If I grasp what you mean by upsidedownism, I think we maybe already paying the price of that conceit and its wild success, namely in the cultural backlash that helped sweet Trump into office.
This just makes me mourn for the time when my local Top 40 station was thoroughly integrated -- and we didn't know it wasn't that way everywhere. So much was lost when automated, niche playlists came in and the possibility of everyone listening to the same music was gone. When I was in high school, that musical diversity was a binding force.
I had two thoughts while reading. One, the mere use of the term Black genius implies that the Black people who get labeled genius are somehow exceptional to the rest of the Black population. If we, as a culture, truly believed there was as much genius among Black people as we believe there is among White people, would we need to add the Black label? Two, I wonder if the notion that “some, but only a few, black people are smart enough to be invited into our space” wasn’t indirectly communicated to you and your white school peers during that Brooks visit. And how much of that bias is still at play today? To be clear, these are thoughts about our culture, not you personally.
I interpret this term Black Genius differently, not for singling out talented individuals but as a recognition of a genius baked into blackness and the culture and existence of being black and that this black genius is an element that enriches the world.
Growing up in Augusta, GA, James Brown's hometown, shaped my understanding of the history of music.
Most people point to jazz and bluegrass, and lately, Hip Hop. Funk deserves to be added to the list of great musical forms that black genius at work on this continent has given the world.
I'm writing this from a cafe in New Orleans, home of The Meters, reading about a revival of interest in Sly Stone, who did his thing in California, while a Stevie Wonder song recorded in Detroit plays on the sound system.
Given the history of this place since people started crossing the Atlantic Ocean, "What is going on here?" is asking a similar question as "What is Black genius?"
Yes, "What's going on here?" Is in many ways the animating force of a lot of Black art, particularly literature in my experience, which is why it reads as so interesting and vital to me. If I had the space I was going to go on about the writers who shaped my understanding of the world because of that lens.
In case you need (more) evidence of the degree to which Gwendolyn Brooks might not be welcome in a school today, I give you this: https://www.iowapublicradio.org/ipr-news/2025-02-21/dei-waterloo-school-cancels-black-history-month-event-free-childrens-books.
Waterloo, IA is the hometown of Nikole Hannah-Jones.
"The books which were sent home with students will be returned." Good lord.
Right? And here I thought these people were opposed to waste.
Colin Powell was the first black officer to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Terence Trent D'Arby was on the bill of the first concert I ever saw! (He was touring with Duran Duran at the time.) Good show!
I'm envious! I never saw him in person. I just looked him up and apparently he's changed his name to Sananda Maitreya and is still releasing lots of music.
Excellent! Thank you. Role Models Matter.
I am a Boomer white lady, of Scandinavian descent. Just saying. My role models were submissive housewives. I could relate, because I am a natural homemaker. Arranging the nest is my happy place, but that's just me!
I don't see myself in today's media, either. I see brown skins, curly haired children having adult adventures they cannot possibly do in reality. The Upsidedown is pervasive and deceptive.
Today's feminine humuns have ball-busting warriors for role models.
Neither one is accurate or desirable.
Over compensation is a problem in any age and yet we cannot help but explore the edges of our cave.
Today's Hollywood presentations will, in the long run damage girls, when they go into a dark alley only to discover that their ability to overcome even a slender out-of-shape man's aggression will fail them miserably. When these wimmin are blasted with the indignities of reality without a man, they will find the edge, look into the abyss, a back away.
If I grasp what you mean by upsidedownism, I think we maybe already paying the price of that conceit and its wild success, namely in the cultural backlash that helped sweet Trump into office.
John, thank you for the personal, pointed, timely article.
Brooks was not only a genius, she was a saint. She'd be as good as guide, maybe event better, as Virgil through hell.
Who shall be her Dante?
This just makes me mourn for the time when my local Top 40 station was thoroughly integrated -- and we didn't know it wasn't that way everywhere. So much was lost when automated, niche playlists came in and the possibility of everyone listening to the same music was gone. When I was in high school, that musical diversity was a binding force.
I had two thoughts while reading. One, the mere use of the term Black genius implies that the Black people who get labeled genius are somehow exceptional to the rest of the Black population. If we, as a culture, truly believed there was as much genius among Black people as we believe there is among White people, would we need to add the Black label? Two, I wonder if the notion that “some, but only a few, black people are smart enough to be invited into our space” wasn’t indirectly communicated to you and your white school peers during that Brooks visit. And how much of that bias is still at play today? To be clear, these are thoughts about our culture, not you personally.
I interpret this term Black Genius differently, not for singling out talented individuals but as a recognition of a genius baked into blackness and the culture and existence of being black and that this black genius is an element that enriches the world.