Prometheus 6

He was born in Tupelo, MISSISSIPPI.

Need we give anymore explanation as to why he's a racist?

Channeling Homer Simpson:  D'OH

http://skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/a-recipe-for-indifference/

I have long argued that it was the stance taken by the music industry, music critics and devoted fans of Elvis that did more than anything else to make him a racist icon at least in the eyes of black folks. I could not imagine, for example, Elvis Presley, who by all accounts was a polite and respectful person, ever caling the great Ray Charles a nigger as Jerry Lee Lewis did one night as he was exiting the stage and Charles was making his way onto the stage. (There is also a story that the white blues singer and guitarist Bonnie Raitt actually punched Elvis Costello out one night in a bar in Cleveland for saying that Ray Charles was just a "blind old nigger." There must have been something about Papa Ray that drove these lesser talented white boys crazy.)

I do not think it is quite fair to say that Elvis stole black folks music because our music was the muic that he loved and wanted to play. I don't think he had the slightest inkling that his imitating the music stylings and stage presence of Arthur "Big Boy" Cruddup, Big Maybelle, Wiiie Mae Thornton etc. would result in the sort of acclaim and fortune he received. Elvis wasn't, after all, stupid. The only people he knew who liked this type of music were black folks and weird white boys like himself. 

I read Guralnik's piece several days ago. I thought then and now that he either glossed over or ignored some extremely critical points. But, once again, to quote Albert Murray: "In America black people don't sufer from a lack of accomplishment but from a lack of recognition of their accomplishments."

BTW, Elvis Costello's wife, Diana Krall, is doing television commercials for Lexus. The girl can play the piano but Cassandra Wilson and Diane Reeves, for example, can sing her under the table but she is blond, has nice legs and we live in America.

He was born in Tupelo, MISSISSIPPI.

Yes, but he grew up in Memphis.  

From my relatives in Mississippi and Memphis, I have heard nothing but stories that showed Elvis as nothing but polite and respectful of black people. As far as I know, it was his fans that were the problem.

I don't doubt he was personally pleasant to Black folks. Neither do I doubt he had many if not most of the beliefs about Black folks the rest of the personally pleasant Southerners held.

No one can really know at ths point so I put about as much weight on Mr. Presley as Guralnick did. My issue is the rewriting of history.

Guralnick clearly wants to argue that rock and roll music stemmed from the best impulses in America and consequently had a democratizing and liberating effect on America as a whole. Since he wants to be taken seriously by the cultural literati, all of whom are white, and influential folks in the music industry, all of whom are white, and Elvis fans (I don't need to repeat myself) he is going to blow Elvis up and place him front and center in this movement. I think that Elvis' ears were too big, for example, for him to ever believe that he could do "Good Rockin' Tonight" or "Rip It Up" better than Wynonie Harris and Little Richard but his fans thought that he could and there was no compelling reason for him to remove their blinders. For music and cultural critics with liberal impulses Elvis provides an opportunity to engage in some wishful thinking about America. He provides the same tonic for his fans as well.

I don't think Elvis was ever a misanthropic, fire-breathing racist or a dedicated white supremacist, but he did abide by the subtle and not so-subtle folkways of the South that underpinned the reality of Jim Crow.  Thus he could never be considered an anti-racist or worthy of the praise heaped upon him for helping to create a more "egalitarian" society.  He attended a segregated high school, a fact which never seemed to genuinely bother him.  His parents and relatives never associated with black people or had a history of sticking their necks out to support civil rights.  His inner-circle consisted of a bunch of Southern good ole' boys, by no means a hospitable environment for any black person.  [Some of the individuals in this group (the famed Memphis Mafia) stoked his anger by referring to the man who Priscilla left him for as "half-nigger."  The person in question, Mike Stone, was actually half-Hawaiian.  Elvis, at one point, actually arranged to have him killed but backed out at the last minute.]  The only black people he probably had a personal relationship with were the maids and servants at Graceland.  He "held court" with certain black entertainers and celebrities but this doesn't differentiate him from most racist, Southern gentlemen.  If I am not mistaken, he never performed with any black performers until 1969, almost a full fifteen years after he "broke the color line" in music.  When one of his body guards started seriously dating one of the members of the black female singing group that toured with him in the 1970s, The Sweet Inspirations, he initially voiced his disapproval.     

As to his decision to perform black music, this was dictated to him by his first producer, Sam Philips, who knew that this would make him a commercial success.  After the initial phenomenon of rock and roll died down by the late 1950s, he turned strictly to watered-down pop when he emerged from the Army and would do so for the remainder of his career.  Thus his attachment to black music was fleeting and not fully representative of his musical legacy.  As to the issue of whether he actually "stole" black music, in my opinion, this is debatable.  Although he copied elements of rhythm and blues in his early records, he infused them with unmistakable country music influences which was novel at the time and set him apart from his contemporaries.  Unlike performers such as Al Jolson whose rendition of black music was intended to insult the humanity of African Americans or Pat Boone whose cover versions of rhythm and blues songs were laughably inferior, Elvis's appropriation of black music was neither overtly racist nor a lifeless substitution. 

But to credit this cultural accomplishment for helping to improve the state of democracy in America is simply nonsense.  I think this interpretation of history derives from a desire of certain white baby boomers who want recognition for ending racism so they don't have to acknowledge or confront racism in the present or commit to any future struggles.  Because of Elvis people can peddle their fondness for black music as a token of social enlightenment.  After all, 50 million Elvis fans can't be racist.                                        

Excellent points, Ubstu34!

There are a number of reasons I am so terse (do not ask for an explanation). I personally appreciate the quality of the details you all provide.

Two good books that specifically blow a hole in the argument that interest in African American culture and people among white Americans helped to lay the groundwork for a more egalitarian society include The Black Culture Industry by Ellis Cashmore and The Trouble with Friendship: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Race by Benjamin DeMott.  Cashmore argues that "black culture" in the popular mind is really no more than the currency of exchange between white entrepreneurs and audiences and a key contributor to the survival of racial hierarchy in the aftermath of the Brown decision.  DeMott argues that both blacks and whites substituted "friendship" for social justice in the years since the Civil Rights Movement.