Caucasian Christians Resources

Hollenweger, W. The songs of the blacks. From Hollenweger, W. (1974). Pentecost between black and white, pp. 22-24. Belfast, Ireland: Christian Journals Ltd.

OVERVIEW

ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF NEGRO SPIRITUALS

The author, Professor of Missions at the University of Birmingham, England, provides the following summary of various conflicting and overlapping opinions:

• The spiritual has been seen as a misinterpreted hymn of the white church. (G.P. Jackson)
• The spiritual should be seen as a ‘confession of faith’ of the black church. (S. Lauchli and Th. Lehmann)
• The spiritual is the "clearest exponent of the Negro’s real self." (H.W. Odum)
• The spiritual can be interpreted as an oral document of events in the history of the American Negro. (M.M. Fisher)
• The spiritual was a protest against social injustice. (J. Lovell)
• The spiritual was an adaptation of African songs. (H.E. Krehbiel and Du Bois)
• Spirituals were songs originating in the white revival movement. (B.T. Washington)
• Spirituals were the musical creations of black bards like "singing Johnson" and "Ma White." (J.W. Johnson)
• Spirituals represent a blending of American and European melodies with African rhythm. (E.M. von Horbostel).

INFLUENCE: MUSICAL PRODUCTS OF SPIRITUALS

Hollenweger says that though their history may be somewhat obscure, their effects upon music trends are clear. They produced or had a profound influence on

• Different styles of jazz, including the Blues.
• Music in white Pentecostal churches—taking black style and changing and adapting to white style.
• Spontaneous gospel music arising from Pentecostal and some black Baptists churches.
• Attempts to adapt spirituals to European and American traditional church music.

Debate has risen in regards to this fourth category. Is it ever appropriate to use the spiritual in a non-Black church service?

MEMORY OF BLACK PAST

Hardly controversial is the fact that spirituals in some way ensure the memory of an oral African American culture. James Cone, in "Black Spirituals: A Theological Interpretation," Theology Today, 29(1), April 1972, pp. 54-69 [see also his The Spirituals and The Blues, 1972], says of Negro spirituals:

The divine liberation of the oppressed from slavery is the central theological concept in the black spirituals. These songs show that black slaves did not believe that human servitude was reconcilable with their African past and their knowledge of the…gospel. They did not believe that God created Africans to be the slaves of Europeans. Accordingly they sang of a God who was involved in their history—their history—making right what whites have made wrong...And if ‘de God dat lived in Moses’ time is jes’ de same today’, then God will vindicate the suffering of the righteous blacks and punish the unrighteous whites for their wrongdoings.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How have you enjoyed spirituals, if you have, and how much have you understood their nature and origin?
2. Which of the eight explanations of the origins of spirituals seems most adequate to you?
3. Do you think Cone goes too far in his interpretation of Negro spirituals?
4. Do you think that "Follow the Drinking Gourd" might have meant following the Little Dipper and North Star to freedom, or that "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" could have had anything to do with the underground railroad?
5. What do you see as the place of these spirituals in black churches today? In white churches or places of worship?
6. Where do we go from here? Is there need for greater knowledge and instruction about music and experiences of African Americans? Is there still work to be done in the relationships of blacks and whites?

IMPLICATIONS

• Music is one of the great influences in a young person’s life, and should be a universal means of communication among us all. Our musical tastes, just like the spectrum of our relationships, need to be stretched. We are enriched when our appreciation of our own and other cultures includes an interest in the music of others and times past.
• The sentimentalizing of spirituals merely for the purpose musical variety would seem to do injustice to this powerful musical tradition.
• One of the many functions of music is a prophetic one; it would seem that spirituals both comforted and challenged its original singers. It is too bad that those who should have been confronted by powerful messages took so long to notice and understand.

Dean Borgman cCYS

Langie, C. (1995, December 21). While white holiday Barbie sells, black doll languishes on shelves. San Diego Union Tribune, p. E3.

OVERVIEW

This year, Mattel, Inc.’s Caucasian holiday Barbie doll sold out so fast that the company had to offer vouchers to those who missed out. Meanwhile, the African-American holiday Barbie doll stayed on the shelves. Linda Holt, a Northern California doll dealer, said she had been getting calls for the holiday Barbie from all around the country, but that most callers were not looking for a black doll. "(The black dolls) are just as pretty as the white ones...(but) black dolls are usually the last to sell and not many people are buying them for their children," Holt says.

Mattel makes about 90 versions of Barbie each year, including American Indian Barbie, Japanese Barbie, Mexican Barbie, and more. This year, Mattel is reported to have made 60 percent white dolls and 40 percent black dolls. The year before, the company produced the dolls in a 90 percent white to 10 percent black split. The stores ran out of the black dolls that year, so Mattel boosted its production of black dolls this year. However, in most stores the black Barbies have not been selling well this year.

Buyers complain that the black dolls that are currently available are either too generic or too ethnic. The fact that the black dolls often do not look like the children they are marketed toward does not help, say psychologists. "Black Barbies don’t look like black children. They look like white dolls tinted brown and that doesn’t fool black kids," says Brenda Wade, a family psychologist. Wade suggests that black parents find a non-mainstream doll that resembles someone the child knows and inspires creativity.

Wade says she is not surprised that black girls favor white Barbie. According to studies conducted from the 1960s to today, black girls still associate white dolls with beauty, purity, and goodness. Gwendolyn Goldsby Grant, also a family psychologist, says she gets letters from parents complaining that they cannot get their children to like black dolls. She says it is not surprising that black children prefer white dolls. "In our society, dictionary definitions of good and bad tell us what it means to be black and white...it stays with (kids) for life," she says.

Doll collector Zoli Nazaari-Uebele says black Barbies have not been widely accepted because the doll has not made it into the mainstream. "You don’t see black Barbie on the clothing packages. You don’t see black Barbie on the doll-house box or the box with the car on it...She’s there as an option for black parents, but she’s still trying to make it into the mainstream."

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

IMPLICATIONS

1. Doll manufacturers in general have not succeeded in producing dolls of varying ethnicity that are really appealing to kids. Customer complaints that available dolls are either "too generic or too ethnic" indicate that manufacturers need to work toward gaining an understanding of various cultures in order to find out what kids really want.
2. Barbie has long been an American icon. The blond bombshell has generated controversy in recent years because she has been considered a poor role model for children. Many wonder about the doll’s influence on young girls, who may come to see a slim waist and flowing blond hair as the mark of the ideal woman. Even though Mattel, Inc. has started making Barbies that reflect different races, careers, and interests, it is hard to get past the doll’s buxom blond, all-American image.

Fulwood, S., III. (1994, October 11).

Black-White Divide Appears to be Widening

. Los Angeles Times.

OVERVIEW

(Download Black-White Divide overview as a PDF)

In our modern society, which places such emphasis on "political correctness" and social equality, recent polls indicate that the gap between races is increasing. Joe Melsha, a middle class white from Iowa, expresses the growing opinion of white middle class America:

I mean, I’m not a racist and I’m not going to go out and shoot anybody, but I don’t think [black Americans] deserve all the special programs that are offered to them. All the special programs [the government has are] for everybody except the white male. I don’t think it’s right that they say you have to have so many blacks or so many women or so many Hispanics working in different factories.

Whites seem to be uncomfortable with the idea of helping others when they feel their own economic futures are uncertain. Blacks doubt that racial and economic equality will ever become a reality. And politicians looking to opinion polls in reference to future election platforms allow the majority opinion to dictate policy.

Whites are uncomfortable with the thought of black Americans enjoying an equal or better standard of living as the result of government programs: "A lot of white people see that one in seven blacks have household income at $50,000 or above and conclude that too many black people are doing well...That’s when white people seem to make the illogical leap. They think everybody is equal and point to those black people doing well and say, therefore, we don’t need to do any more to help any black people," says Bill Boyd, fellow at

Joan Shorenstein Barone Center of the Press, Politics, and Public Policy

at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government [Boyd is studying the relationship between public opinion and social gains of black Americans during the past 40 years].

The

Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press

conducted a phone survey in which white Americans were asked if equal rights had gone too far:

• 1987. 16% said yes.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How do you define racism? Mr. Melsha says he is not racist—how would you label his viewpoint?
2. How do you define affirmative action? Do you see affirmative action as a corporate attempt to redress corporate racism or discrimination?
3. Is this a "religious issue" or something to be left to government?
4.  

1. How can you as an individual oppose racism?

IMPLICATIONS

• This article notes that the racial tension in our country is rising again; instead of becoming more unified, racial groups are becoming more segregated.

• This segregation applies not only to black and white, but to Jewish, Asian, and Hispanic Americans as well.

• Since politics often follows public opinion—not fact—there will likely be a conservative swing away from reconciliation and equality; Americans are rebelling against political correctness.

• Black America, as a whole, is in danger of losing its vision of equality, as it becomes harder to believe that things will ever change. This may lead to apathy and/or anger, both of which only lead to division.

1. The church has been greatly affected by the shifting mood of society throughout time, and is one of the most self-segregated institutions in our nation; therefore, youth today are being raised largely in a church and society that promotes racism and separation.

Amy Allison Moreau cCYS