Reparations! It’s the right thing to do! Reparations! Cos the rent’s come due!
That’s the hook line for a song in the works about Reparations, inspired by Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations,” cited below. The lyrics would tell of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, the police state, leading up to Bible passages about the Year of Jubilee, when all in bonds receive the fruits of their labor and go free to their own lands. All is restored to its natural balance in the Year of Jubilee….
Reparations! It’s the right thing to do! Reparations! Cos the rent’s come due!
Music has power, every musician knows this. Certain tones and rhythms can slip a message past the conscious guard and root it into the listeners’ hearts. This is why epic social changes often go with changes in the music of the times. A song like this could reach people who would never read an article or listen to a speech, could get people thinking and feeling and moving into action …
Reparations! It’s the right thing to do! Reparations! Cos the rent’s come due!
Since I’m Autistic and have trouble talking, I made fliers and passed them out at a drum circle I attend, explaining all this and inviting people to come to my yard and jam on it at some future date. We would record it and put it out there, free.*
Reparations! It’s the right thing to do! Reparations! Cos the rent’s come due!
The drum circle is mostly a bunch of old hippies, that is, white folks. There’s a few Black and Brown folks who show up sometimes, but don’t often stay for long. I’m (mostly) white, too, although being a white-passing Spanish Creole from Louisiana does get a bit complicated sometimes … But still, we’re hippies, peace and love, back to the Garden. We all loved Jimmy Hendrix back in the day, and some of us had even marched with King. So I thought at least some of us would be down for it. Turns out, I thought wrong.
First I overheard a lanky towhead guy saying "... who was that young girl passing out fliers for some political thing? Anytime I see someone mixing drums and politics I stay away!” A stately elder lady said, "I agree! I threw it away! I hate politics!" A prettily plump platinum-haired matriarch chimed in, “You did the right thing! I threw mine away too!” and turned the talk to her recent cruise vacation to Africa, where she’d gotten her drum. “You went on a cruise?! Now?!” exclaimed Stately Elder. She started some crosstalk about COVID and Africa and 45 and the latest conspiracy theory as she toyed with the beads on her shekere.
I was sitting right there, and they were talking like I wasn't. So I said, "Caring about people getting killed is just politics now?" No one looked at me. It was as if no sound was coming from my mouth. (BTW, I’m no "young girl"; I'm 65, non-binary, and proudly sport a mustache!)
I got up to leave, waving goodbye to everyone. The only one who waved back was a willowy woman in a gauzy white dress. But for the thoughtful lines on her face and the lack of flowers in her silver-streaked hair, she looked just like she would have 50 years ago, right down to her rosy little bare feet. I paused and crouched beside her. “I like what you're trying to do but I can't go with it,” she said. Why, I asked. Because, she explained, she likes to think of a drum circle as a peaceful place, and playing drums for politics would destroy her peace.
WTF?!?!?! I tried to shout, No Justice, No Peace! but it came out as a murmur.
Her sweet silver-blue eyes sought mine as she said, "try and let go of that anger. It's not our fight." I cringed, feeling violated by her gaze. My mind went blank.
After a moment I tried again. "Why are people saying that caring about people getting killed in the streets is politics? What ever happened to Liberty and Justice for All?”
“It’s politics because people are making it political,” she replied.
“But we are people and we can do better!” I wanted to scream but my words came out in a whisper.
“It’s not my fight,” she repeated. “I just want peace.” She gazed at her drum and gently stroked it, like it was a kitten or an infant. Agent Orange’s voice echoed in my mind … It is what it is …
Just then, Towhead started a funky beat on his gorgeous Djembe drum. I slid a glance his way and remarked, "How can he love African drums yet not care about African American people?" Alice in Gauze was quick to reply, "I know him. He loves Black people!”
… Yeah, I thought, he probably has a Black girlfriend and plays with a reggae band… maybe even adopted an African child…
I wanted to throw a firecracker into the circle. Instead, I just took my drum and walked away.
PS — anyone want to jam with me on Zoom? Read this and PM me:
*It would be wrong for white folks to make money on something like this, although if any Black folks get on board I’d pay them union scale or better out of my own pocket, and they’d get any royalties that may come of it.
