This week’s topic focused heavily on the influence and presence of race in American music throughout history. Professor O’Malley stated that during the 1800’s and 1900’s, and I would argue even today, “American popular culture is strangely integrated in comparison to the distinctly segregated political atmosphere.” According to the lecture, the concept of the Minstrel show developed in 1830, taking American music by storm. This involved white Americans dressing and acting as a “Black American”, and preforming songs such as “Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Dixie,” and the character Jim Crow. Instruments typically associated with African culture were used such as tambourines, banjos, fiddles, and”bones”. In the lecture the point was brought up whether the minstrel show was just simple racism or rooted in something else. Personally I believe it is rooted in a morbid fascination with ownership over a culture, not only at the time did the white population own black Americans as property, they also owned their culture, personas, and were able to re-envision the perception of this population at the time. It can be argued that this fascination continues today. The minstrel show and its legacy is deeply embedded in American culture, as mentioned in the discussion the “Yellow Rose of Texas” is the state anthem of Texas, and just recently the “Walmart Yodel Boy” went viral singing a song initially sung by Emmett Miller, who was a famous minstrel actor. I would argue it goes even deeper than this. In American popular culture and media we frequently find musicians or even just celebrities who benefit from the commodification of various cultures, not just Black American, but neglect issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement. A prime examples is the infamous Kardashian family. They have relentlessly fetishized Black American culture through their clothing, hair, makeup, bodies, and more but have remained silent and many pressing issues within American society. I do not believe that any Kardashian should run for any office, but I want them to recognize you can not just pick and choose aspects of a culture to adorn but then ignore when people of this culture are being subject to extreme injustice.

The discussion then shifted to Irish Americans at the time, who quickly adapted the ways of minstrelsy to fit in to public perception. As Irish immigrants began to arrive in America, many found themselves rejected by societal standards. The Irish were typically catholic with a tinge of mysticism, had heavy accents, many spoke Gaelic rather than English, and were fleeing the mass destruction and occupation of their country. As a descendent of many Irish immigrants I am well informed about their treatment in the US, such as signs stating “no Irish need apply” and other discriminatory slogans. Some of my family left Ireland after the potato famine since there was hardly any work in Ireland but when they arrived in the states no one would give them a job. This resulted in positions such as maids, nannies, and indentured servants. Depiction of Irish in newspapers and the public view of the Irish population resulted in a “herd mentality” causing Irish to flock together, also contributing to the adoption of the minstrel act in attempt to Americanize themselves. This proved to be an issue to the next wave of immigrants to New York, many polish and Italians, since the Irish had finally established themselves as Americans and were reluctant to give jobs to other ethnicities and risk losing their position in society.

The following class we continued the discussion of the commodification of various cultures in music and how that continues to influence American music today. Two instruments typically associated with Hawaii, the ukulele (which originally came from Portugal) and the steel guitar, have both infiltrated American sound through various genres. In the slides the lecture mentioned “lap steel” and how colonized Hawaii began to influence the blues and other western music, in songs such as “I hear ya talkin” by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Similar to the banjo which was associated with African culture, then utilized by the minstrel shows, and is currently used by white, rural musicians, now the steel guitar has transcended genres to “African American music”. “Its native music is repurposed in a time (1940’s) when music is highly racialized,” – Professor O’Malley.

This discussion also tackled the issue of whether or not GarageBand and devices like it have deskilled musicians and has the minstrel show been perpetuated by the faceless racial archetypes present in garage band? These statements tie into earlier weeks of how industrialization has resulted in the gradual decline of individuality and quality. Musicians can be somewhat replaced by this technology but there is a finite number of possibilities of song combinations, resulting in the potential for mass production of the same songs, losing the individuality of musicians.