Henry Thomas’s “Railroadin’ Some” is sung by a black man, however in Segregating Sound by Karl Miller, he argues that Thomas doesn’t use the traditional black music cues that immediately lets the listener know if the song is sung by a black or white person. This is especially true because the topic he was singing about was relatable for both black and white poor folks. Miller says, “Through this framework, one is more likely to see Henry Thomas’s travels and music as outgrowths of a generalized southern African American culture and predicament than as the action of a conscious and committed professional musician” (Miller 56). I think this is an interesting point that relates back to boundary transgression. All the people who had to move from their rural homes to the cities were able to relate to Thomas’s nostalgic music about what life was like at their homes. Living in a time where I don’t think there’s such a thing as “black music” or “white music”, it’s interesting to learn how mind-blowing it is for some people that Thomas didn’t “sound black”.

I believe that the song “Filipino Baby” by Cowboy Copas is a classic example of a man fetishizing a woman of color. Throughout the whole song, he didn’t once mention her name or anything about her other than what she physically looks like. He repeats the line, “I love my dark faced Filipino”. I understand that this was written in the 1940s and phrasing things as “politically correct” wasn’t a big concern, but there are so many things in this song that are just blatantly wrong. He also refers to her as “…my pet, lovin’ pet”. I disagreed with Professor O’Malley’s argument that this may as well have been a love song because he did end up marrying the woman he wrote the song for. I think that argument is the same as a racist person saying that they have black friends so they can’t be racist. There are issues of racist and sexism that this song highlights that we see repeatedly in history. As someone pointed out during our class discussion, after the war in Korea, many American men were with Korean women just to please themselves while they were away. It may be as simple as that this man was in love with the Filipino woman that he’s singing about, but his constant description of her dark features is unsettling and makes it hard for me to view it from a romantic lens.

The aspect in this class of learning about race relations in American history is really important to me as a Conflict Analysis & Resolution minor because it allows me to understand more about the dark past our nation has had and evaluate if/how we’ve improved and where we still need work. I knew about lynchings but the entire concept of spectacle lynchings was entirely new knowledge to me. It’s difficult to think about the fact that people would watch and be proud of being present at these “events”. After doing a little more research, I learned that although the spectacle lynchings were a big thing in the 1890s, they were still around until the 1960s, just over 50 years ago. While lynchings don’t occur as commonly as they did then, I realize that this is still a problem that we face today. I immediately remembered this article that I read from just last year. A black student was lynched at UMD by another student. It’s still happening in the 21st century and didn’t get a lot of media coverage. Although no one’s sending postcards to their family about the lynching they attended, it’s still highly disturbing that we’re still living in a time where it’s a possibility. Just as the spectacle element has been taken away, I hope that students 10 to 15 years from now aren’t able to cite an article that reminded them of a horrible time in our country’s history.

After listening to the differences between European beats versus Afro-American beats, I was trying to figure out what type of beats exist in South Asian music. I was born and raised in in Northern Virginia and my parents are from Pakistan, so I’ve been exposed to a wide range of sounds and music growing up. The whole world of Bollywood definitely has some similarities with “Western” entertainment (especially modern-day music), but it’s really different. I went through a few popular Bollywood songs and it was difficult to pin point if the beat was more European or Afro-American. But then when focusing on the New World beat, it made sense. The swing beat did apply to a few of the Bollywood songs that I listened to, which is so fascinating. Being a first generation student in the U.S., learning about U.S. history has always been an odd experience because it’s always been hard for me to place myself. There weren’t many people from the Indian subcontinent in the U.S. before the late 20th century, so finally being able to apply the lesson to myself was a really cool experience.

One of my favorite elements of this course has been the fact that we’re talking about the racism in our history and how we’re exploring the elements of our history through sound. Contrary to how American political culture has been (and somewhat still is) segregated, the theory that American popular culture has a desire for “mixing” and toys with integration. I felt sort of uneasy with this because it is essentially claiming that the Afro-American influence is only allowed when it’s not performed/provided by Afro-Americans. For example, many artists performed songs with Afro-American musicians, but didn’t allow the public to know that because it wasn’t accepted. For me, it’s difficult to separate politics from other aspects of culture because of how severely it sets the tone for day to day interactions. I do think that this point of view might be because I’m a young Muslim growing up in a post 9/11 era where my identity is highly politicized on a daily basis so it’s hard to not view everything politically. Although popular music might’ve had more of a desire to mix sounds, I don’t think that it was a sign of progress because of how racist society and politics were.

It’s no secret that a lot of America has a dark history, including the fact that many traditions date back to the time of slavery. I wasn’t familiar with the haunting history of Minstrel Shows, and I especially wasn’t familiar with how its customs still linger with us today in various forms of entertainment. Professor O’Malley brought up the comparison with 50 cent because with his album cover, he has a “rapper” persona but at the same time, there’s a photograph of him smiling and looking like an approachable guy on the red carpet. The question of whether or not 50 cent is a minstrel show character was brought up. I don’t think it’s fair to claim that a rapper who may be performing in a different persona is a minstrel show character. I think most performers, including rappers, have different personas that they release when they’re sharing their art. Also, being any person in entertainment but especially a person of color can often mean personifying yourself into something that may not totally be you but it helps gain attraction. From my understanding, Minstrel Shows were more deeply rooted in racism and the belief that having darker skin was something to be made fun of, which is why I don’t think it’s totally fair to say that a black rapper might feeding into the same dynamic as Minstrel Show characters.