This essay will connect Bob Dylans Hurricane (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpZvg_FjL3Q) to “A report from occupied territory” by James Baldwin.

Hurricane can serve two purposes when hearing it in light of James Baldwins “Occupied Territory”, it can serve as another example of an African American man going through institutional racism and its harrowing repercussions. It also illustrates the underlying assumption of the African American being violent, as well as the tacit support of society. Baldwin points to the many injustices that are committed by racist institutions, such as presumed guilt, torture, wrongful arrest and conviction. Hurricane plays on the same themes, with Rubin Carter wrongfully convicted for a crime he didn’t commit.

Both Dylan and Baldwin illustrate the stereotype and subsequent expectation of crime with the African American. The identity of the African American is once again tied with negative characteristics; lying, stealing and murdering are made synonymous with blackness. The underlying assumption in the institutional racist acts is that it is likely a black man has committed the crime, because he is inherently violent and prone to crime. We see this negation of identity in both pieces and the creation of this expectation in all society, pervading even Black communities.

In Hurricane we see the manifestation of this expectation:

To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum

 And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger

 No one doubted that he pulled the trigger

Similarly Baldwin alludes to the “Bad nigger”, who the police supposedly clean the streets of. However these archetypes are created by the police, who charge innocent individuals; by segregation, which robs the African American community from quality education and jobs. Systematic causes are entirely ignored in the expression of these racist expectations. This institutional discrimination is what Dylan and Baldwin want to expose. Similarly Baldwin’s trip to Washington also illustrates this point, where the question is implicitly posed:

Do you think any of those unemployed, unemployable Negroes who are going to be on the streets all summer will cause us any trouble?

Through these examples we can see the expectation that pervades society; it is what causes police officers, judges and juries to maliciously indict the African American. This expectation also causes both “black and white folks” to believe that those wrongly blamed have likely committed this crime. Baldwin and Dylan shed light not only on police brutality and biased trials but also on the false expectations that underpin these atrocities. The Harlem Six, Rubin Carter and the African American community face these discriminations because the African American identity in the eyes of America still is still linked to crime and violence. Dylan and Baldwin try to subvert this expectation.

Additionally Dylan more explicitly points to the silence of those around the victim. The police feed words into the mouth of Bradley by asking:

Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin’ that night?

Similarly

The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed

And the all-white jury agreed

We can see the ubiquity of this expectation yet there is a hesitation that exists, an encouraging disbelief. Despite this doubt there is still silence by all those around the wrongly convicted. Instead of acting on this doubt, they facilitate the atrocities. Dylan points at the complicity of society, an idea Baldwin does not make explicit. Therefore we can take Hurricane as an extension of the charges that Baldwin levies. Perhaps the reason Baldwin does not go further is due to his race. Baldwin is reviewing a white author’s book, but it is possible that the intense scrutiny and repression against black civil rights leaders forced a lighter tone on his part. Dylan on the other hand is allowed the leeway to freely critique all who stand silently. The same level of measure is not required for Dylan, as is for Baldwin, which is why Hurricane can serve as a necessary extension of “A report from occupied territories”.

The breaking of this silence is what enables the widespread repudiation of the stereotypes that exist for the African American community.  The redefinition of the African American identity is still an ongoing process. One which is unfortunately still tainted by these racist notions, however the silence must be broken.   

The widespread fanbase of classic rock and roll owes its very existence to the African American community and the culmination of their expression in the form of music. That music which the world had the good fortune of hearing forms the premise of the platform on which later artists like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones etc. stood. If it were not for Willie Dixon’s masterpiece You Need Love and Muddy Water’s excellent performance, Led Zeppelin would not have topped the charts with Whole Lotta Love. This far reaching influence of African American music, however, is not limited to the evolution of blues and jazz but rather the love it propagates. That love which despite suffering centuries of cruelty, still manages to seep through. Louis Daniel Armstrong’s music has moved generations to tears. His rendition of Go Down Moses is an integral part of the beautiful mosaic formed by what we know as ‘protest music’.

The reference to Exodus, the migration of the people of Israel out of Egypt after years of lying crushed beneath the Pharaoh’s jackboot, to link the biblical event to the conditions of the African American community in the United States might be obvious. However, the shocking jolt of the words “Let my people go!” from Armstrong is not a reminder of the violent death of the Egyptian host under the crushing waves of the Red Sea. It sounds more like a peaceful call for freedom than anything. It is here where the true beauty of the song lies. The centuries of bondage, one would think, would serve to create nothing but raw loathing. However, Armstrong’s vocal performance of “Let my people go” is anything but. The calls for a savior along the lines of Moses, the migration of millions of African Americans to the northern states, the blazing hot summers of Texas to the serene, green and cool environment of Connecticut are all mental images that cross one’s mind throughout the song.

Unlike Exodus, however, the song is not a reference to the biblical wrath of God. It is neither a reference to African American wrath. It is a mere expression of the conditions of oppression of the black community in America through the most beautiful genre of music ever known to man through the sweet voice of Louis Daniel Armstrong. The piano tones down the intensity in the lyrics at points and the perfect harmony between the instruments and Armstrong’s vocals serve to create one of the most beautiful songs that rose from the tragic silencing of black voice and floated across the world, touching the hearts of millions and inspiring others to do the same later when the conditions of the Vietnam War became public. A story for a later time.

Oh I know change gonna come, yes it will
This song illustrates a strong belief that the present condition and way of life is something that will inevitably change. Sam Cooke does not talk about how or when but he just knows that it will. This sentiment can be understood in relation to Martin Luther King’s ‘Unfulfilled dreams’.
King claims that life is a succession of unfulfilled and broken dreams. He also talks about the ‘ethical life’, a right way to live but living ethically does not guarantee the successful realization of dreams or even a proper, satisfying end or answer and this is a realization that one must live with. However, this realization is not something which should stop one from dreaming or eliminate the desire to pursue dreams or to live an ethical life. It is a burden that must be carried by those who dream of emancipation.
Basically MLK advocates acting ethically in recognition of the fact that there is no end and that you may never live to see or experience you goal of emancipation and freedom but nevertheless, one must continue walking down the ethical path with the burden of this recognition. Further, to live ethically is to live lovingly and to live lovingly is to live vulnerably since to love, one must open their heart up others and that opens up the possibility of hurt. But one must be prepared to live with possibility of heart break and eternal despair and that is what is MLK’s ethic of emancipation. However, the heaviness of this burden and the hopelessness of the mission begs the question, ‘why’? What can be salvaged by this? For MLK it is heart, the human soul, humanity. If one’s conception of freedom is love and idea of emancipation of restoring human beings to themselves, then the end result becomes irrelevant and so living with this burden ceases to be a hopeless. In fact, one begins to live on the force of a strong hope.
Sam Cooke’s song is a reflection of the same ethic. He talks about his current miserable state of affairs, ‘I go to the movie and I go downtown somebody keep tellin’ me don’t hang around’,’ Then I go, oh-oo-oh, to my brother and I say, brother, help me please but he winds up knocking me back down on my knees, oh’ but still lives with the firm belief in a hopeful future and so towards the end of the song he says, ‘There’ve been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long but now I think I’m able to carry on’. The hope for the future is what keeps him going, despite not knowing if he will ever live to see it. In other words, he is at peace with his position in the ‘not yet’ only because he believes in the ‘will be’.

The route to take in order for a revolution to emerge and succeed has often been a point of contention. At this point people essentially separate into two camps, one siding with violence as the best route to take and the other siding with non-violence. However, both camps urge for some form of decisive and immediate action that would not let time and patience dull that passion. In Gil Scott Heron’s song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, that dullness and stagnation is exactly what is targeted and Heron attempts to replace it with a consciousness. It is a consciousness that is deeply aware of the time and place that it resides in and does not simply absorb what is placed before it. Throughout the song there is a slow and steady beat that can almost lull you to sleep if it weren’t for Heron’s urgent voice jolting you back into consciousness.

It is no doubt that this song also targets American consumerism as Heron references multiple advertisements through the course of the song yet it is that dulled, wilted and paralyzed consciousness that is on the receiving end of those advertisements that Heron criticizes and tries to revive. This consciousness has also been promoted in the two camps battling over the choice of violence and non-violence during the civil rights movement. In Malcolm’s speech “Message to the Grass Roots”, Malcolm X called for an outright revolution that is impossible to achieve without force. However, he uncovers the underlying reason for this continued oppression which is the stifled mode of consciousness that led African Americans to “suffer- peacefully” for years. The act of suffering peacefully in Heron’s song/poem is shown by the conveniences that Heron lists such as “stay home”, “plug in, turn out and drop out” and “skip out for beer”. He shows how these conveniences hide the reality that is lurking behind the TV screen and one can look at it if only one were to develop that consciousness. On the opposite side of the debate, Martin Luther King’s assertion on non-violence being the only mode of revolution also contained disdain towards these conveniences that only hold people back. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, King frames this convenience as the act of “waiting” and how “it has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.” What do these conveniences and the wait that King warns us against have in common? They are both ways through which the hard hitting realities are hidden way; there is something amiss in the world but no one can quite put their finger on it.

Heron’s entire song/poem would be incomplete and ineffective as a whole if it weren’t for the last line which declares: “The revolution will be live”. This not only places the consciousness that Heron desires from average American citizens in the present time but also gives it life. If one wonders what this consciousness would look like in reality perhaps a good example would be Alice Dunbar’s poem called I Sit and Sew which Dunbar wrote right after World War 1. In the poem Dunbar writes about the crippling realization of not being able to do anything and being restricted to your roles while a war is raging on elsewhere. She writes: “I sit and sew—my heart aches with desire/That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire/On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things/ Once men. My soul in pity flings”. In this poem even though Dunbar is within the safe confines of her house and is involved in a household task, she is painfully aware of what is happening outside. It is this burdensome consciousness that Dunbar bears and that Heron tries to evoke in his song and THAT is the first step towards a revolution.

“David, you will not be able to finish the temple. You will not be able to build it. But I just want to bless you, because it was within thine heart. Your dream will not be fulfilled. The majestic hopes that guided your days will not be carried out in terms of an actual temple coming into being that you were able to build. But I bless you, David, because it was within thine heart. You had the desire to do it; you had the intention to do it; you tried to do it; you started to do it. And I bless you for having the desire and the intention in your heart. It is well that it was within thine heart.”

I started with this quote because this was the first thing I was reminded of when I heard the two songs: the Not Yet. Why? Because both the songs were remarkable. They were so potent. So real. However, I also knew that what both of them did was describe not a scene from history, but a continued struggle. The sadness and anger in the songs show that there is knowledge of how things are not any better, however, they, in themselves, speak of a change that they hope would someday come, whatever the means.

Strange Fruit is considered a song highly relevant to this day. While it describes a haunting image of lynched bodies hanging from a noose on a pastoral Southern landscape, the meaning behind the portrayal of unabashed violence is as pronounced today as ever. The song was first performed in 1939 by Billie Holiday, and continues to be produced in other renditions to this day. Nina Simone performed the song in 1954.

The power of the song comes from how particular the image is but also how it speaks for numerous other cases. The song doesn’t shy away from describing the ‘bulging eyes’ and the ‘twisted mouth’. The pastoral imagery is also reminiscent of the ideas of the American frontier which is irreparably tainted by heinous crimes committed against the blacks. The relevance of the song continues to this as it is performed by different artists because as things get better, there is still too long till the struggle is complete.

Mississippi Goddam is different as it is faster, and has a lot more going on than a description of image as in Strange Fruit. This song is about remembering. It is about remembering with defiance. Simone’s voice is angry, it is loud. It is in direct contrast to the repetition of the phrase ‘Do Slow!’. She cannot go slow, because it has been enough. For every effort to legitimize their humanity, they have been told to go slow and wait for a gradual victory. Her fast tempo manifests her defiance with this constant dumbing down of their efforts.

She maps out the violence by naming the states with extreme violence as she says ‘Everybody knows about…’. It is almost like a threat, a firm statement which says that there will be no forgetting because she is not the only one who knows the atrocities black people go through, but everybody knows. It situates this violence in history. She says ‘Don’t tell me, I tell you’. Again, defying the idea that she will be told about the history of her people. She ‘bears witness’ to this history when she says, ‘I’ve been there so I know’. But at the same time, she brings in everybody to bear witness to this violence saying that everybody knows about it.

Both the songs are extremely tragic and powerful. They are filled with unceasing emotion and resistance. However, while Simone displays the evil, she also exists, with so many of her brothers and sisters, within the not yet. This is because, although, the remembrance is there, it is still far from reaping its fruit. While the songs bear witness to what happened, it does not mean it ceased to do so because of this. The profit of resistance was, and still is, yet to show itself. However, the act, the word, and the voice, is the marker of a start of a recognition of their own humanity and history. Simone, along with the others, unveils openly the history that could easily be swept under the rug. It is a different history. A history against the backdrop of the ‘purity’ of the pastoral landscape, against the Americanness of the South. It is the history of violence and oppression. A history of blackness.

‘In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action.’ – Martin Luther King

Non-violence to Martin Luther King is a matter of demanding radical justice through non-violent means. Of the ‘the relentless pursuit of truthful ends by moral means’.

For him, the ends cannot justify the means – more, the ends are the means, because you cannot really expect to achieve your dreams. Thus the path must be virtue, just as the end must be an ideal, if an un-achievable one in the immediate sense.

‘The non-violent resister is prepared to suffer even unto death. He believes that by suffering alone he can bridge the gulf between himself and his opponent and reach his heart.” frames MLK in his speech-plan. He continues: ‘He aims at raising them from the destructive physical plane to the constructive moral plane where differences can be peacefully adjusted. Thus, he seeks to eliminate antagonisms rather than antagonists.’

This sentiment only makes sense in the context of his conception of humans – all humans – as possessing infinite capacities for goodness. Thus nonviolence is an appeal to that goodness. It’s an attempt not only to achieve some form of individual emancipation by transcending any form of oppression through non-violent resistance, but also to redeem the oppressor by appealing to their better nature – by shaming them by relentless non-violent resistance.

The moral-high ground of the idea is undeniable. A non-violent movement demanding justice and faced with brutality in shutting it down will always be making a powerful statement – especially in de-legitimizing those opposing them. There is no denying that violence easily becomes a loss of moral high-ground and thus, shuts off avenues of compromise and reason. In the age of media and international conceptions of human rights, and pressure there-of, non-violence cannot be considered precisely ineffective either.

It’s this issue of appealing to the better nature of your oppressor that I find questionable. Why must the onus of redeeming the oppressor be placed onto the oppressed? Leaving aside the pragmatism of non-violence in trying to appease an oppressor with a monopoly of violence such that you cannot effectively demand change through violence, non-violence as an ethic of revolution, in that it is chosen for it’s redemptive nature rather than pragmatism, seems… difficult, at best.

For one, assuming the capacity of infinite goodness in all people – including those in power seems problematic. People in power – and here I refer not just to powerful people, but also to normal people benefiting off of an underclass – can be ‘good’ and still find it eminently reasonable to maintain this power, if simply by not recognizing others as worth their ‘goodness’. If Martin Luther King says there is nothing inevitable about progress, then I’d argue that there’s nothing inevitable about goodness being touched by suffering either.

For one, have they not already suffered? Is suffering not what they are protesting, in fact? Is the difference then a sort of organised, public suffering meant to attract attention such that it is un-ignorable? Assuming the ability to shame people into doing good thus becomes a matter of manipulating the media, perhaps, and that seems like a hollow endeavor to me, stripped of its righteous rhetoric of redemption and morality. Playing the media game is increasingly messy in the modern world anyway, and it is easy to imagine non-violent protest going un-remarked and unnoticed, just as it is easy to imagine any other form of protest being deliberately painted in a terrible light. There seem to be no easy answers.

On the note of the concept of the means being as much the end as the end itself – if the end is emancipation, to assume that violence is somehow an unworthy means to that end is also very much positional. To Malcolm X, for instance, violence – if not in the carrying out of it, then definitely in the willingness to carry it out to protect yourself – was very much emancipatory in and of itself. The ability to demand the application of the same laws for yourself as for others – the right to self defense, just as if you were any other (white) person was very much a radically transformative idea – just as much as any concept of turning the other cheek – in implication being stronger, being the bigger man than the oppressor was the emancipatory ideal of Martin Luther King.

Another problem with non-violence protest is its transformation from a radical ideal to the only way of protesting. Isn’t there an issue when the oppressor can demand that any protest against oppressiveness be conducted only by non-violent means? What does it mean when the oppressed are told to turn the other cheek?

The idea of non-violence remains attractive though, especially since violence is escalating, and it never remains confined to where idealism would have it remain confined to. It is emancipatory on a very straight-forward level, however, as a way of wresting power for oneself.

As the question is not exactly an academic one, I admit that the moral high-ground, and sheer lack of violence of non-violence appeals, despite my doubts as to how fair or effective it is to shame the oppressor into compliance. It’s in the academic sense that violent, clean, straight-forward emancipation makes its appeal – and even that isn’t as straight-forward as it might appear.

In the end – there is no simple answer. And perhaps that is the answer.