ISO 'Ask Your Mama" put the weight of the black struggle on my shoulders

(photo by Mike Magan)

I walked into the “Ask Your Mama” performance of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra last night feeling pretty full of myself. Here I am a white-bred Southern Indiana boy taking his 11 year-old daughter to a high-brow event. Dad’s of the world and civil rights leaders are patting me on the back as we take our seats. After all, I was exposing her to a cultural trifecta: music, poetry and African-American history in a month that isn’t February.

As the lights flashed then dimmed above the (score one more for me) multicultural crowd, Ruby Bridges gently put her hand on my shoulder and whispered “thank you” into my ear. After all, I was saving my daughter’s generation by heroically delivering this sheltered white girl to a Langston Hughes poetry reading.

And as it so often is, my ego was deflated quickly when Ice-T started reading lines like this:
“Bitter was the day
When I saw my children unschooled,
My young men without a voice in the world,
My women taken as the body-toys
Of a thieving people.

That day is past.”

OK, I’m getting uncomfortable now, and Annie is transfixed.

“Bitter was the day, I say,
When the lyncher's rope
Hung about my neck,
And the fire scorched my feet,
And the oppressors had no pity,
And only in the sorrow songs
Relief was found.

That day is past.”

I was hoping intermission would never come. My lightening-sharp 6th grader will have questions about the history of the black struggle in America. She wasn’t going to ask about whats and whens on the historical timeline. She would be asking “why.” Why did white people lynch black people? Why did white children throw rocks and tomatoes at black children? and why did police dogs rip into peaceful protesters?

There were more instruments on display than bassoons and French Horns, Ice-Ts voice was unwavering and powerful, the Ron McCurdy Quartet's trumpet and bass were silky smooth and the piano player, while tickling the ivories with his right hand was at times controlling a powerful video slideshow with his left.

INTERMISSION

I felt the weight of history on my shoulders; I didn’t want to misrepresent the struggle and the deaths of black people. For the first time in my life I realized the civil rights movement impacted me. Could a white guy accurately portray Langston Hughes’ America?

Actually the answer was right in front of me . . . it was in the eyes of my 11 year-old. She didn’t have to unlearn and reprogram born-in prejudices like I did. In her eyes everyone: men, women, blacks and whites were equal. I still make unwitting mistakes because I’m still ignorant in many ways, but Annie is already more attuned than I will ever be.

“Dad, why did the audience laugh whenever (Langston Hughes) would say ‘Ask Your Mama?’” Annie asked.

Here it goes: “Annie, think about the belittling questions white people asked just before ‘Ask Your Mama.’ was given as a response,” I said.

“You mean like ‘Can you recommend a good maid,’” Annie said. OK so far, so good.

“Just because Hughes was black, white people assumed he could recommend a good maid.," I told her. "Hairs on neck firmly standing up straight now. "So he told them ‘Ask your Mama,’ because he didn’t know any more maids than they did.”

Feeling confident I continued, “Ask your Mama” was a revolutionary response because Hughes was rejecting what white society expected him to say; where they wanted him on the totem pole. Hughes was just another servant to The Man. Annie rolled her eyes the more I talked. So whether I was right or wrong, I was losing her. But at least I wasn’t embedding a new set of prejudices.

Annie and I also came to the conclusion that the singular voice of the reader; the louder voice of the jazz quartet and the thunderous voice of the orchestra reflected the ebb and flow of the evolution of civil rights. At times there was but a single voice like Martin Luther King or Malcom X; at times there were more voices such as the NAACP, and finally a crescendo of voices from thousands of black protesters.

Thank you ISO for taking a chance with the McCurdy Quartet and Ice-T on an unconventional and unbuttoned performance. You gave us more than a concert, you gave us all a reminder of how sacrifice and struggle shaped our lives into what they are right now.