Everybody on the whole goddamn planet weighin' in on what Stephin said at EMP, and what people said about what he said, 'n' all that. I care, but I don't care, because the issues in play are so much richer than any of the discussion's participants can process: not because they're not plenty smart, 'cause they are, but because the complexities do not lend themselves to easy discourse. Y'all can call me a hippie if you want but I really think that a dance studio is the most appropriate venue for exploring the issues that explode at the intersection of race and music in America. Blogs, or music conferences, necessarily lack the vocabulary to really get at the heart of the issues here. Language lacks the vocabulary. Sometimes things just work out like that. It drives writers nuts. Still, I was briefly tempted to weigh in with something more substantial than my usual two cents' worth, a schtick which if you haven't heard it before involves wondering why predominantly white male critics are hungry as fuck to seek and destroy white-on-black racism when and where it occurs — and good for 'em, racism is foul — but are comparatively silent on the subject of misogyny, which is certainly no smaller a source of hurt in our pained world, and is omnipresent in pop music; history lets pockets of resistance emerge every so often, but for the most part, things are brutal. The song which I would have leaned on for succour and support, in case somebody wants to do my work for me, would have been "Be Real Black For Me" by Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, which by the way is a freaking spectacular song whose opening piano figure serves as the bedrock for Scarface's "On My Block," which is one of the most cogent expression of community and its complexities in the whole history of pop music. You should hear "Be Real Black For Me." It comes from a time when a few men and women were fighting to break new ground. We lost, but we're a little better for the effort, I guess & hope. The couplet that leads into the song's how-does-this-follow-from-that chorus is a fragmentary koan for our sad age. Here it is, and then I'm going to bed to wonder what might have been and what might be:

you don't have to wear false charms
'cause when I wrap you in my hungry arms