Black People's Music Is At the Heart of American Music

Did White People Steal Black People's Music? 

A woman recently interviewed on MSNBC claimed that white people had stolen most of American music from black people. It is certainly true that much of American music has its roots in forms invented by black Americans. Ragtime, jazz and rock all have black roots, and forms like country music, which did not originate from black people, have been heavily influenced by rock and jazz. However, to call American music “stolen” misses an important point.

American Culture is Not White

American culture is not a white or European culture, although some people like to pretend that it is. American culture has been created by the American people, including black Americans. We are not a white nation. We are a rich mixture of all of the races who have contributed to building our country, and our culture reflects that fact. 

Black People's Music is at the Heart of American Music

The contribution of black people to American culture has been enormous, especially in the area of music, but rather than saying that white people have stolen black people’s music, I would say that black people’s music has become the most important influence in the development of American music. That influence has been irresistible because of the quality, originality and variety of the music, because of the beauty of its forms and because of the talent of its performers. To say that white people stole black people’s music, doesn't really describe what happened. It would be more accurate to say that the music of black Americans is at the heart of what has become American music. 

The Environmental Movement and the General Welfare

Bringing Wisconsin's Progressive Tradition Together With Constitutional Progressivism 

In the movement to save our environment, Wisconsin’s progressive tradition comes together with the Constitution’s mandate to “promote the general welfare.” No one doubts that our environmental problems are serious or that global warming endangers the general welfare. The disagreements are over the question of who shall bear the cost of the changes that are needed. Today, as in the past, the fight is between the people and the moneyed interests.

Money vs. the General Welfare

The moneyed interests claim that the cost of making our planet livable is too high, but what they really mean is that things like converting to clean energy or preventing the pollution of our water will cut into their profits. They try to persuade us that making our practices sustainable will cost jobs, and they hope that we will not notice that jobs are not much use to people who are dying from cancer induced by the pollution in their water.

On a national level, we can see the conflict between the general welfare and the moneyed interests in the developing conflict over the Biden administration’s new rules governing emissions from coal-fired power plants. The Biden administration is working to promote the general welfare as the Constitution requires them to, while the power companies are already saying that the rules will be too costly and will make our power grid unreliable. 

On a local level, we can see the same dynamic playing out in the fight over CAFOs in communities in Wisconsin. The owners of the CAFOs claim that assuring the drinkability of local water supplies would be too expensive for them, while Democrats in Wisconsin are promoting this and other improvements in the management of our environment. We can see this in Gov. Evers’s clean energy plan, and in the money that Sen. Baldwin has brought into our state to improve our environment.  

Wisconsin's Democrats Follow the Tradition of Gaylord Nelson and "Fighting Bob" La Follette

Governor Evers and other Democrats are working in Wisconsin’s progressive tradition and following the example of Wisconsin’s Senators Gaylord Nelson and "Fighting Bob" La Follette. Democrats are working for the benefit of the greatest number of people and not just for the moneyed interests. We should stand with them in the coming election.