Birth of a Notion; Or, The Half Ain't Never Been Told
April 27, 2010 by Bill Harris
Minstrelsy was the first pop cultural entertainment phenomena in young 19th century America. It was mostly immigrant males hoping that by performing amusing but racist portrayals of African Americans they would throw off the stereotypical notions regarding their kind, and be accepted by and as white Americans. These stereotyped impersonations served as the template for American amusement for the mass until today. Birth of a Notion considers the situation from the dark side, intending to reflect the process back on itself.
The initial trickle that set the flow of Birth of a Notion in motion is lost in the mist of memory. Among the several possibilities for its inception are, one: an ongoing attempt to understand the influence of African American culture on American culture. Two: to examine the enduring images of African Americans throughout American history, and to understand the origins of those images, who perpetrated them, why they were necessary, and why and how they endured. And three: to, as a creative writer, find a form and language to present an alternative scan of American history and the imagery it produced for the paying public.
Whatever the idea’s origins it had to be an other way of seeing, and an other new way of saying. It was important that the form fit the content. Its structure had to be true to the improvisational nature of the tradition out of which it grew. It had to follow the logic that was shaped by its intention. It had to allow for digression, or riffing on a subject or idea. It had to surprise. It had to have an emotional core that produced an emotional response. It had to be of use to the maligned for which it was intended. This meant also that it had to recognize that all history that routinely cast them as villains, victims or nonentities was fictional in that it was based on a preconceived, subjective theme or point of view.
Historically after the smoke of battle has cleared, and the flag flutters over occupied territory, the report transmitted back to the home folk, whose taxes paid for the artillery, and whose progeny served as soldiers, must be a subjective
Tale told to justify their sacrifice. The prime determinant in the shaping of the “history” of that exercise is the creation of a point of view that validates or at least rationalizes the carnage and expense. The basic premise decides the characters to be emphasized, and explanation of their motivation, and the chronicle of their courses of action, the resultant conflicts, and the outcome. This process of recording history, i.e., tales, or incidents, or new remembrances, professedly true, organized around or related to a point of view, is exactly the same as the creation of a fictional narrative.
Improvisational best describes the process of the research for the project that took place over several summers. Everything encountered was read and interpreted through an ironic, wily eye. The guiding principle of which was a questioning of the assumption of the basic premise of the makers and recorders of much of American “history”. That is, the premise that saw everything from the exclusionary position of their so called authority, backed up by their being, by their self-definition; the planet’s most militarily, sociologically, morally, and technologically advanced civilization.
The final form that emerged over many, many drafts is one in keeping with the jazz and blues esthetic. These classic African American music’s are nothing if not optimistic even in the (false) face of their toughest opposition. The blues, in plainspoken images and with metaphoric clarity, verbalizes its endurance against its worst fears, while looking the devil in the eye and pulling its tail at the same time. Birth of a Notion hopes it retains the energy, sarcastic humor and celebratory core of the forms it has appropriated. (Nudge nudge.)
Birth of a Notion will be published by Wayne State University Press in May 2010.
