Today, this might sound myopic and perhaps naive, but at the time it was the credo of America’s best-known Black educator, Booker T. Washington. He argued that rather than try to topple an entrenched Jim Crow system, Black people could battle back more effectively through economic improvement, self-help and focused teaching. That is precisely what the D.C. schools were doing in the early 1900s, offering a large dose of Black history and prideful learning to students like Duke Ellington. He remembered his eighth-grade English instructor’s dictum: “Everywhere you go, you’re representing the race. And you command respect. You don’t ask for it. … You command respect with your behavior.” Ellington took that message to heart, the more so since it was reinforced at home. He believed that Black is beautiful and made it a principle to live by, long before it became the mantra of Black activists.
April 28, 2024
"We were always taught that we were the best, and so we couldn’t do anything but the best."
Said Duke Ellington's sister Ruth, quoted in "Duke Ellington would be 125. Washington still dances to his tune" (WaPo).
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38 comments:
He was one of the greats. "The River" is an outstanding late work.
For the last 50 years, we’ve been taught We Are The Victim.
"long before it became the mantra of Black activists"
For whom it meant that respect didn't matter: if Black is beautiful, any Black behavior is beautiful.
Diversity aside, a conservative philosophy and Protestant work ethic.
These thoughts and ideas should have been pushed hard by Obama. Look where we are today. The two leading deceased Black saints are a football player who murdered his wife and got away with it and a guy who died of a drug overdose. Both setoff riots and destruction that will be with us for years.
And don’t get me started on the music of Duke versus Kanye and his ilk.
Good things happen when you don't drumbeat home the message that you are a victim.
Ellington was the same age of my grandfather, who died 75 years ago!
He believed black is beautiful, no caps. If you go woke, you miss the point.
Affirmative encouragement.
Emphasis upon making oneself a proud representative of one's race has lots of superficial appeal. But it creates a sense that one's race is one's essential being, and that you are obliged to somehow fortify your race. Identity is more complicated than race.
Everyone should be given a chance to discover whoever they are. Everyone has the same moral duty to live a good life.
Now substitute 'black' for 'white' and get cancelled.
I squarely blame the Obamas for the miserable state of Black culture today.
They had a historic opportunity and did nothing.
On the music front, Barack would yearly release a list of songs he supposedly listened to; including that classic, “Pimp the butterfly.”
They exploited Blacks; modern plantation owners. Fuck’em.
I once read that, when FDR died, the only music you could hear on the radio for several days was classical music or Duke Ellington.
Academics hate them some Booker T. Washington. It's all W.E.B. DuBose.
Too bad some people call this Acting White.
Approval of this attitude has been a conservative mainstay for generations. Yet I wonder if it is more possible in some eras than in others. Decency, self-respect, pursuit of excellence - these cores never go out of style. But how they manifest may change greatly in even a decade.
Just saw this quote on X and it's sad:
"In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college."
- Joseph Sobran
James Brown: "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)."
Color is a low information attribute.
I squarely blame the Obamas for the miserable state of Black culture today.
Dreams of his father?
mccullough said...
For the last 50 years, we’ve been taught We Are The Victim.
And now, that's the mainstay of MAGA. "The media is against us. The deep state is against us. Corporations are against us. Universities don't want us. Elites and globalists want to eliminate us."
"Victimization" and "Conservatism" used to be (I'd maintain, still are) two circles which don't even touch each other in a Venn Diagram. Nowadays, "Victimization" and "MAGA" are nearly two concentric circles in a Venn Diagram.
"We were always taught that we were the best, and so we couldn’t do anything but the best."
To be fair, isn't this what white progressive college credentialed females think, too?
" Lyle Smith said...
Academics hate them some Booker T. Washington. It's all W.E.B. DuBose."
As Thomas Sowell has discussed. Washington pushed even poor blacks to learn a trade or skill. Du Bois only wanted the Northern well-educated blacks to advance
Booker T. Washington was antithetical to academia where only the mind and not the hand was to be trained...and conditioned.
Too often the educational value of doing well what is done, however little, is overlooked. One thing well done prepares the mind to do the next thing better. Not how much, but how well, should be the motto. One problem thoroughly understood is of more value than a score poorly mastered.
Booker T. Washington
The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.
Booker T. Washington
The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do that counts.
Booker T. Washington
The last thing the professors want is students learning to do something the world wants and thus escape the clutched of the "educators".
Kind of interesting age gap
Ruth Ellington Boatwright, Duke Ellington's only sibling, who for many years took care of his business affairs, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 88.
Ellington famously put up with a lot of shit from his best players.
Sadly, the most creative ones were the most likely to stray.
He made a conscious choice to not be a victim.
Cab Calloway's daughter was my first grade teacher.
I love all that 30s & 40s big band music
He was a womanizer who violated his marriage vows repeatedly. So what was his “behavior that commands respect”? Oh, right. Respect from leftists who don’t care about honor or morality and actually cheers the destruction of marriage because monogamous marriage is the bedrock of western civilization.
I collect original scores and arrangements. I'm proud to say/brag I have an original first edition score of Duke's great "Take the A Train". Perfection can not be improved upon nor can it be bettered. Thank you Duke and in the parlance of a different century "You da'Man".
With the right attitude, a black with an IQ of 86 will do as well as a white with an IQ of 86. He'll do it by acting white.
Don't set blacks up for disappointment again. That's what happened with affirmative action. "How come we're still being held back?" Followed by self-destructive chips on the shoulder.
You already have confident blacks like Loury and McWhorter but they're actually smarter than most whites and they've noticed it all their lives. They're nevertheless statistically rarer than whites with the same intelligence, and the averages won't ever work out.
Re Obama: Isn't it the case that he didn't become Black until he decided to go into politics?
Booker T Washington was friends with a robber baron (who also,paid for Helen Keller’s education.)
https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140911230444/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington
"...He remembered his eighth-grade English instructor’s dictum: “Everywhere you go, you’re representing the race. And you command respect. You don’t ask for it. … You command respect with your behavior."
The above is the antithesis of class struggle, which is being framed as the victim of class warfare, and demanding respect through harassment and violence.
They had a historic opportunity and did nothing.
Nothing? They set back race relations at least 50 years.
The cops acted stupidly ... without knowing the first, fucking thing about the situation.
If I had a son ... yeah, a son who beat the shit out of a neighborhood watch guy.
Everything - and I mean everything - they did was in opposite of someone who truly wanted to transcend race. And they did it gleefully.
And look at the DC schools today. The damage that the progressives have done is staggering.
I've known good people, who came from southern slavery stock, that are grounded real fine in the American vision and raising families that way.
In the 90s, i got to be real close with some awesome black families, mostly because the best church for my family in the 90s had a membership that was a bit more than half Black.
It was broad minded new age kind of place that fit our daughter well. We thrived. I ended up teaching the kids & especially the teens, and got to know and get involved with their moms and aunties and family life.
They were Americans. They were disciplined, enterprising and civic minded. A good few had been in the service, or were raised in a military family, one wonderful mother of one my teens was had been an officer, and was ?? now in Natl guard? still involved in monthly deployments.
we left socal 20 years ago, still connected w several from that era, "sew blessed".
For black activists its words not behavior. Unearned pride.
“And now, that's the mainstay of MAGA. "The media is against us. The deep state is against us. Corporations are against us. Universities don't want us. Elites and globalists want to eliminate us."”
And the corporations, academies, all institutions have been twisting themselves to accommodate MAGA Americans. So same same eh genius
I once read that, when FDR died, the only music you could hear on the radio for several days was classical music or Duke Ellington.
When Elizabeth II died the BBC abandoned its usual programming and, for some days, went to only classical music etc; a similar custom is observed at the Holy See when the pope dies. I expect that this is a survival from the earliest days of broadcasting? Classical music had a much larger presence c 1920s-1940s, anyway. Perhaps this happens in those places where there are state broadcasting services.
“Let your behavior demand respect.”
“People should be measured by their deeds.”
“Actions speak louder than words.”
The general public never lost sight of the essential truths above. It took a lot of poor leadership to gin up racial hatred and sustain it. The same poor leadership we see today in the ones condemning Musk for paraphrasing one of the quotes I listed above. Reminding me of another Biblical wisdom seldom heard these days, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
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