Thoughts on Black Aesthetics
Take away the black equation and America does not exist. America bleeds black blood. Black influence is manifest in the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the songs we sing, the sports we play, the freedoms we enjoy and the science that make us the envy of the world. The essence of America is black. It is hard to say America without the sound of Ray Charles.
Black Americans led the fight against the Nazis by humiliating Hitler before white Americans followed suit. Joe Louis and Jesse Owens exposed the fraud of the master race by crushing the best specimens of Aryan purity. Hitler, foaming at the mouth, called America a black society and kept on drinking.
No matter where the struggle for civil rights, human rights, and equal rights occurs, the rallying cry is always “We shall overcome”. Blacks were here from the start and their history is American history. They have fought in every war sacrificing more lives in proportion to their numbers than any other ethnic group. Ironically, the fight has brought rewards to others who then become obstacles to black progress.
It’s a lie to forget that blacks provided the free labor that made America rich and powerful. It’s a lie to embrace religions that practiced segregation and it’s a lie to look to Africa for answers.
Black aesthetics are already here. It’s all around us. The obelisk dominates the Romantic Classicism of Washington DC. The turgid Historicism of early New York was a desperate attempt that failed to produce an authentic American architecture. It was not until William Van Allen turned to jazz that a truly unique American expression appeared in the Chrysler building.
Where would the modern movement be without the influence of African images and Artifacts? And without Josephine Bakers steatopygic ass, Ronchamp would not have been possible. The Gothic cathedrals came after the Moors showed the way. Europeans only surpassed the quality of carbon steel produced in Africa 2,000 years ago in the mid-nineteenth century.
Black aesthetics are already here. It exists as a permanent and inseparable element in everything American. To be continued.
Josephine Baker and Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp