Whites Never Invented Anything?

 

Joy Reid has recently claimed online that white people never invent anything. 

This is obviously wrong in terms of engineering or science. Does she mean culture?

No, still obviously wrong: Beethoven, Da Vinci, Shakespeare—which one was black? Andy Warhol?

Perhaps she is thinking only about pop culture? It is true that pop culture has always been a pathway to success for minorities and the poor—since it relies, more than other fields, on pure merit, on talent. 

But here too, it is not clear that non-whites have made the bigger mark. Not in comic books, or advertising, or popular literature, or comedy, or film. Here, it is the Jews who stand out.

But perhaps in popular music, at least? Reid cites rock and roll.

The one striking contribution by blacks to American culture is the sense of spontaneity in music. Contrast jazz with classical music, with its emphasis on practice and precision. This is where American music, and American culture, most obviously differs from European, and it is reasonable to assume this is from African influence.

I suspect this is what Reid is thinking of, and she is wrongly conflating “spontaneity” with “creativity.”

Beyond music, this spontaneity has also spread into other aspects of American culture—into Beat poetry in the fifties, for example. Although the Beat poets were almost all white.

For rock and roll, Reid has a case. Although sometime credited to country music through “roackabilly,” I too think rock and roll emerges mostly from gospel music: Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The idea of spontaneity in art seems to emerge naturally from the idea of spontaneity in worship—letting the spirit move you. 

That said, this spontaneous style of worship did not begin in black congregations. It flows from the theology of various “white” Protestant denominations emerging first in Europe, like the Quakers, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Pentecostals.  Emotional, spontaneous worship is particularly characteristic of many Scots-Irish congregations in the Appalachians—like the snake-handlers. In which direction did the influence really run?

Many of the early Gospel composers were white.

Speaking of the Appalachians, Scots and Irish musical traditions are at least as strong in the American vernacular as anything that can be traced to Africa. Country music, bluegrass, tap dancing, folk music, are all easily identifiable as Irish and Scottish in origin. 

These all no doubt mixed in with black congregations, and black traditions, in the local area--in the South.

And the people mixed too. 

Over one third of African-Americans have Irish ancestry. Beyonce, Billie Holiday, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Rhiannon Giddens, may identify as “African American,” but they certainly have Irish ancestors as well, and much of their musicality and musical heritage may come from that line.

The spontaneity goes with the Protestant heritage of the United States, and the fact that it is, uniquely, a classless society. And it is deceptive and divisive to speak of “black culture” as opposed to American culture.