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  Posted By:
  orlkon at 08/18/2008 5:20:08 PM
  Comment:
  After all this time people are finally applying Ish's perspective of the American political battle as it relates to the uncomfortable presence of Black Folk in the "New World."
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  Posted By:
  bossandnova at 05/22/2008 3:33:40 PM
  Comment:
  Thank you for sharing this video! And thank you for reintroducing Ishmael Reed's brilliant "Mumbo Jumbo" to a younger audience.
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  Posted By:
  ZiggyZiggerson at 05/15/2008 7:49:03 PM
  Comment:
  The thing I never get about the cultural guardians' unnecessary and egoistic dismissal of "low" art is that they never quite seem to understand that that art, too, takes talent. Perhaps they've read Dante and listened to Bach; they may well have a grudging respect for Ellison and Dinah Washington. But what they don't realize is that Tupac Shakur is doing something that they can't do, couldn't dream of doing, and wouldn't know where to begin were they to try.
  
  Frankly, I don't think this has much to do with race, but with art and our reactions to it. Manet was denied entry to the highest art exhibits and Stravinsky was met with hisses; no doubt many lesser artists who also tried to push boundaries were also booed off the stage.
  
  Doesn't mean we have to like everything. We don't. But the notion that the experimental artistic fringe, which may or may not have much to say as wonks, does make artistic progress.
  
  I, for one, am grateful to the last hundred years of artistic accomplishment, both high and low, black and white. "Black culture" disappointing? No more than "white culture". I'll meet your Chamillionaire and raise you a Toby Keith; and I'd be more than happy to meet your John Lennon and raise you a John Coltrane.
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  Posted By:
  trinity at 05/15/2008 1:09:06 PM
  Comment:
  Excellent article!