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My Last Patriotic Concert
From the DAR to Frederick Douglass
I may have played my last patriotic concert. I’ve been pondering this for a few years, but after decades of concerts, followed by years of doubt, this particular year hit hard.
Sorry, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. If you read my work, you might be familiar with my “Reluctant Caregiver” series, with random pieces on my travels to hear music around the world, or with my occasional deep dive into politics. Occasionally, however, I mention activities like writing and playing my piccolo that help me maintain a relief from the strains of caring for my dad, a 95-year-old Vietnam vet.
Much of my music regularly centers around a local wind ensemble (concert band) populated by local band directors, retired military band members, and an assortment of professional, semi-pro, and talented amateur musicians who just want to keep music in their lives. Born on an Army base, I’ve got a master’s in flute performance, and in addition to serving as principal of the flute section, lead sectionals for the entire woodwind section. My ten years of marching band experience from junior high through college serves me well. I also do oral program notes for our concerts.
Every Thursday night, I get Dad settled in his bedroom, give him his daily insulin shot, and head for rehearsal. It’s a congenial group and the director chooses challenging music that keeps me alert.
But every time July rolls around, I start getting anxious. Odd for an Army brat.
We always have a big concert on July 3 and we take part in a 9 am ceremony on the actual Fourth of July. The concert on the 3rd includes a speaker (typically the same retired history professor from the local university); some Americana pieces, like “Shenandoah;” and some patriotic vocal pieces like “God Bless America,” topped up by some “Jesus is my boyfriend” music, better known as contemporary (white) Christian. Don’t ask.
On the Fourth, we play a prelude of marches, the flag is presented, there’s a reading of the Declaration of Independence, followed by musket and cannon fire, and we play a few more perky marches. It’s run primarily by the Sons of the American Revolution dressed in period clothing. About sixty or seventy people show up.
“What’s not to like?” you might ask. Well, the history professor likes to pretend the USA has been perfect from its inception. He considers it anathema to mention what he calls “warts.”
This is where I start to get off the bus. I’ve tried to explain that the way the US has successfully addressed some of its problems is something to be celebrated. My ancestors were enslaved, but here I am, the face of a nearly white group in the South, with a doctorate from Stanford. That’s progress.
I get the feeling the powers that be didn’t like that, preferring their own fantasy world. Or perhaps it was my request that one word of the song lyrics (preferably two, but I wasn’t greedy) could be changed à la Star Trek: The Next Generation. The original Star Trek’s opening narration said the starship Enterprise would “go where no man has gone before.” TNG changed that to “go where no one has gone before.”
In these song lyrics, there was a similar issue: “I used to think every man had the right to be what he wanted to be. And I still do.”
I wanted “man” changed to “one.” If they had a bit of extra grace in their pockets, I wanted “he” changed to “they.” BTW, the piece starts with a flute solo — that would be me.
The first year I asked the singer, he looked at me in sincere confusion, but agreed, then mumbled something in performance. The second year, he went back to the original, but that year he was singing with another person, a nice woman I’d worked with before, so I asked both of them. She was mildly taken aback, but agreed. Again, he mumbled something in performance.
The third year, yet again, he went back to the original, so I went over his head to the director, who was the piece’s arranger. He agreed immediately and spoke to the singer. For the first time “one” was clearly sung. I wrote about that here.
This year, the fourth year, he went back to the original. So I went back to the director, who had said he’d have it changed once again. He told me the singer forgot, but I said, “Too late.”
But here’s the thing: Why was exclusionary, sexist language still part of the mix in the 2020s?
As a side note, this is one of the ways white guys get what they want — they just keep returning to their original idea (cf. the Confederacy and its current aftermath keeping Latinos in virtual slavery). But I’ve been in lots of all-white environments, and I had a fierce Black mother, so I know a thing or two about sticking to my (metaphorical) guns.
I wouldn’t be playing the solo. I’d pass it on to another player and I wouldn’t make a scene, but I felt it shouldn’t be too much of an “ask” to want one word changed to include me (and the other women in the ensemble) in the dream of American liberty. And I was tired of asking every single year.
Still, he had the singer change both that word and the accompanying pronoun, clearly enunciated, however, I kept to my vow and passed the solo to a less-skilled player who was thrilled to have the opportunity. But here’s a thing: Why was exclusionary sexist language still part of the mix in the 2020s?
I’m sick of asking for my humanity to be recognized. I’m tired of white-washed history where the humanity of my people is considered a “wart,” where our courageous struggle pushing the US toward full realization of its stated ideals is ignored. I’m sick and tired of white comfort foregrounded as I walk into a room where several church-going white people voted for the Klan-endorsed felon, but need me to think they’re “good people.”
It may not be related, but on the July 3 concert after I’d made my stand, I was benched. For the first time in over six years, I was not assigned any pieces to introduce. I know that correlation does not equal causation, but I can’t help but wonder whether my continued requests to be included via one word change and whether my comment on the history speech being more inclusive have led to this. Do they think I can’t be trusted not to make them uncomfortable? Who knows? Our next concert is not until October, so we’ll see.
History repeating
In addition to all this, the July 4 performance is also run by the Daughters of the American Revolution, the exact same organization that denied Marian Anderson the opportunity to sing at Constitution Hall. Internationally famous, she’d been the first black woman to take the stage with the MET Opera. Instead, in the nation’s capitol, she sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Back to my event. Hearing the Declaration of Independence read with its indictments of King George, indictments nearly indistinguishable from the actions taken right now by the felon most of these Sons and Daughters likely voted for, made me nauseous. Seeing white men strut around in their play-soldier costumes, and white women scurry around on the County Courthouse lawn in their little slave-missy outfits was off-putting.
Yet, it seemed to me that my being there in the front row skillfully playing my piccolo (one of the most prominent instruments in the band) gave patriotism some inclusiveness, or was I just validating exclusion? These thoughts were swirling around the last notes of a Sousa march as I picked up my floral flute bag and my black music stand before heading back to the car.
Halfway there, on the back end of the Courthouse, a woman was at a mic reading from a document, a very different document. I recognized the words of Frederick Douglass. I crossed the street, put my bag and stand in my car, then walked back. I stood there in my uniform, khaki pants and a black polo shirt embroidered with the band’s name and emblem. I stood there listening.
They were reading from Douglass’ stinging indictment of American hypocrisy, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” The women — four black, one white, one Latina — were taking turns reading. “You can take a turn if you like,” one said to me. I was stunned, then accepted. I told them I couldn’t stay long because I had to get back to my father; they were okay with that. As I listened, I quickly searched the text on my iPhone.
When my turn came, I walked to the mic, behind a podium with a massive chain of shackles on it. The previous speaker, a gray-haired white women in her fifties pointed to the page where she had ended. As she walked away in her black tee-shirt that said “Accomplice” in white letters on the front I took a rather shaky breath and began:
“Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes.
Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions, crush and destroy it forever!”
I read with the passion of release, release from all the faux patriots who had never had the law of the nation turned against them, who had never been stopped “just because,” who had no idea how they would all too often “keep the word of promise to the ear, but break it to the heart.” I read on, warming to these truths that should have been self evident, shouting AMEN! inside my head as I read. Then I got to this part:
“Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but interpreted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.
Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.”
Why indeed?
I read a few more long paragraphs and then quit, passing the mic to the next person, a young black woman in her twenties. I thanked the women from the depths of my sincerity, for doing this and for letting me participate. I don’t know who they were, but I know their act of offering an alternate voice, a voice that validated truth, a voice that eschewed cosplay, was as sage for my spirit. This ritual reading had purified my thoughts. I felt cleansed.
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