THE BLACK/WHITE QUESTION
CIRCA 1968-69
The question of black/white conflicts became a major issue in the Sixties as whites attacked blacks, and blacks refused to comply. Not only did blacks not back down and back off, but they fiercely retaliated, with pride, strength, and indomitable conviction. Race wars broke out, not only in the overtly bigoted South, but everywhere, including Detroit, Los Angeles and elsewhere throughout America. Tim Buckley was white, and Carter Collins, his conga player, was black. I talked with Tim's mother Elaine about some things that had taken place before I had met Carter —
"Well," said Elaine, "a lot of white people didn't want the black boy on stage. They used to throw things at them. When they were walking down the street white people would sic the dogs on Carter and on Tim, too. And they would stone Tim for being a 'nigger lover.' But Tim would never let Carter go. He really liked Carter."
Tim never told me about that incident or the incident in
Detroit he described to Anne Marie Micklo — "I had to play in that
fucking Detroit riot, man. Carter and I were on stage, and all these kids were
on acid and all middle class, and you know what's going to happen. It's black
and white on stage and it's just going to cut through to Carter, man, so I
said, 'Fuck it — pack up your drums.' And he's leaving and I'm playing and talking, trying to cool
it out, get it straight. And he gets off stage.
"Soon as we go outside, man, I get clouted in the head by a
fucking cop. And then the whole thing just ran apart, man, the whole place.
People just running into each other. See, this was in the place we were
playing. Then you go outside and all there is is flames. . .it looked like
Berlin."
As I played guitar and toured the country with Tim and Carter, the
race war itself seemed slightly mad to me. Can black Americans separate their
blackness from their Americanness? Blacks don't live in an exclusively black
nation, such as Africa. Can white Americans separate blackness from their Americanness? Whites
don't live in an exclusively white nation, such as Sweden.
In America all of us live in a racially mixed society. Socially,
politically, economically and on television (which is everywhere), we overlap
and intermingle everywhere. No one can grow up in America being exclusively
white or exclusively black. In other words, it seemed to me that
biologically determined skin color didn't matter — even as Carter and Tim
so clearly illustrated. Carter functioned brilliantly in white contexts with
Tim, and Tim felt completely comfortable in black contexts with Carter.
That's what brought me to the position I took on a Cleveland radio
show with Carter and Tim. I maintained that we must rise above bio-racial
differences and learn how to heal wounds and build bridges that will
wholistically unite us in harmonious diversity. Violence against violence only
creates more violence. As human beings with rational minds, we don't have to be
victims locked into circumstances that determine our behavior. Within
ourselves, within our universal soul, we are always free and we always
have choices. Nothing is predetermined. If we base our behavior on self-knowledge,
reason, compassion and intelligence, then wars of all kinds, including race
wars, become obsolete and absolutely unnecessary. White or black or brown or
yellow, it is not our job to "correct" anybody. It is not our job to
cause more anger, resentment and destruction. It is our job to wake up, isn't it? Change
begins with each one of us individually, because each one of us is responsible.
We will never change conditions unless we change consciousness. Wake up to our
human unity, and change perspectives — that will automatically lead to
new actions based on respect, love and compassion.
Nobody seemed to understand this, or care. To my dismay, the
operative question seemed to have little or nothing to do with biology or
socio-political externals or rational, quasi-spiritual rhetoric. The practical,
operative question seemed to involve cultural differences based on
race.
Externally, races overlap in the marketplace, but the culture of a
people is its inner life, and the inner life of a people tends to
remain separate, and separation creates conflict. Blacks live, work, love and
pray with blacks. Whites do the same with whites. Hispanics, Native Americans
and Chinese do likewise. Cross-overs are not the rule. They are the exceptions.
And within racially separate cultural frameworks, the values, perspectives,
styles, languages, and perceptions differ. People ignore and reject the entire
question of altering consciousness, of waking up to their shared
universality. Instead, they egoistically cling to their differences. That very
clinging creates conflicts, and those conflicts inevitably escalate.
Blacks weren't trying to tell whites how to live and think. They
simply wanted autonomy with their differences intact. But whites have always been telling blacks
how to live and think — and they wanted to keep on telling them. As far
as I could see, that is where the fundamental social problem seemed to lie.
Black culture did not want to have its values, lifestyles and conduct dominated
by a racist Euro-American Anglo culture any longer, while white America loved
its plantations — and wanted to keep them. Blacks did not want to be
dominated. Neither did they want to be assimilated. They wanted to be separate,
equal and respected. Whites virulently insisted on maintaining white power, and
did not want to assimilate blacks either — except perhaps as a lower
class of docile, well-behaved menial workers. They wanted to remain separate
from blacks — and "superior" and dominant. Separation was
fundamental to each side.
White America used pseudo-scientific nonsense like genetic
"white superiority" and "black inferiority" to
hypocritically sidestep America's noble ideals about equality while justifying
bigotry and socio-economic power trips. Oppressed and dominated — no, enslaved
—blacks
had bowed their heads and shuffled for centuries. Well, that mentality was
finally heaved out the window. By the Sixties, a new identity was emerging
— pride, dignity, courage, strength, autonomy, self-actualization,
independence, and legal and moral equality. With a new sense of inner strength,
blacks openly defied white oppression and claimed their rights and dignity as
black Americans and free human beings.
Given those white/black perspectives and that explosively divided
situation, my position about higher-consciousness, reconciliation, mutual
respect, wholeness, unity, and harmony simply had no relevance. Conflict was built
into the equation itself. Separation created the conflict, and conflict
intensified separation, and everybody on both sides accepted that equation
without even questioning it.
Not only that, but in spite of all the noise on both sides, nobody
seemed to want to change it. Tim and Carter and all who agreed with them had a
meaningful and just cause. They had nobility and righteousness on their side.
They had passion and purpose. Of course, bigoted white America in its distorted
way felt exactly the same.
I suddenly realized something. Strange as it may seem, for all of
the misery and pain involved, both factions seemed to be having a wonderful
time. And never the twain could meet. Of course not. I suspect that if the
truth be known, they did not want to meet. They wanted to fight. War is
great for the ego. Always has been, always will be, still is.
As for myself, I had visions of an enlightened humanity, not only
in America, but all over the world, precisely the kind of thinking that creates
teary-eyed clowns, disgruntled hermits, bearded mystics, and dead martyrs. That
didn't mean my thinking was wrong or inaccurate. To the contrary, it just meant
I had to be courageous, patient and willing to continue growing.
My ego was not wrapped up in immediate social problems and violent
conflict. I did not identify with either the black perspective or the white
perspective. I certainly supported the black struggle for freedom and dignity,
because I supported those principles, regardless of who struggled for
liberation: blacks, women, homosexuals, any oppressed, marginalized group.
However, I refused to choose either side, one against the other. I was
concerned only with realizing our universal humanity in action, and that kind
of unity-consciousness was going to take time before it became a meaningful,
operative element of the human condition. Lots of time. Probably centuries, if
ever.
Meanwhile, I loved Tim, and I loved Carter, and I loved people of
all races, colors, and creeds. That meant I had to transcend conflicts, stretch
my wingtips out to touch all sides, and travel my own path in my own way.
