So Michael R's [1] calls last night to ask if I am still alive. I have been incredibly busy trying to juggle 6 different projects plus the kids plus Xmas and well, he reminded me how guilty I have been feeling about not being able to blog not even part-time these days.
So this morning I was thinking, hmmmmmm, do I use "Staying Alive" or "She Works Hard" for my "I'm not dead yet" post?
I settled for Donna and not the Bee Gees, first because of Travolta and second because my present situation is very 1980's, very recession and Reaganomics with a whiff of Iran-Contra secret war. I get the embed and here's what I got :
I can't believe I had no memory whatsoever of that white woman. "She works hard (for the money)" has never been in my mind a song about "working poor" white women. And the fact that her song is being told by a black woman ... wow.
It's debatable whether Hip Hop won out and took over MTV. At the time it was a big deal to see people like Donna Summers even though she was the biggest female pop vocalist in the United States (if not the world). Prince, Michael Jackson : they were on semi-regular rotation on MTV only because they were the acceptable "poppish" negroes.
Back in the day if you wanted to see black acts, you still had to tune into Soul Train. MTV only had placed here and there "negro hours" because there were not enough white metal hair bands to fill in their scheduling needs. Hard to believe that Hip Hop was taboo on MTV. Or at least the KRS-One and Public Enemy kind of Hip Hop because they one they embraced is without a doubt "the mistrel Hip Hop". Gotta give it to them that at least someone in the organization recognized the KKKaching value of selling blingged out negroes to white kids as exotica and to the black ones as faux empowerment.
Anyhow, it kills me that I was thinking, "Oh, I'll write something quick" and BAM! am slapped with Race, Ethnicity & Culture 101 with this video clip.
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