Back on March 11th, I announced the first-ever Caucasian Literary Review
free giveaway. The giveaway was won by our good friend Kinswoman. Since then, she's been reading the book I gave away, taking notes and preparing a review of the book.
I'm very pleased and very proud to offer now the review of the book by Kinswoman. It's a stellar piece of writing. This is precisely the sort of thing White people should be producing.
Heartiest thanks and congratulations to our sister for this fine example of critical writing.
Enjoy!
~ Wheeler MacPherson
Standing Up on the Inside:
A Review of White Soul: Country Music, the Church, and Working People
A thought-provoking (and cuss-eliciting) book, White Soul by Tex Sample seeks to examine the purpose and utility of country music as the soul music of working people in America today. After establishing the origins of country music (an offshoot of White folk music centered in the southeast US in the 1920’s), Mr. Sample shows that country music is the expression of working man’s rebellion against a system which has been imposed upon him by an elite bent on robbing him of his soulful humanity, one aspect of which is depicted so poignantly in Henry and the Great Society. One need not agree with that author’s eschatology to mourn Henry’s demise, our people’s demise. Mr. Sample’s heart for, and empathy with, working people and their life circumstances is clearly evident in his efforts to reach out to them.
Country music is the music of the working class, versus an academic, ivory tower, ruling “elite.” My own family has recently moved from a multicultural metro area, replete with classical music teachers, to the rural outer Ozarks, and has felt the shift in attitudes. As we steer our children toward a working community experience instead of having them follow us by default to college, the children have become immersed in the music of the area: bluegrass, that early offspring of country music, complete with country music’s “a’cheatin’ and a’drankin’” songs. The types of lyrics that show White culture in a degenerated state would be irrelevant, a curious non sequitur, in an animalistic, godless, free-breeding culture. It is the very virtues of duty, faithfulness to family, and honor – the traditions behind country music, according to Mr. Sample - from which these degenerative influences seek to draw us away. A jungle native would never sing about the heartache caused by his wife’s desertion or lament that his children now have no momma. If we as a people had never possessed these virtues, or had never known consciousness of sin, the corrupted lyrics would not have such an appeal and would have no relevance. (Sin nature is always seeking an outlet. It wants to bust out all over the place. Since Baptists “don’t smoke, drink, or dance,” they seem more prone to gluttony and gossip. Pick a denomination and make your own list for fun.) Country music is also an avenue for unregenerate man to use “oppression by the elite” as an excuse to violate other legitimate restraints on White people’s actions: “Let’s see how many of the Ten Commandments we can sing about breaking in this three-minute song.”
In his book, published in 1996, Mr. Sample seeks to demonstrate how “the church” can minister to “working people,” and mistakenly presumes that the terms are mutually exclusive, with dangerous consequences. He uses the term “church” to mean a “social gospel” liberal institution which is distinct and separate from working class people. His solution to “bridge the gap” and reach out to working people – using CM lyrics that glorify fornication, break our Lord’s commandments and violate the sanctity of the place of worship – are questionable. Christ cannot simply be relegated to the language of the White man’s response to the liberal elite, because that response has been polluted by that liberal elite, namely antiChrist Marxists of the jewish persuasion. Our Saviour, however, transcends that language, and knows His creatures, remembers that we are “but dust” and came in a body of flesh to rescue us from ourselves and our enemy. Christ “pitched tent” with us, as Mr. Sample points out, but He was without sin. Can we sing “Help Me Make It Through the Night” in church in order to “loosen people up” for ministry? Let Brother Wheeler address this:
I went through a period some time back where my philosophy was, “Hey, if you’re White, you’re on our side.” Back then, it seemed to me that the main thing was racial solidarity, and all the other stuff might get sorted out later.
I no longer believe this. I know longer believe this at all.
I believe that as Christians, as the blood descendants of Israel, as the chosen people of God and the image-bearers of Christ, that we must separate ourselves from the unclean and the unholy – and this means other White people if they do not bow the knee to our King. The White people who care more about their “freedom” or their swastikas and their drugs and their sexual “freedom” or their mindless vandalism than they do about the commands and words of the Ever-Living God are not my people. (“Sowing the Wind, and Then Reaping Amid Winking and Nudging,” The Caucasian Literary Review, 2009)
Mr. Sample almost realizes this when on page 141 he notes, “A church that is insensitive to its entrapment in such larger systemic social constructions simply will miss the powers at work to destroy or at least diminish its capacity for mission and ministry.” He sees that the church has been using highly rationalized organizational procedures of corporate America (italics mine) and that “the church would be far better off in terms of indigenous ministry with working people if it utilized traditional tribal practices “(italics mine) which are, by definition, racist, sexist, and classist. He cannot bring himself to admit, on a treatment of White soul music no less, that working people’s music is a response as a race protesting a class/race/gender war foisted upon us by antiChrist Marxists, themselves of a particular race.
The author states that elitist tastes are not “pure” because they are racist and classist, and as such, are not a viable standard to judge all music. In calling cultured tastes “elitist,” he biases the reader against classical, cultivated music that is historically and generationally respected by all classes of Europeans. In Louisa May Alcott’s An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, a family of poor 19th century New England farm children loves to recount a tale of their noble European ancestors’ bravery and fidelity:
“Read out a piece,” said Tilly from Mother’s chair, where she sat in state, finishing off the sixth woolen sock she had knit that month.
“It’s the old history book, but here’s a bit you may like, since it’s about our folks,” answered Eph, turning the yellow pages to look at a picture of two quaintly dressed children in some ancient castle.
“Yes, read that. I always like to hear about the Lady Matildy I was named for, and Lord Bassett, Pa’s great-great-great grandpa. He’s only a farmer now, but it’s nice to know we were somebody two or three hundred years ago,” said Tilly, bridling and tossing her curly head as she fancied the Lady Matilda might have done.
“Don’t read the queer words, ‘cause we don’t understand ‘em. Tell it,” commanded Roxie, from the cradle, where she was drowsily cuddled with Rhody.
“Well, a long time ago, when Charles the First was in prison, Lord Basset was a true friend to him,” began Eph, plunging into his story without delay. “The lord had some papers that would have hung a lot of people if the king’s enemies got hold of ‘em, so when he heard one day, all of a sudden, that soldiers were at the castle gate to carry him off, he had just time to call his girl to him, and say, ‘I may be going to my death, but I won’t betray my master. There is no time to burn the papers, and I cannot take them with me; they are hidden in the old leathern chair where I sit. No one knows this but you, and you must guard them till I come or you send a safe messenger to take them away. Promise me to be brave and silent, and I can go without fear.’ You see, he wasn’t afraid to die, but he was to seem a traitor. Lady Matildy promised solemnly, and the words were hardly out of her mouth when men came in, and her father was carried away a prisoner, and sent off to the Tower.”
“But she didn’t cry; she just called her brother, and sat down in the chair, with her head leaning back on those papers, like a queen, and waited while the soldiers hunted the house over for ‘em: wasn’t that a smart girl?” cried Tilly, beaming with pride, for she was named for this ancestress, and knew the story by heart.
“I reckon she was scared, though, when the men came swearing’ in and asked her if she knew anything about it. The boy did his part then, for he didn’t know, and fired up and stood up before his sister; and he says, says he, as bold as a lion: ‘If my lord had told us where the papers be, we would die before we would betray him. But we are children and know nothing, and it is cowardly of you to try to fight us with oaths and swords!” (pp. 11-13)
The children admired their ancestors for their loyalty and steadfast bravery, and the fact that their progenitors were in a higher class didn’t bother them at all. There need not be a class war, and country music is the gritty, poetic response of modern working people to oppression passed off on them as a “class war.” When I visit my home state of Louisiana, I still catch glimpses of the old order – blacks over fifty years old often treat me as would a black mammy or Uncle Remus figure: no hostility, just a pleasant “Whatcha need, Baby?” in a respectful, cheerful, helpful way, or “Can Ah help ya, Miz Lisa?”
If the author sees no difference between elite White Christian European nobility of old, with their Handels and Bachs in service, and those “elite” who control today’s media and message, then it is no wonder he seeks to throw off cultured musical tastes and traditions of our European forbears. On the other hand, he recognizes that today’s country music is the soulful cry of a defiant, formerly dominant White race who will not bow, at least psychologically, to the machine crushing the life from its people. As the little boy who’s been punished and told to sit down said, “I may be sitting down, but I’m standing up on the inside.”
At times, Mr. Sample seems to get a glimmer of the real problem. “The church as an alternative community with an ultimate allegiance to Christ and not to the nation is an important anecdote to the poisons of the nation-state that is bound to late capitalism.” (p.160) Sadly, he cannot get past his misconception that the problems of working people have nothing to do with race. It is humorous that the term “working people” is used in reference to “white soul music,” as Mr. Sample calls country music, while he bends over backwards to deny any “negative” or racial exclusivity inherent in country music. It is interesting to note that in recent years, he has also now bent over forward to accommodate his denomination’s compliance with sodomites and same sex “marriage.”
It is evident in the book’s final pages, that “overcoming racial exclusiveness” still resident within some working White people is part of the author’s goal for the “church ministry” to “working people.” But as Cambria Will Not Yield so succinctly puts it,
I am only a chronicler, and I am a white male. As such, my opinion is not valid in Utopia. But I must say that Utopia is not working. One gets the sense among the lower strata of white people (by lower strata, I mean those outside the liberal elite) that there is an incredible longing in their hearts. Are they suppressing something in their blood that must, simply must, be satisfied lest they die of longing? Dare we say that the something is faith? (May 31, 2009)
Here is an impassioned essay by my friend Daniel, which he posted on his blog. I think it's important enough to give it the widest possible dissemination, so I am reposting it here. Please read it carefully.
