[...] See, only in Black America could a blind man seem less handicapped and more agile in spirit than his sighted brothers. Blindness, in black and in blue, has been good to American music—Blind Tom, the Blind Willies Johnson and McTell, Art Tatum, Brother Ray, Stevie. Making a body wonder if Ellison's Invisible cat wasn't pursuing a vision in his hole but trying to understand the blindness of his countrymen—their inability to see nothing but black when faced with the sight of a negro in broad daylight. Brother Ray avoided the common negro malady of seeing yourself as the others saw you—as a thing not really there and all too present all too real at the same time. A figment of their fascination. The eyed and the unseen element in the room. The black world of Ray Charles was different from yours and mine. Certainly a world far less of a spectacle and therefore less prey to the interminable negro anxiety of being seen as a racial spectacle, of Being While Black. But I digress. [...]
| Yesterday before work, we were listening to Ray Charles' "Genius Loves Company," and today we find ourselves agreeing vehemently with Greg Tate's rarely-truer Village Voice review "The Resurrection and The Light"
posted in reviews on September 7, 2004 3:28 PM | t (0)
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