Almost done reading "Le Tumulte Noir" by Jody Blake. The basic premise is that Modernism was born out of mother country white male artist's reaction to learning of and appropriating the language and vocabularies of exploited colonial people, esp West African..this fascination with "l'ame negre" and le mentalite primitiv" would permeate pop culture thruout the twentieth century, and be the logic behind the "black superstar icon starting with Josephine Baker going on up to Eddie Murphy, Michael Jackson, Jordan, Basquiat and so on.
2010 finds the Modernist narrative having lost it's teeth. We exist well into the so called "Post-Modern" era. Colonialism is long since dismantled, universal conscription (white males HAVING to fight in wars against their choosing ) is gone, gay rights, minority rights, women's rights, labor rights are the norm in Bourgeois countries..today's would be revolutionary confronts a "bohemia" like Williamsburg, Brooklyn as a condo and boutique filled playground for dull and bored refugees from sub-urbia and Middle America..being black aint no big thing, Hip-Hop is a multi-million dollar given, rather than a scandalous refuge..and yet people COMPLAIN about how NICE life is now..to be cont'd
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