Destiny Dynasty & Stagger Lee

Destiny, Dynasty & Stagger Lee


The Legend of Stagger Lee, slyly beloved of Black Bluesmen and colour-blind, cross-over White musicians; is about the White Man’s waking nightmare; that sort of Black Man, who refuses to bow down to a self-evident, all-powerful, call a spade a spade, White Supremacy.

The Stagger Lee legend was launched in the 1930s, when a Black Labourer killed a White Cab Driver for insulting him, in a New York Bar; and for spitting into his Stetson Hat! It made for small news items in the inside pages about how the Black Man shot the White Man, three, four times, unmoved by his pleadings, caring nothing about a po’faced wife and hapless children three!

But this, in itself, the triviality of the provocation, the unjustified and fatal outcome, for victim Billy Joe; did some kind of macho trick to enhance the legend of Stagger Lee. He’s been immortalised ever since, in song, some 266 versions and varieties. Stagger Lee has been nuanced by Bluesmen and turned into a recurring favourite on the R&B (Rhythm & Blues) Charts.

But it didn’t stop there. Stagger Lee, for all his innate menace and Black swagger, crossed over, to the other side of the street; grabbing the sensibilities of main-stream Rock & Rollers; who don’t, we know, hesitate to come in White, Black, Chocolate, Yellow and Tutti Frutti topped with Ostrich feathers. But then, Rock n Roll is a confluence. It was begat by the fortuitous and decidedly joyous coupling of White Country Music and Black Blues. That’s how it got its vitality, and did a world of red-blooded, cross-fertilising good, to both.

Rock n Roll was, is, integrating, nation-building, anti-racial--a spontaneous phenomenon, in America, aided and abetted by the forced proximity of the races in WW II, The Korean War, the Vietnam War and the bits and pieces since. The Indian nation-building parallel would have to be Cricket and Bollywood; Sachin, Saurav, Dhoni, Bhajji etc. as much as “Bharat” Manoj Kumar and the current Khan series.

But Stagger Lee, the spirit in the song, didn’t leave well enough alone. He wouldn’t stop, gliding like the ghost he became, beyond those decidedly unromantic gallows he went to in real life. Stagger Lee was resurrected, and lives on still, seventy, eighty years on, too bold and proud to be constrained by the Devil that took his misguided soul.

The legend of the Black murderer, who killed a White Man for spitting in his Stetson Hat, has gone decidedly walkabout: it fraternises with exclusionist, conservative, segregationist, “Aw Shucks” do se do-ing , square bashing, Baptist Whites. It moves Dylan/Baez originally “folk” Jewish. It moves on to other points improbable and bizarre. Such as the genetic impossibility of expressing Black Anger in the All-White Country and Western (C&W) idiom!

Stagger Lee made it to C&W Country, and has been sung about in the Grand Ole Opry, as if he were one of their very own. How the heartless, merciless, borderline sadistic Black Labourer, with zero by way of social graces did it; is, was, and will be, a mystery, as dark as Stagger Lee’s sexy, black, transmigrating, soul.

In any case, he is enjoying another turn in the sun; in the midst of the thrust and parry of a struggle between a White Woman with an offensive sense of entitlement, almost dynastic in its hubris, and a suave Black Man challenger, hugely inspirational and attractive, articulate as only a Harvard educated Lawyer can be. One witty commentator word-painted the Ganga-Yamuna Obama and his engaging smile with the perfect teeth as, “The Halle Berry of Black Politicians”.

But lurking in the equation, like an unmentionable elephant in the room, is the Stagger Lee matter of his colour, his look-you-in-the-eye attitude, his integrity, his well-fashioned conservative suits, his maddening, atypical Blackness. And since all of this is underpinned by his “God Damn America” spouting Black Pastor; his Canada trade gaffe; his sometime dubious Black financier; and other potentially threatening baggage; life for Candidate Obama could yet come to sudden death in a predominantly White America.

But Barack Obama, with his genetic reality of a bridging conjunction, could also shine on for the majority of Democratic voters, but is he still just fit to be hung in the end? Is his attitude of refusing to be relegated to second place, or oblivion, just one more twirl in that spat-in Stagger Lee Hat all over again?

There is no dead and unfortunate Billy Joe victim in Obama’s life, it is true, but is the “Yes We Can” daring of Obama as good as an insult? And is his basic stand-uppishness just so much offensive effrontery as bad as spitting in White America’s Stetson Hat?

The educated White Man, the University Man, the Young Woman and the Young in general, do not, thank God, think so; and neither do almost all Black Americans, 13% of the US population, and a far more potent percentage of Democrats; without whom, no Democratic candidate can win the Presidency. Hispanics too are warming to Obama, particularly, after the only sitting Hispanic Governor, (of New Mexico), endorsed Obama recently.

But sadly, we can see Hillary Clinton and her two-terms former President husband, once indulgently called America’s “First Black President” by Black Literature Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison; attacking Obama’s Blackness. But is this former President, with his office situated in the Black district of Harlem, in New York, justified in abusing the trust, affection and faith long reposed in him by millions of Blacks?

Because, despite the innuendo, Barack Obama is no casual murdering Stagger Lee Black Labourer; Black Pride to Obama is not a hidden agenda of hate and bitterness like his Pastor. Obama can be trusted to preside over White, Hispanic, Brown, Yellow, Native American and Black America. So, will the Clintons succeed? No they won’t.

Stagger Lee may be a mean metaphor for a Black Man’s bid in today’s Presidential Race. I would wager Stagger Lee never expected a Black Man to be a contender, let alone a better, visionary, Black Kennedy-grade prospect, so early into the 21st century. But those dark Blues notes, that first lyric about a Bull Dog’s baritone warning bark; the song’s amplifying psychosis, irrational as the fear of night’s darkness, is definitely, if sadly, part of the opposing pitch.

(1,050 words)

By Gautam Mukherjee
Tuesday 25th March 2008