Cultural Nationalism and Other Aesthetics in Call and Response

The publication of Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Tradition celebrates the traditional feature of African American culture and art.  The selected works provide an expansive look into the African American aesthetic for both members within that community and for those outside of it looking to learn about its facets.  From an observational perspective, Call and Response honors the tradition most commonly felt as the interactive experience between a group’s leader initiating a “call” and the group’s “response” to that call. The tradition has roots in African folk celebrations, evolved through oral tradition into gospel spirituals and refrains included in church traditions. The art form carried through sermons to musical innovation and political activism in ways that cultivated a deep connection between members of the community through the collective experiences. The artistic aesthetic is compelling to examine in literature.

  The aesthetic of a book or specifically an anthology feels very representative of the topic or subject matter that the book is dealing with. To present the information in a certain visual or organizational manner, according to the editor’s curated choices, can have a great deal of influence on the reader’s perception, potentially as much as the text itself. Patricia Liggins Hill chose to offer the collection of call and response as a naturally  very interconnected act, so the emphasis put on that in the title of the anthology, and in the structure of the myriad texts used, evokes a sense of intimate unity.

The governing aesthetic of Call and Response  provides a comfort in repetition through familiarizing the reader and audience with the meaningful message of a specific piece. Just as in the lived experience of culture, the aesthetic of the anthology is an amalgamation of the things that make up the African American tradition. The literature which adheres most closely to the Call and Response tradition comes as a result of the communal response to trials and tribulations of an oppressed people and may show a broad spectrum of emotion and reactions to their circumstances, but shares the plain fact that they are in response to the same collection of influences. Though some of the pieces are not necessarily written with an attempt to fit into the rigid parameters of sophistication that some view as a belletristic style, they do achieve an elegant purity. The songs, poems, and stories included in the anthology feel as though they were meant to be written as raw representations of the emotions behind them, the result is equally as beautiful.

The goal of the anthology and the individual poems, texts, along with more of the included material adequately fits into a cultural nationalist aesthetic. The concept nationalism can at times have a negative connotation depending on the context, but in this case, the literature fosters an opportunity for the expression of cultural pride as a call to ascendance for an oppressed people. Even the pieces that may not have been written with the express intent of cultural nationalism contribute to an overall sense of it simply by their inclusion. The structure and title of the anthology itself play into a cultural nationalistic aesthetic. Organizing the contents of the book into sections of calls and responses, though they may not literally be direct calls or responses to each other, builds into a larger metaphorical purpose. Each selected work seems to offer a new and different feature of the African American tradition.

The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is an example of the importance of heritage and its presence in this anthology serves to underscore a theme of interconnectedness as strength. The quilts in the story serve as a tangible piece of the family’s culture. The narrator and her daughter, Dee, disagree over what can be classified as appropriate use of the quilts. Dee argues that the quilts ought to be preserved, while her mother and sister, Maggie see them as fit for everyday use. The mother’s argument is that if through using the quilts as actual quilts and not for decorative purposes, Maggie can make more. The conflict that is worked through in the story balances the ideas of preserving and treasuring the relics that a culture is built on, and of building up and bringing new things into a culture as time goes on. Through the narrative, there is a sort of call and response between the mother and Dee in each of their understandable perspectives. Their dialogue, through this mechanism, gives voice to the urgency of both the preservation and innovation of culture.

In the subsection of the first “Call” titled “The Shout,” the concept of the walk and shout is demonstrated. The song that is included as the example of walk and shout is “‘Ligion So Sweet,’’ in which the lead singer would “sing the single stanza, or walk, twice; then the chorus would begin singing the shout,” (31). The walk consists of the same phrase, “Keep a rollin’ down de fountain” three times followed by “Oh, de ‘ligion so sweet!” once. The shout repeats “Oh, de ‘ligion–oh de ‘ligion / Oh de ‘ligion –so sweet!” (31). The refrain invites the audiences to reflect on the comforting power of religion as a sustaining faith in the redemption of future simpler times. In the next section, titled “Work Songs and Other Secular Music,” a song called “Walk Around de Heavens” is included as an example. This song sees a similar level of repetition as the first and revisits the theme of spiritual meditations for a community engaging in the visualization of an eternal reward past suffering.

The name and organizational structure of the anthology pays clear homage to these literal examples of call and response in the music of the African American tradition. The emotional aesthetic of the book is built around a lyrical rhythm and cadence that honors this central theme in the culture it represents. The purpose of collecting such a vast array of pieces is to tell a story of a rich, powerful, and fascinating culture that demands to be studied and appreciated. 

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