On the surface, “We Haz Jazz” (purposely misspelled as a dog whistle to old minstrel shows) seems like an innocent curriculum to introduce to fourth- and fifth-graders because of the incorporation of jazz music. However, the more profound and damaging factor is that it signals the very core of minstrel shows. Asking kids to dress up as hobos and slaves, asking kids to sing jazz songs that at their core derive from old slave songs, all are recycled minstrel shows.
Our nonmelanated educators who did not learn about the harms of blackface and Minstrel Shows do not consider the deeply rooted impacts of “We Haz Jazz” because of the deliberate omission of these American historical events. Without a doubt, the jazz genre should be taught, but not thinly veiled as a Minstrel show, intentionally or unintentionally. When you ask kids to dress up as hobos and slaves, it reflects a serious lack of education, cultural competency and social awareness that is unacceptable in our education system, especially in 2024.
Jazz, a music genre created by Black Americans, along with the Blues and Gospel, has been central to Black American culture since the beginning of slavery in America. These genres, which originated from slavery, are deeply rooted in the fabric of Black American culture. Although these genres have branched into many sub-genres, their ancestral significance to descendants of slaves remains. Jazz originated in the mid-1800s in the Deep South, when enslaved people would congregate to share their sorrows through song. Often, those songs held hidden messages to pass from slave to slave. The music was sacred and kept quietly amongst slaves as their only way of communicating with each other in an artistic expression. The slave hymns and chants were cries of oppression, yet early verbal manifestations of freedom.
Before slavery ended, poor and working-class White Americans felt politically, socially, and economically left out of American elitism. To make a mockery of feeling “left out” was the invention of “blackface” and minstrel shows, where white Americans would paint their faces Black, paint their lips red, wear clothing that was torn and ragged, and assume the stereotype of an enslaved person. Blackface entertainers would dance and mimic slave hymns of feeling oppressed.
Ironically, blackface was popular in the northern states like New York, where there wasn’t slavery, but white Americans who believed they were politically and economically insignificant – like slaves. After the Civil War, blackface and minstrel shows grew in popularity. They made their way into Hollywood, where stars like Shirley Temple and Judy Garland would dress up in Blackface as a form of entertainment, perpetuating the stereotype of Black Americans as lazy, ignorant, and superstitious. Therefore, when teaching Jazz, Blues, and Gospel in schools, it is essential to approach them with cultural competence, historical knowledge, and an understanding that even seemingly innocent activities like asking children to dress up as hobos should be avoided.
“We Haz Jazz” is a marketed music curriculum that introduces elementary students to the origins of jazz music in the United States. Music curriculums in schools are important–they teach students the importance of counting and coordination, how to be in concert with each other, and what genre is better to do that than jazz. So, the “We Haz Jazz” programs combination of song, instrumentation, and history of the jazz genre if done correctly may not have been such a problem. But Wilson Elementary added offenses that reflect outright racist and a serious lack of education by someone entrusted with the care and education of our children.
When racial incidents happen in our schools, the community becomes polarized with a cocktail of emotions. Anger, frustration, rage, confusion, sadness, disappointment, and all these emotions are valid. Then we hear the canned responses of “We’re implementing sensitivity training,” “We’re doing more DEI and Anti-Racist training,” or the big one, “We’re bringing in a specialist from out of Spokane.” Sure, those solutions put a band-aid on the womb, but when it’s an internal disease, a band-aid isn’t going to work. Attempting to placate the Black and Brown community with insufficient training only pacifies; it doesn’t solve the problem.
Racism is deeply rooted in America, and while we can train people, it doesn’t change systems. Racism is a system problem that is in the fabric of this country. Racism, discrimination, microaggressions, prejudices – all of them cannot be eradicated, but what we have to do is learn to recognize them, call them out, and be unmoved in wanting more for ourselves and our community. Our allies and co-conspirators must understand their roles and not be afraid of persecuting hate. Most importantly, as a community, we must protect our children from being subjected to bigotry and racial insensitivity to have a future where racism can hopefully have a chance at being eradicated.
Lisa Gardner is the president of Spokane NAACP.