Mut(e)iny: The Silent Rebellion

In the wake of the recent passing of Soul Train founder Don Cornelius, the Howard Twitterverse was set ablaze with the idea of having a Soul Train line in the Punch Out that in his honor. One of my followers re-tweeted a fellow Bison expressing her disdain for this idea, calling it "cooning" and reminding us that it was Black History Month.

Although I didn't know the person who tweeted that statement, and I normally wouldn't reply to people whom I don't know personally, I felt the need to inquire about why she felt a Soul Train line in honor of Don Cornelius went against the tenets of black history. "What's wrong with that?" I asked. "The soul train line is black history." Her response made me want to address the way that we view and discuss the black experience past and present.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'd be the first person to call out anything I viewed as "coonery," particularly on this campus. Not only did I not think the idea was an example of cooning, I thought it was fitting and fun. So, I found myself wondering, if not with a Soul Train line, "how else would she prefer us to pay homage to Don Cornelius?"

When a musician dies, the radio is flooded with all of that artist's music. Unless BET or Centric went to dig up old episodes of Soul Train or we decided to watch them on YouTube, that was the closest we were going to get to a tribute.

Maybe she thought Don Cornelius wasn't worthy of a tribute. "Did she know how many careers he'd helped launch and sustain or that we can thank him for TRL, 106 & Park and pretty much every music show that followed?" Finally, I wondered if perhaps she felt that Don Cornelius and Soul Train were not applicable to black history. If so, that's where I have a problem.

In general, I think we have a selective and polished view of black history. We either want to dwell on our struggles and the strength of our character as a people for enduring them and continuing to strive to overcome them or we want to celebrate our many professional accomplishments.

We know that we have to be careful of what images we reflect to the public because of how we are often portrayed, but we do not like to look at complete pictures of ourselves. Yes, we've cried, tried, bled, died, and strived, but we also did the Soul Train line, and we still do.

Music is culture. Culture is history. Black artists and musicians paved the way for civil rights and mainstream acceptance just as much, and in many ways more, than every activist and attorney who marched. Black culture is black history.

Sometimes we police ourselves and our reputations even more than others do. Black culture is probably one of the few on the planet that people deliberately try to imitate rather than having it forced upon them.

Sometimes it seems like everybody wants to do what we do, except us—in public anyway. However, when you try to please everyone else, you end up miserable. So, at the start of this Black History Month, I want to encourage us all to be ourselves and not worry about who's watching.

With that said, for each of these 29 days in February, I wish you "love, peace, and souuuul."

Britney Wilson is a senior English major from Brooklyn, N.Y.