On Black Choirs and the Plight of the White

As a white kid attending a Baptist church I was held hostage and forced to listen to what was known as the “worship service”. As memory serves, the choir was made up of older men and women who looked just as reluctant to be there as I was. Add to this an older woman playing the organ and a man of equal age leading this “worship service”. If you were to close your eyes, you would not be able to distinguish this “worship service” from a funeral service except that funerals were a little more lively. I’m sure God appreciated the effort and God being God can sit through just about anything. I don’t recall the exact circumstances but for some reason I found myself sitting in a black Baptist church service with my family one Sunday. It was there that I was introduced to the “black choir”, and it was then that I realized that this was the channel that God was watching. (Note to reader: I rarely if ever pay any attention to political correctness. I use the word black because it’s shorter, flows better and because of the fact that I’ve never had an African American friend refer to himself or any other African American as an African American.) People in this choir seemed to actually like being there and at the risk of sounding sacrilegious appeared to be having fun! It was a great experience that I would never forget and it would be difficult to forget because for the last 10 years the music industry has taken advantage of the spiritual inspiration of these choirs and continually trots them out anytime an act needs a big finish. I mean it was definitely cool the first time I saw U2 use a black choir but my god it’s gotten a little stale. Even The Boss, Bruce Springsteen played the black choir card at the Super Bowl halftime performance. (Note to reader: I use the phrase “black choir” when in reality the choir usually has a token white guy. Probably some politically correct statement. This dude is trying really hard but it’s just not working.) (Additional note to reader: I use the term white instead of Caucasian. I do this because I’ve never referred to another white guy as a Caucasian and I have trouble spelling it.) No other point to this other than it’s been done, go on to something else. Get creative, like maybe three quarters of the way through a Beyonce performance, haul out my old white Baptist choir (with of course the token black guy), If nothing else it will bring to light one of the many plights of growing up white.