Howlin' Wolf and America's Well-Heeled Racism

In 2017, New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a column entitled A History of White Delusion. In it, he cited a mind-boggling statistic: Over half of all whites surveyed believe that discrimination against whites is a larger and more pressing problem than  discrimination against blacks. They hold this belief despite the overwhelming statistics to the contrary.

Again via statistics, we know that all of these people cannot be fringe-dwelling, white nationalist Trump supporters. So, how did so many whites come to believe that white folks have it worse than anyone in America?

At least some of the credit has to go to editorials like The Rolling Stones Introduce Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf on US TV, One of the “Greatest Cultural Moments of the 20th Century” (1965) published on the Open Culture website.

The editorial begins with high praise for Howlin' Wolf, certifying his role as a titan of American socio-cultural change. Then, it gets ugly:

Really?

He was large, tall, and imposing, to be sure. But "[h]e seemed at any moment like he might actually turn into a wolf"? Only to someone who views black men as something less than human to begin with.

If Wolf seems a little edgy in that Shindig clip, maybe it's because he was in his hostile, openly racist home country, having to watch his back every second for fear of what people like the writer of this Open Culture piece might do or say. I mean, gee whiz, folks; the man known as Howlin' Wolf could turn into a ravening beast any second.

Ooooooohhhhhh!!!

The lone comment on Open Culture's editorial paints a picture that none of us ever saw in the history books. Read the final sentence and weep.

Yes, it's no wonder Wolf is "glowering".

Just one year before, he had been welcomed with open arms by white, middle-class British kids for whom he didn't have to tone down his act. Those kids took Wolf and other black blues musicians into their homes and into their lives, and the difference in his stage show is remarkable. He is warm, inviting, full of good humor, putting the audience at ease.

Oh, but America, America! At least we were the first to get him on TV, in spite of those nasty Jim Crow laws:

And so, American exceptionalism rears its ugly head on a website whose mission it is to provide educational resources at no cost. No, professor, Howlin' Wolf's first "national television broadcast" was not in the U.S., but in the U.K. In 1964.

If you think of yourself as an intelligent, left-leaning, non-religious, open-minded sort who loves to learn, you might very well consume an editorial like the Open Culture piece believing you had broadened your horizons when, all the time, you were solidifying your confirmation bias.

If half of America believes that whites have it worse than blacks, maybe it's because racist "educational resources" subliminally suggest, in the name of learning, that whites have given scary black folks the benefit of the doubt, and a warm welcome on their TV screens, long enough.