{"id":64,"date":"2018-11-30T23:00:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T04:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/?page_id=64"},"modified":"2018-12-01T22:20:17","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T03:20:17","slug":"the-uses-of-anger-by-audre-lorde-in-conversation-with-nina-simones-musical-activism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/the-uses-of-anger-by-audre-lorde-in-conversation-with-nina-simones-musical-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Uses of Anger\u201d by Audre Lorde in Conversation with Nina Simone\u2019s Musical Activism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Poet, academic and intersectional feminist, Audre Lorde’s argument “The Uses of Anger” can be applied to Nina Simone’s musical response to racism from her perspective as a black woman. I believe this image of Audre Lorde relates to by discussion of Nina Simone because it boldly states the agency of woman; confining or categorizing the abilities of\u00a0 women like Lorde or Simone is dangerous a dangerous act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before proceeding with a musical analysis of select songs from Nina Simone\u2019s In Concert<\/em>, I wish to first discuss my inspiration for working Simone\u2019s anger into the narrative of her Civil Rights-era music, both politically and musically.\u00a0 I was heavily inspired by the article \u201cThe Uses of Anger\u201d by Audre Lorde. \u00a0Using specific anecdotes of Lorde\u2019s experiences in academia, this piece discusses the practical use of anger as a response and resistance against racism from an intersectional lens.\u00a0 Applying intersectional thought to discord surrounding social progress, this essay addresses the ways that women of color create constructive dialogue regarding the issue of racism, more specifically how anger in discussion is wrongly deemed as negative and destructive to progress.\u00a0 Lorde wants to reclaim anger as positive and essential to resisting oppression, as she insists \u201cMy anger is a response to racist attitudes, to the actions and presumptions that arise out of those attitudes\u201d (Lorde 278).\u00a0 Nina Simone, a women of color during a period of widespread racial discourse, uses her anger almost identically.<\/p>\n

I cannot conduct an analysis of Nina Simone\u2019s response to racist musical categorization without acknowledging her anger, more importantly how she chose to utilize it as a tool that worked against her audience\u2019s preconceived notions of black female musicianship.\u00a0 Simone\u2019s anger in response to racism leading up to and during the 1960s manifested itself in both political and musical resistance, since she express anger against both the injustices plaguing the African-American community and also the white patriarchal music industry for devaluing her abilities as singer and classical pianist.\u00a0 In her own words, Simone argues, \u201cCalling me a jazz singer was a way of ignoring my musical background because I didn\u2019t fit into the white ideas of what a black performer should be\u201d (Simone 69).\u00a0 The anger that stems from this unfair categorization is a direct response to racist attitudes that surrounded her at this time, which connects Nina Simone\u2019s 1960s music to Audre Lorde\u2019s essay on the potential benefits of using anger as a tool for social justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before proceeding with a musical analysis of select songs from Nina Simone\u2019s In Concert, I wish to first discuss my inspiration for working Simone\u2019s anger…<\/p>\n

Continue reading\u201cThe Uses of Anger\u201d by Audre Lorde in Conversation with Nina Simone\u2019s Musical Activism<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-64","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}