[music: Brittle Rille fades in]
Hello, and welcome to Daddybuck’s Notebook. I’m Lindsay, and my grandfather, Daddybuck, was a creative genius. In this podcast, I go through the things he’s made and share them with the world, adding as much context as I can, learning as I go. Then I try to offer some creative piece of my own, to give back to the world some of the inspiration he gave me.
[Brittle Rille fades out]
I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to decide how to make an episode of this podcast in the midst of far more important things going on. The Black Lives Matter movement has exploded in the national consciousness these past couple of weeks. Everyone is not just talking about it, they’re actually doing things about it. My hometown, Richmond, is all over my Instagram right now with all that’s going on there. It’s incredible, horrific, and overwhelming. But necessary. The actions and conversations and these policy changes, the leadership changes, are all extremely necessary, and unjustly long overdue. I’m proud to say even my little town here in sort of Confederate-friendly Virginia has been demonstrating, marching, getting tear gassed, holding panels and town halls, they’re pushing for lasting change and growing their small, grassroots activism circles.
This podcast is about my grandfather. So, let’s talk about that.
[music: Brittle Rille fades in]
He was an inspiration to me. People can inspire you without being perfect, or even quote-unquote “great”. His mind was his own, compassion, creativity, intellect, and home-grown racism and blind privilege too. And he was white. He and Nana both had families that most certainly profited from slavery and an exploitative, racist economy in North Carolina, directly and indirectly. I heard them say racist things and perpetuate harmful ideas. Ideas that get Black people killed. I don’t know if they ever realized what they were doing.
And I loved them and miss them a lot. All of these things are true at once.
I’m a product of that exploitation, by the way, if we’re talking about putting things in context. With the financial and social security of my family background, I grew up safe and provided for in the white suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. I was taught, implicitly, that this was the way the world should be. I used to be assigned papers in grade school about the Confederate “heroes” memorialized with massive statues downtown. I know I was not taught the history I should have been, but I also shied away often when I’d get the chance to learn about the oppression of Black people and minorities. I know I have acted shamefully and ignorantly racist more times than I am aware.
And I’m becoming aware of quite a few.. of.. times…
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And now… what is it, June? June 2020? What is time… Those statues that i wrote papers about? They’re getting knocked down. They’re getting contextualized and covered in art and covered in the people who actually live there, and then they’re getting knocked down. And people like me are starting to wake up again. I’ve done some work, but I’ve got a lot still left to do to weed out those comfortable lies in my brain and habits. I’ll be working on that for the rest of my life. I hope things get better, and I really, really want to try and help.
Next week, I’ll publish the song I made weeks ago, when I was planning this episode and got caught up in this stuff, and more stuff (there’s a lot of stuff going on, you know how it is). It’s a parody about the kinds of dreams science fiction lets us believe in for a while, set to Daddybuck playing piano on one of his recordings. Those dreams are going to have to wait. Right now, I’ve got to focus. I’ve got some work to do. I needed to make space in this podcast for what’s going on. I don’t want to pretend that the man that I loved and admired was somehow disconnected from the world that we both live in, parallel to so much suffering. This is the context I needed to add to this feed right now. I hope you understand.
[music: Bach Suite in G Minuet 1 fades in]
If you like podcasts and want to understand more about what’s going on, or get more context, I’ve got a couple I’d recommend. The first is Code Switch, NPR’s conversations about race and how it impacts every facet of society. Very smart people on that one, it’s really good. I’ve also loved Uncivil, that tells true stories passed down through generations that shine a light on people who lived through the Civil War that have been overlooked by our history books.
If you want to help promote the cause of Black Lives Matter, donate to the organization or any of its chapters local to you, and seek out your local activist groups, mutual aid groups, bail funds, see if they need help. Talk to your friends and family about what’s going on, and what led to what’s going on. Email elected officials about what you want to change.
Think small, and big. There are so many ways to support, to volunteer, to demonstrate, to act, to change your own ways of thinking. If we want to keep this momentum going and make the changes this country needs to make, we’re going to need people doing every single one of them.
[Bach Suite in G Minuet 1 fades out]
Everybody’s got a role to play here.
Black lives matter. Stay involved, stay well. And hey, stay creative. We’re going to need that too.
[music: Bach Suite in G Minuet 1 fades in]
The music in today’s episode is “Brittle Rille” by Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com, and Suite in G, Minuet 1, composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and performed by cellist Mark Holt at cellokeys.wordpress.com.
Transcripts for this and all episodes of Daddybuck’s Notebook can be found on my website, https://lindsaywrittendown.wordpress.com. If you want to join me helping out my hometown through all this, you can donate to the Richmond Bail Fund, which supports people caught up in the micro-transactions of our flawed justice system before they’re even given a trial. Or look up the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Richmond collective, also known as MAD RVA, which provides relief for people affected by COVID-19 in all the many ways it’s impacting the city.
Or pick your own cause. Find what you want to do, and do it. There’s never been a better time to start fighting.
[Bach Suite in G Minuet 1 fades out]
Lindsay, Written Down 