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| Richard Davis |
Richard Davis has always followed his muse throughout his career. A world class bassist, an avid horseman, a respected educator a socially conscious activist.
Whether it be as an accomplished studio musician on mainstream albums by the likes of Barbara Streisand or as a pivotal driving force on a seminal album by Van Morrison or the rock steady bassist behind in inimitable Ms. Sarah Vaughan, Davis has always left his mark. As an important member of the progressive ensembles of Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Sun Rah and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Davis has always let his music speak for itself. People noticed.
His ability as a classically trained bassist, had at one time, inspired a younger Davis to pursue a symphonic career. Racism often reared its ugly head and he was repeatedly rejected by the firmly entrenched white establishment that dominated the symphony scene in the fifties, sixties and seventies. He was often times not given the courtesy of a call back, even when it was obvious that he was the most accomplished of the contestants applying for the position. Undeterred, the talented Davis could not be denied, eventually playing with such classical luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Gunther Schuller and Igor Stravinsky. Cream inevitably rises to the top.
Leaving the established jazz community in New York in 1977, where he was a respected member,Richard Davis's career took another turn, this time assuming the role of educator and mentor as a professor of classical bass at the University of Wisconsin, where he still teaches. Along the way Davis has made some beautiful music and inspired scores of aspiring musicians. Despite his generous spirit and stated goal to pass on his accumulated knowledge to the next generation, Davis, as a Black man in a predominantly white state, has seen and felt firsthand the ugly effects of racism, even in the bucolic setting of the University of Wisconsin in Madison where he lives. Undaunted by a lifetime of racially motivated slights, both real and perceived, Davis steadfastly maintains a surprisingly positive attitude and believes in sowing the seeds of racial harmony and acceptance. He supports education about racism and its roots and is hopeful that with open conversation between the races, we can come together in harmony.
As a musician and educator he has formed the Richard Davis Foundation for Young Bassists, which promotes educating students on the bass at an early age. As an activist Davis, formed the Retention Action Program (R.A.P.), an organization dedicated to increasing the retention levels for students of color at U of W. He is also President of the Madison Wisconsin Institute for Racial Healing, an organization dedicated to understanding the history and pathology of racism, with the goal of hoping to heal racism in individuals, communities, and institutions both in Wisconsin and throughout the USA. So it was of great interest to speak to Mr. Davis about his experiences and listen to some of his philosophies about racism and how we can educate ourselves to prevent its continued proliferation to the next generation.
NOJ: Let’s
get some of your views on the state of race relations in this country. In the
nineteen sixties do you think you took a militant stance against racism?
RD: No I didn't take a militant stance, because militancy defeats the purpose. I didn't take any particular stand, I just thought it was something that I didn't like. I didn't go parading around.
NOJ: You
have been an educator at University of Wisconsin in Madison since 1977. What
made you leave New York?
RD: I just
decided that I wanted to start teaching some younger people what I had learned.
NOJ: How
did you find Wisconsin?
RD: Cold.
NOJ: Were
the people of Wisconsin receptive to you as a Black educator in a relatively
predominantly White state?
RD:
Wisconsin has a reputation for being a racial state. I think … some people
feared me because I was Black. They thought I was aloof, but I had to protect
myself….Wisconsin is very racist.
NOJ: I take
it you were a bit of a pioneer there?
RD: What do
mean by a pioneer?
NOJ:
Somebody that went ahead of other people and blazed the way. I take it by now
there is much more diversity and integration in the school system?
RD: It’s
still the same, nothing has changed.
NOJ: Well,
that’s disheartening.
RD: I’m
still working on diversity. I have some allies. I have lots of allies and I
have a lot of people who don’t even realize that it exists there.
NOJ: Has
affirmative action helped Wisconsin integrate more people of color into the
educational system?
RD: When
you look at the numbers there is still 3% Black and 8 % people of
color and I don’t know what they are doing about that.
NOJ: You
are now 84 years young. You have won numerous awards and accolades throughout
your career including the nation’s highest honor the NEA Jazz Masters
Fellowship Award just this year. You have formed the Richard Davis Foundation
for Young Bassists, The Retention Action Project (RAP), and SEED (Seeking Educational
Equity and Diversity) all reach out programs that inspire harmony and love. You've said you wanted to live to be 137 in order to do the things you still
want to accomplish. What are some of those things that you feel remain undone
for you?
RD: Well I
think that going on a global quest will influence every part of your life. I
talk about the oneness of humankind, the fact that we all come out of the same
womb of an African woman. Only one tenth of one percent (of our genetic makeup)
accounts of the difference is our skin color.*
* "If you ask what percentage of your genes is reflected in your external appearance, the basis by which we talk about race, the answer seems to be in the range of .01 percent," said Dr. Harold P. Freeman, the chief executive, president and director of surgery at North General Hospital in Manhattan, who has studied the issue of biology and race. "This is a very, very minimal reflection of your genetic makeup," Quote from a New York Times article August 2000, entitled "Do Races Differ, Not Really, Genes Show" by Natalie Angier.
Somewhere
along the way it has been forgotten and we see each other with different skin
instead of looking at each other as ourselves; one person, one human being.
That theory, if it is practiced and gets a resurgence of the truth, it will
cease a lot of problems. Like that shooting in Ferguson, MO. That’s because the
police are afraid of Black people and Black people are afraid of White people.
It comes from fear and ignorance. If we can gt past that fear factor and that
ignorance factor we will make tremendous strides. You see, this country is
not built on equalization for everybody.
It is built on that fact that some of the White people are oppressors
and the Black people are being oppressed by this attitude. A White kid gets
treated different then a Black kid. Have you ever heard of a White kid being
shot down by the police? So it is just a matter of equal treatment of each
other and this will all go away.
NOJ: Do you think both sides can reconcile their
differences?
RD: Sure I
think so, especially if there is enough going on and if people gather and talk
to each other. Most of all White people have to talk to White people; Black
people talking to White people is a good thing, but they have to start talking
to each other. The police department already has an impression of what they are
faced with when they see Black people. If you have five Black people standing
on the corner talking, Police come by and they think something bad is going to
happen. If they see five White people standing on the corner, they think
nothing of it. That has got to change.
NOJ: It’s
unfortunate but historical experience can sometimes create stereotypes that can
be dangerously wrong. What has happened before is hard to erase from people’s
minds and once established it is hard to break impressions and habits.
RD: Well I
call it (being) emotionally attached. That is why some people are still singing
the “Star Spangled Banner,” where so much of that is not true. They are singing
“the home of the brave and the land of the free.” People are singing that with fervor.
Everybody is not free, but they continue to sing it.
NOJ : There
is a national pride and sometimes people wrap themselves around the flag for
the wrong reasons, but I would prefer that people believe in their country than
not. Sometimes that belief is not validated by actions. There will always be
things that are wrong in this country, but do you just stop people from showing
some amount of patriotism?
RD: Well I
am not a patriot. I am not a patriot because the country does not look at me in
a way that they look at (White people.)
An American is not me; an American is a White person. When you talk
about a Black person they are treated different. …I will be an American when I
am treated like an American. But that …”land of the free and home of the brave,”
wait a minute, let’s really look at the truth with intelligence, to see if it
is true where we can continue to tout those things. I don’t consider myself an
American, because I am not treated like a White person, an American is a White
person.
NOJ: If you
are not an American than what do you feel you are?
RD: I am an
African-American misplaced in a land that does not accept me on the basis of
my race.
NOJ: Well
that is upsetting to me as a person who would hope by this time we have made
our way to acceptance and inclusion and have made more progress than that.
RD: Well there
should be more people like you who exercise that (sentiment.) If a Black kid in school if he does something
wrong they suspend him and take him to the Principal’s office. If a White kid
does the same thing they just slap him on his wrist. So it is not a fair
representation of saying we treat everybody with equal respect. Did you see the
show Democracy Now. You should go to www.democracynow.org and look for the
edition for August 19, 2014 and you will see a man named John Powell. He will
explain this so well. He elaborates very elegantly on what I just told you.
NOJ:I’d be
interested in knowing as a Black man in this country who has been around for
many decades, what do you think of the current President and how effective he
has been?
RD: I don’t
get into politics that much. I know he is in a position that is very sensitive
because he has to speak for White and Black people. He can’t show favor for one
or the other and he is somebody who is in that position. It is not the Office
of Dignity that is going to change anything.
He could be the President of the World; it is the individual person,
walk around everyday life person who is the one subjected to this and the only
one who can change it.
NOJ: With
all the evil that seems to be cropping up all over the World. Do you believe
music and specifically jazz music can be an answer to some of the problems that
we have in communicating with each other across sectarian, racial and ethnic
lines? Do you see music as a vehicle that can bridge this gap?
RD:
Basically speaking, no. There has been a lot of jazz recorded, there have been
a lot of protest songs recorded talking about race, but have things changed?
You might get a few converts, because of what you are saying, but not enough to
make an overall general big change. It won’t come from one entity; it has to
come from the heart of the person. Even
with the laws that they they have in place, that doesn’t change anything, it has to
come from the heart of the person. I have many White associates who would say
the same things that I just said who are making a difference, and (they are) mostly
females!
NOJ: How does that heart get changed, how do you
think that change can come about? Is activism the answer?
RD:
First you have to be educated to a high level of education. I have tons of
books in my house, most of them written by White people, who are anti-racist. I
go to conferences where all these people gather together and try to discuss
these things and then take it back to their homes and try to promote an
attitude. Some of the teachers, who are white and want to go to these
conferences, they ask their administrators for the money to go and some
administrators will say that is a good
thing we will give you the money and some say what is the use of all that? It’s been like
that for four or five hundred years.
NOJ:
Do you think that the races will eventually undergo miscegenation to the point
that it doesn't really matter anymore?
RD:
it’s happening now. The minorities that they talked about in the last decade
are no longer the minorities; they are the majority in some cases. People don’t
use that word minority anymore because there is more Hispanic growth that is
making them change. That is frightening some White people because they see
themselves as not the majority anymore. The whole thing is a transformation of
attitudes and that takes a long haul.
NOJ:
So the answer is time. Time equalizes everything.
RD:
Well used time. See, the education system is racist, the prison system is
racist, the judicial courts are racist, the Religions are racist, so you have a
whole system of institutionalized racism that has to be readdressed and
reassessed. There are more Black people in jail then Whites. There are teachers
who don’t regard their Black students as well as they regard their White
students. So the whole thing has capitalized on organized institutional racism.
NOJ: Do you think that if there was more economic equality and opportunity in the
country that the differences in the races wouldn't be as exacerbated?
RD:
Well economics is a good part of the problem, because it gets to be classicism not racism. How many Black people are making the same amount of money that an
ordinary White person is making? I must say that impoverished people are just not
Black people either; there are many White people that are very impoverished. But
their skin color gives them an advantage, even their names gives them an
advantage. You see many violations on the scene where racism crosses over to
classicism. A middle class White teacher teaching Black kids-first of all she is
afraid of them, she is not going to hang out with them, accept anything that they
say as worth anything, she won’t even call on them when they raise their hands
( In class).
NOJ: How-if you have a young White, woman teacher, who is working in a predominantly Black
school, and she fears for herself and her safety- how do you overcome that embedded fear?
RD:
First of all that is a lot to overcome, because (in many cases) all of her life
she was never subjected to knowing about a culture other than her own. So she
was involved with people who look like her, think like her, act like her and
she has, what you might call, a shell around her existence in relation to other
people. Even when college students come here from neighboring towns around
Madison, some of them have never been around people of color. So they come in
here with their naiveté and their non-exposure, looking at Black people and
they are afraid of them and consequently they react to them as if they are
their enemies. I will give you an example; a White woman gets on the elevator
at the University, the elevator stops, and a Black man gets into the elevator
and she starts screaming. The police come and they say “What has he done to
you, mam?” and she says “He startled me.”
NOJ:
That is just sad.
RD:
Well it shows that her experience with a person of another color is fear. She
heard they were going to do something to her. A White woman worked for me for
three years at the campus. One day she came to my office and started crying. I
said “What’s wrong with you?” She said “Well my mother told me that if I was
ever going to be in a small room with a Black person I would be raped.” Now this woman had been working with me for
three years and all that time I would give her work and we would be in a small
room. Now for all that time she struggled thinking, “He is going to rape me one
of these days,” and she wanted to tell her mother that she had scarred her mind
with this concept. That is what it is; the parents perpetuate a racist
attitude. I have seen White women clutch their purses when I go near them, or
standing in line behind them, they will clutch their purses.
NOJ:I guess it is hard to relate to this as a White person.
RD:
We just don’t know each other. I live in a very plush house; it is on the South
Side of Madison, lakefront and I am the only Black person in this neighborhood.
Now, there are White teachers in the public (school) system in a town that is
only ten minutes away from here, that will not go into the supermarket that I
go into, because they are afraid. My girlfriend is White and I asked her, when
she goes into this market how many people does she see that are Black? She says
“maybe about three.” It was all White
people that went to this store. So these teachers perpetuate racism by telling
their friends “don’t go onto the South Side of Madison because something will
happen to you.” I live on the South Side. I have been here since 1987, but they
are afraid to go and they have never even been here.
An
Administrator from the University, when they built a new building on the
dividing line between North and South (Madison), she asked me “What should I
do?” I knew what she was implying; now she was going to be going to work on the
South side. I said Get your laptop and your chair with wheels on it and roll on
down to the South Side with it.”
Things
are changing on the South Side now because gentrification is coming in. They
are building a lot of plush apartment buildings and other things. Then those
White people will feel better about coming on the South Side, because more
people that look like them are coming. The Black people in the neighborhood,
some of them will have to move out, because they can’t afford it anymore. It is
all around me where I am living. Now they have a Dunkin’ Donuts here… and tall
buildings and hospitals, it’s gentrification and it will change the attitude of
people being afraid to come here. I have never been to my neighborhood
supermarket where I see more Black people than White people, but people who
don’t live here think there are only Black people going in there.
NOJ:
I hope things will change and I would like to believe that we are better than
that and strive to be better and be open.
I agree with you that it has to start with us. It has to start with us
teaching inclusion to our children and then they doing the same with their
children.
RD:
I always say, you know how people put pictures up on their refrigerator? Well
put some Black people up there. (Laughter)
NOJ: I really appreciate your time Richard. I am
sure the readers will enjoy the conversation. Thank you.
