Superstition Ain't The Way
We live in a time when people choose to cling to untruths about a lot of things: from Critical Race Theory to COVID to Black and Brown people at the border. Stevie Wonder could see what was coming
Rann Miller | Guest Contributor
The Clavinet is an amplified electric piano (keyboard) created by German musician and engineer Ernst Zacharias. His inspiration was the harpsichord music of Johann Sebastian Bach he listened to growing up. I doubt Zacharias expected funk music as one of his instrument’s destinations. But if you hear the Clavinet play, it is uniquely funky.
Maybe that’s because I remember only hearing it in the funky grooves of the 1970s by Black artists when growing up.
I think of Bob Marley, Herbie Hancock, Bernie Worrell, Billy Preston, George Duke and others when I think of the Clavinet. But none more than Stevland Hardaway Morris a.k.a. Stevie Wonder.
Certainly, White folks used the instrument in their music. It’s featured in Night by Night by Steely Dan, for example.
But when I think of the Clavinet, I think of Tell Me Something Good by Rufus featuring the great Chaka Khan. I Think of Use Me by Bill Withers. Of course, I think of Africano by Earth, Wind and Fire — shout out to the great Larry Dunn, tickling those keys.
Again, a lot of folks are associated with the instrument, but Stevie Wonder made the sound iconic. As music critic Tom Moon expressed: “No one else plays the Clavinet like Stevie Wonder does. He made it speak.”
Stevie’s most famously made it speak in his classic album Talking Book (pun absolutely intended), released in October of 1972, with the most iconic track of the album (and maybe of his entire career) being Superstition. The song alone is iconic, but it’s Wonder’s playing of the Clavinet that sets the tone of the track. The sound is unmistakably Stevie’s.
Growing up, if I ever heard the Clavinet played on another song, I thought Stevie Wonder was about to sing because I knew that was Stevie’s sound.
But Talking Book was equally prophetic as it was iconic; maybe even more so, especially Superstition. Wonder said of the album:
It wasn't so much that I wanted to say anything except where I wanted to just express various many things that I felt—the political point of view that I have, the social point of view that I have, the passions, emotion and love that I felt, compassion …
Talking Book was just that: a talking book, speaking into the lives of its listeners with a message of the truth about the conditions and social injustices of the time … much like the talking book of old.
Dr. Henry Louis Gates described in his analysis of James Gronniosaw’s enslaved narrative that the Bible, for Gronniosaw, was a “non-talking book or a racist talking book,” because it was a book “in which the Black person found no echo of his own voice.” The talking book only reflected the voice of Gronniosaw’s captor.
However, decades later, as enslaved peoples learned to read and write en-masse, they wrestled with the talking book in the context of their own condition as enslaved people; fashioning it to talk back to them in their own voice, hermeneutically and exegetically, thereby making it their own.
Testimony within the freedom narrative tradition attest to this.
Over a century later, a new talking book, in music form, emerged. It was fashioned to reflect the voice of a Black man speaking to the people about the world as he saw it. That very talking book continues to speak to the people today.
Clinging to the Untruth
Ours is a time today when people choose to cling to untruths about a lot of things. Specifically, many White people choose to believe myths about things such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), the Coronavirus, Black and Brown immigrants storming the Texas border to take away jobs and commit violent acts, and that any government policy aim at helping all Americans is making freeloaders of Black and Brown people.
Many of these people, namely White politicians and parents, believe in things that they don’t understand.
They don’t understand what Critical Race Theory or Intersectionality really are. They don’t understand that conservative politicians are fully vaccinated, as they themselves continue to get sick from failing to get vaccinated and/or from failing to wear masks. They don’t understand that President Joe Biden has continued the inhumane immigration policy of Donald Trump. They don’t understand that White people make up the majority of TANF, SNAP, WIC and Medicare recipients.
Of Superstition, Wonder said:
I think that the reason that I talked about being superstitious is because I really didn't believe in it. I didn't believe in the different things that people say about breaking glasses or the number 13 is bad luck, and all those various things. And to those, I said, ‘When you believe in things you don't understand, then you suffer.’
White folks amongst the rank and file of right-winged politicians will continue to suffer because they believe the superstition that is the Southern strategy. Although Black people and other people are hurt because of it, Whites are hurt, too.
Sadly, we all suffer because of politically conservative White folk’s belief in superstition. That happens because, frankly, many White people are ignorant of history, choose to remain ignorant, and refuse to allow their children to be made aware of it. They’ve made their bargain with the devil to exchange collective struggle for the protection of Whiteness, which is a slow death.
Expanding health care, childcare and other social services, tackling climate change, installing paid family and medical leave as well as dramatically reducing drug prices doesn’t just benefit Black people. It benefits all people. However, conservative White voters (and some white liberal voters) believe otherwise, but…
“When you believe in things, that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”