"The blues are the breath of our tragedy. The blues live in shanty homes and condemned men's cells. The blues hold a grim knowledge of women and men who survive when any sane human being would just lie down and die.
The blues are the black man's culture, the black woman's race. The are our identity and why we recognize each other in all of our hues and features, religions and origins. The high yellow socialite from a well-respected Atlanta clan knows the pain and emptiness of the coal-colored cowboy riding the lonely north Texas range. She knows because their lot is the same. Their ancestors all experienced slavery and the aftermath of slavery; what America told us was freedom. They both see the world is invisible to most of white America. To them the beating of Rodney King wasn't a crime; it was the picture of a common history that started centuries ago. They saw, consciously or not, tens of millions of Rodney Kings and hundreds of millions of white men with sticks....
....And who are we? Black people, African Americans, brothers and sisters, soul, blood. A family that has had to endure separation, isolation, and the jeers of demented hatred. Our common history and culture is mainly of loss: loss of our African heritage and culture, loss of the ownership of our bodies, loss of our children.
The poetry of the blues tells us all of this. It often sings in a voice of despair. But its the hope and courage of the blues that make us listen and understand."
-Walter Mosley
Black Genius: African American Solutions to African American Problems
