Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom As a Description Of Interactions Between Blacks And Whites

The Extortion of African American Culture in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

In the early 1900’s African American’s used the Blues a s a way of expressing their troubles, including their inability to find a proper niche in a predominately white society. The Blues became a huge part of their culture and many white business opportunists saw a way of making a profit off of African American culture just as they have done so many times before. The first critic, Sandra Odell, discusses the symbolic nature of Ma Rainey and how she represents the rebelling African American culture.

James Mckelly then exhibits the studio from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is an allegory for the echelons of society in respect to Black/White relations. Then Cigdem Usekes reveals Wilson’s use of an overwhelming White presence to hint at the burden of white economics on black culture. The oppression of African American culture not only impacts the culture itself, but impacts the individual damaging their personal identities.

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Ma Rainey symbolizes the rebellious nature of African American culture in a predominately white society. Her defiance juxtaposes the freedom of music with the oppression of money. Sandra Adell in “Ma and Levee’s Black and White Loyalties” compares the objectives of Irvin and Sturdyvant to Ma saying that she “...places a higher value on the blues tradition and all that it implies...” (Adell). This demonstrates the priority difference between the two parties. Ma Rainey’s goal is to bring music to the masses, and to pass on her rich, vibrant African American blues culture.

Irvin and Sturdyvant are her diametric opposites, are just trying to make money, trying to exploit, and bastardize blues culture. They are usurers, the anti-art, not creating anything but just siphoning from real talent. “It is with the people, the down home folk… Her black bottom belongs to them” (1). Adell states about Ma’s loyalties. Even though Sturdyvant and Irvin fund Ma Rainey (which in our culture makes them responsible for her) she knows that her success stems only from the people and the culture that give her music soul. She owes everything to them, and her job is to return the culture they gave to her through her music. Blues is a product of the sorrow and the troubles of African Americans trying to find their place. Blues is an art wealthy white men could never understand because they have been given everything they want and need; African Americans are bonded by Blues because they have had to fight the same battles to get what they need. This bond is the same bond that helped Ma Rainey to grow as an artist. Adell states that Ma Rainey “Remains solidly grounded in the tradition out of which her music evolved” (1). Ma Rainey’s inspiration and growth as an artist comes from the people around her not the money being pumped into her career by Irvin and Sturdyvant. Sturdyvant often brings up how Ma’s stubbornness is going to affect his money, for him it is always about his money, but for Ma it is about her black loyalties, her music, her background, and giving back to the people who gave her soul.

August Wilson uses the studio as an allegory for the echelons of society. ““Internal debate over black culture…the systemic inequity manifests itself… on two levels…the first is socioeconomic” (McKelly). And the second is “a physical structure”” James C. Mckelly states about the studio in “The Marketability of Black Culture”. The studio is broken up into three echelons: the basement, the studio, and the control room. The basement is where the band mates hang out representing the African Americans and African American culture, the studio is where Ma Rainey exchanges words and does business with her manager and producer representing the market where whites and blacks come together to do business, and the control room is where Sturdyvant and Irvin oversee the recording sessions representing white business. The position of the echelons vertically in the studio is representative of their economic power. McKelly compares the studio to a ladder in its design, “The lowest rung is the basement…the studio a level above is ma’s turf…above the studio….is the control room” (1). The higher you climb on this ladder the more economic power controls the music. Ma Rainey fights on the lower levels for control over her music but Sturdyvant and Irvin in the control room make all of the important decisions about producing the music. McKelly also establishes the horn as a symbol of white oppression, “A horn… is emblematic of a remote disembodied authority” (1). Irvin and Sturdyvant hide in their control room and command the musicians with a disembodied voice like the voice of god. This disembodiment gives a false sense of power that Levee and the band mates fall for, but Ma Rainey fights the social/economic hierarchy anyway (2).

August Wilson creates an offstage white presence in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to create an “external white world bearing down upon African Americans” says Cigdem Usekes in “”We’s the Leftovers”: Whiteness as Economic Power and exploitation in August Wilson’s Twentieth-Century cycle of plays” (Usekes). The first major instance is Levee’s story of the gang of white men that attacked him and his family when he was only eight symbolizing the volatile rejection of African Americans in our society. This violent act left Levee not only with a physical scar but also with an emotional one teaching him a lesson that they only way to carry on in this white society is to remain obedient, servile and to do what the white man tells you to do. This is why throughout the story Levee continually tries to suck up to Sturdyvant so that he can get his big break and fit into a society that rejects him. In the end of the play this constant demand of him to fit in to this society drives him over the edge, he loses sight of which he is and stabs his band mate, Toledo. The second major instance is when the police men showed up to the studio reinforcing that white men/white law run the outside world. These instills us with the understanding that even after the band mates leave and are done listening to the white men who run the studio, they are subject to rules and regulations forced on them by a society that rejects them. This is the same kind of burden placed upon slaves two hundred years ago. Usekes also establishes that “Whiteness became associated with…ownership…of human flesh” (1). Ma Rainey and the band mates are enslaved by the necessity of money and Sturdyvant, the controller of the money, becomes a symbolic slave owner. This subtle comparison demonizes the exploitation of African Americans for profit. This symbolism is also present in the fact the band mates are confined to the basement where they never leave almost as if they are shackled to their place of work. The band mates need a figurehead like Ma to represent them, but her efforts prove futile. Usekes then goes on to say that, “Ma’s victory seems to be in maintaining her dignity in the face of her apparent prostitution of her talents…” (1). Ma is the strongest black presence on that stage and even though she fights continuously for her music she is squashed by white oppression. If Ma Rainey can fight white domination, can anybody?

August Wilson reveals in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom that this extortion of Blues and African American culture is harmful to African Americans who are trying to find a place in our society. “As long as the colored man looks to white folks…for approval…. Then he is never going to find out who he is” Toledo stated (Wilson, 1245). White business men trap African Americans and make them dependent so that they can exploit them, Toledo, realized that the only way to truly discover what their aptitude is they have to break free from the economic bonds that bind them. This inability to discover who they are creates an identity loss that causes blacks to try to blend in with our society becoming people they are not. Toledo being the wisest of the band mates Toledo later says that the white man knows that they are just leftovers but that African Americans “don’t know they’ve been taken and made history out of” (1251). Toledo is referencing the fact that throughout history white men have used African Americans for their own gain and that the African American culture has been warped making it difficult for African Americans to find their identities. Toledo uses the word “history” to exhibit how African Americans have they are time in the spot light but when the show is over they are left behind.

Throughout history white men have used African Americans to make a profit. They’ve used them as slaves, an unwilling market, and as entertainment they could sell to the masses. During the early 1900’s they were still struggling as a race to gain social, economic, and political freedom. August Wilson exposes this white dominance through the allegorical studio, interactions between blacks and whites, interactions between producer and talent, and the impassioned speeches of, Toledo, a struggling African American musician in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.