History itself: Black History Month 2024

It was not planned out, but there was a narrative that emerged with my writing. It became especially clear when I listed the books in chronological order, rather than the order read.

The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson by Rayford Whittingham Logan

We start with the upending of reconstruction, therefore former slaves not having protection from former masters and even those who had not been owners before. So there are beatings and lynchings and rapes, except generally the rapes are of Black women by White men, but the lynchings are supposedly because Black men are so likely to rape White women. 

No. It was to punish financial success, which was even more impressive considering the obstacles. Perhaps that made it more galling to those who had been working so hard against it.

The Left Great Marks On Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to WWI by Kidada E. Williams

On Lynchings by Ida B. Wells

Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Ames Daniel and the Women's Campaign Against Lynching by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

In general I don't believe in having heroes, but Wells became my hero before I was so set against it and additional reading hasn't disappointed me. 

I have On Lynchings here as kind of a bridge for the documentation of the abuses and the documentation of the fighting against them. There was always resistance. 

That includes White women campaigning against lynchings in Revolt Against Chivalry, with women organizing to say that are not protecting us this way, you are not making our lives better, do not use us to make it noble!

In many cases those organizers were themselves subject to racism or misogynoir -- that is why I generally avoid declaring anyone "my hero" -- but they were still working for good.

Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights by David Margolick

Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class by Blair LM Kelley

Perhaps the worst thing to look back on is for how long lynchings were common. 

You can make arguments that it started even before Emancipation and that recent events like the murder of Ahmaud Arbery count, but generally people look at the time period from the end of Reconstruction to the end of World War II, almost seventy years.

(Here is one set of statistics: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingyear.html)

Part of what makes Black Folk so interesting is how much of that resistance was labor organization, and how necessary it was. That might not seem so much like "civil rights", but the ability to provide for oneself, and to have reasonable freedom in your manner of doing so is essential to everything about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In many ways, the switch to "Civil Rights" was largely a matter of entering the public consciousness.

Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey into Mississippi's Dark Past, a Memoir by W. Ralph Eubanks

Southern League: A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South's Most Compelling Pennant Race by Larry Colton

Once we get more into the "Civil Rights" period, some of the things that stuck with me were very personal, but of course these are books written by people who were closer to it.

Eubanks looked into old records and found some of the threats and surveillance that happened with his parents (thank you Freedom Of Information Act). There is the home he remembered and the people he remembered, and some of them were dangerous in a way he had not suspected.

With Colton, the thing that stands out most is him interviewing White players who remembered some of the new Black team members as not being very social without ever thinking about the inability of those teammates to stay at the hotels they stayed at or enter the bars where they hung out.

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Possibly the thing that brought it home the most was this book of essays by Coates. Eight years is the Obama presidency, right?

It is in fact a collection of essay written during that presidency, yes, but the quote comes from South Carolina state congressman Thomas Miller, arguing against the disenfranchisement of Black Americans (including himself) at the end of Reconstruction.

Also...

*Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini

When I obtained this book, I had not realized it was a novel. I had meant to read a historical account. 

I don't think it's a bad telling. There is more on the sewing than I would have looked for.

I am putting this here because it doesn't seem to go with any of the other books, and Andrew Johnson looks like a jerk, which makes sense, but also leads to this thought:

It made apparent sense to choose Andrew Johnson as a running mate to show a commitment to unity going forward. That sounds reasonable, but given Lincoln's death, it is hard to imagine a worse choice. 

While that starting Betrayal had more to do with later presidents -- like Rutherford B. Hayes and Woodrow Wilson, as mentioned in the title -- well, there are times when the appearance of unity cannot possibly be as valuable as taking steps to guarantee continued progress.

Inasmuch as there has always been resistance to racist abuse, there has also always been resistance to progress. 

Anyone who cares will need to constantly remember that and be vigilant about fighting its many forms.

Imbalance of power

Picking up where we left off, I am no longer ashamed of being poor or fat (at times I have to fight it harder) because of an awareness of systems that make it very hard -- if not impossible -- to change some of those things. 

That tendency to be ashamed and blame it all on personal flaws works to create misery and prevent finding and achieving what is possible.

It has taken me a while to understand how difficult it is to escape class. I say this even though one of the perceived escape routes was much easier for me when needed than it would be now.

When I went to college, it was relatively affordable.

For the record, I started college at the University of Oregon, Winter term 1991. Out of the 180 credits needed for graduation, I brought 51 from AP tests, plus one writing course taught at a college level for credit but offered at the high school. 

It was a late start because of needing to work. There was a lot of time taken off for work, as well as 18 months for a mission. I ended up taking eight terms of classes, spread out over the years so I graduated in June of 1996.

The fees for the AP tests were my first credit card charges. I finally became eligible for student aid in my senior year. (The 18 months of no income while on the mission really helped with that.) 

With all of that, working while in school and taking terms off to do nothing but work, I graduated with about $2300 in debt. If I had not gotten close to a third of my credits in high school, if I had not taken such a heavy course load, or if I had not been able to work while in school, it would have been more, possibly triple, but still...

Students today should be so lucky. 

Just in the last 20 years college tuition and fees have grown twice as fast as the consumer price index. This has not been due to the quality of education rising or the jobs that you could get rising, but rather to increased administrative costs and because capitalism allows profits to be extracted from any public good, even at the expense of the public good.

I was also fortunate in that the interest rates were not unreasonable at the time, and that a college degree really did increase your earning power. My personal struggle with interest rates is more that I have already paid enough to equal the cost of my initial mortgage, with hardly any decrease in the principal. By the time it is paid off -- if everything goes according to schedule -- I will have paid its value four times over.

I get pretty regular offers to take it off my hands. They generally offer an amount that would pay off the mortgage and most of my personal debt. Taking that would leave me with no assets and no place to live.

It is also a sever undervaluation. Now, the Zillow estimate is way too much, but potential buyer could get significantly more out of it than they are offering me. 

As they don't need a home, they could make a large profit on the sale. What they might be even more likely to do is to make it a long or short-term rental, continuing to restrict the supply of housing that makes it such a seller's market right now.

It would be easy to look at the numbers and think that you would have to be stupid to fall for it, but you don't; you only have to be desperate. There are a lot of ways for that to happen.

The offers were even more persistent when I was in foreclosure, and this isn't even touching on reverse mortgages preying on the elderly.

For years I was told to avoid debt, except for a house and schooling. 

It is more common now that people will advise holding off on college, and maybe choosing a trade school (like those never load people down with debt), but there was a lot of time in between where people who were doing everything they say is right have been getting screwed for it, ending up poorer while the haves get richer.

I have a lot of feelings about that, but I am past feeling shame for it.

The funny thing about this post is I started with education because I was going to go to one specific place.

That's just going to have to wait until next week.

Memoirs: Black History Month 2024

There is such a wide variety with this group, it follows that there are some I liked more than others.

The other thing is that sometimes the lines blur. 

There are ways in which Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist was so personal that it was almost a memoir. 

I almost put Frederick Douglass's autobiography in history, because it contains so much history (as many of them do). Since it is his personal story -- while also showing a broader landscape that he was a key part of -- it belonged here.

The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Cultere, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love With Me by Keah Brown

I first heard Keah Brown speak at AffectConf, so of course I wanted to read her book.

Brown was born with cerebral palsy, and a twin who did not have it. That did not help with body image issues, yet so much of it sounded familiar (especially for women), even without having those issues. Kind of more bubbly and cute than deep (maybe that is my age speaking), but still with a lot to relate to.

Piccolo is Black: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture by Jordan Calhoun

Brown delivers on pop culture much better than Calhoun. The order of the sub-title does put pop culture last (though I would say religion -- featured second -- is featured more prominently than the first-mentioned race), but the main title sounds like there is going to be more on that, and it was disappointing. 

One big reason I read it is to find out about "Piccolo". Yes, I knew Panthro was Black, but who was Piccolo? So, just in case you are wondering, he's from Dragonball.

Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke

This is a good and important book, but I think the best thing I can say about it is exactly what I wrote when I originally reviewed it on Goodreads:

There is a lot of wisdom in here about healing and empathy, but perhaps the most important lesson is that carrying around your own wounds -- no matter how far down you push them -- limits your ability to help others.

Burke did a lot of good before dealing with her own abuse, but it does not compare to what she could do after.

We're Better Than This by Elijah Cummings

I read this shortly after Cummings' death, having not thought about him much before except that he really looked like John Lewis. 

I found a warm man full of integrity, who continued to work hard while facing grave health problems. 

A little repetitious at times, but still worth the read.

Act Like You Got Some Sense and Other Things My Daughters Taught Me by Jamie Foxx

We read this because we were watching and enjoying Beat Shazam, with Foxx and his older daughter Corinne. Very entertaining, but still heartfelt.

Becoming by Michelle Obama 

This was my favorite of the bunch. Obama's voice really comes through, and I like her. A lot of the information was interesting, but simply spending time with her was enough to be worthwhile. 

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Riveting for the most part, and even though it is older, and it is very readable, which is not always guaranteed for books written over a century ago. A very brief account of his limited time with his mother shows the heartbreak of slavery, and then its brutality comes through later.

Look for editions published after emancipation. In earlier versions he does not give the details of his escape. While it was relatively simple, it is still interesting.

Circling around the point

My initial plan was to circle back to economic inequality and how it affects political power. There are  some timely examples! 

As soon as I finished writing the last post, I knew I would have to write more about fat.

That was exacerbated by two articles and a conversation. 

Both of the articles were about medications that were initially developed for diabetes but are now being seen as "miracle" weight loss drugs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/opinion/ozempic-weight-loss-drugs.html?utm_source=pocket_saves

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2024-04-15/how-miracle-weight-loss-drugs-made-health-disparities-worse#:~:text

The New York Times article is about how the real problem is satiety, and that is caused by poor food quality, so really we should be uniting against the manufacturers of processed foods.

The LA Times article is about how this increases already existing health disparities because the people who don't generally have access to healthy foods and health care also don't have access to the drugs.

I'm not saying they don't have points, but they are missing some points too. 

First I am going to backtrack to Metformin.

One nice thing about Metformin is that it has been around since the 1950s in Europe, though it was not approved for use in the United States until 1995. It is generic and cheap. 

It also helps some people lose weight, so it gets prescribed a lot for people who do not technically have diabetes yet but might get it.

It does not help everyone lose weight. I know at least two people who have lost weight on it without changing diet or exercising more. It can happen; it's just not guaranteed.

One of Metformin's functions is to suppress your liver from releasing too much stored glucose during fasting periods, like at night. If you are having insulin problems, that release can raise your blood sugar, which can have extra wear and tear on your organs. If you have plenty of insulin, that extra blood sugar can be used or stored as fat. 

It totally makes sense that taking Metformin would help with weight loss for some people but not all people.

That makes sense for any drug. 

For people getting all excited about a new "miracle" weight-loss drug, it makes sense, but those could be false hopes. 

I suspect that is a large part of why the hype keeps migrating. It was Ozempic, but then it was more Mounjaro that was going to give us all our dream body. Then before Wegovy got to really be the big one, Zepbound started stealing its thunder. There are always studies showing this one may be more effective or this one interacts with two receptors instead of only one, and then there's this thing called "super responders" who skew the results.

What really brought it home for me was hearing someone referred to as "skinny fat".

I'd heard the term before, but kind of forgotten about it. In this case, the speaker did not like the person he was talking about, and I think it was just very hard for him to give credit for that undeserved body shape. 

I don't know whether the subject in question is healthy or not, but neither does he. It might even be an appropriate description if she has an unhealthy level of visceral fat, but he doesn't know that either.

It frustrates me how little we benefit from what we know. We know that Body Mass Index does not correlate with health, nor was it intended to, but we still use it. We know that things that are health indications -- blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol -- do not automatically correlate with body size. 

We still get hung up on it. 

Fat people -- especially fat women -- have a hard time getting a diagnosis or remedy beyond "lose weight!"

If we were better at listening to women, we might know a lot more about myalgic encephalomyelitis (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Because it was first seen in a hospital environment, the majority of the sufferers were nurses, and women. Even though they were medically-trained, professional women, it was still assumed to be hysteria. If we had paid attention to long-term effects after an infection then, it could be helping us with Long COVID now.

Of course, we have a hard time getting people to believe in that too.

Incidentally, COVID does seem to be bringing on diabetes for many patients. If we are determined to stigmatize diseases, there are more opportunities coming.  

The main point I want to make is that if we really want people to be healthy, well, yes, we needed to mentally divorce "healthy" and "thin", but also, we are going to have to include not only access to health care, but also access to healthy food and activity and living conditions. 

That will not come from a pharmaceutical company. However, it might take a miracle.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/05/shame.html

Antiracism: Black History Month 2024

"Antiracism" was going to be a book category for this anyway, but having just done the spotlight on Stamped, I realized that I should really get around to reading Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist.

So I did.

"Antiracism" was already going to be a category because there were three other books on that topic for this round of reading and blogging. There have been another five that I have written about previously, and there are at least two on my reading list that I have not gotten to yet. 

I could say that some are better than others. It might even be quantitatively true where you could look at how well-written each book is and how well-resourced, but that would be largely beside the point.

Even on the same topic, they come from different viewpoints and different areas of expertise. Some of those may be more resonant for you because of your own experiences or interests, and some might do a better job of filling in the gaps in your own knowledge.

Therefore, the most useful thing I can do is probably just to cover the niche of each book, and then readers can choose which book sounds most appropriate for them.

I have not ruled out writing an overall summary when I finish those last two, but by then there will almost certainly be new books available (unless we get racism fixed by then).

Regardless, here is my most recent reading:

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

I loved Stamped, but it was long and detailed in a way that could be intimidating for some readers. This book is much more approachable.

Kendi starts right off with his own racism and continues to give personal examples. I won't say that makes the reading process comfortable, necessarily, but I think it does help the reader not feel judged. 

What it also does is make the book intensely personal, as we get all of the points and influences along his journey, right up until the necessity of writing this book. 

I recommend it.

Nice White Ladies: The Truth About White Supremacy, Our Role In It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It by Jessie Daniels

This is another one that is really accessible, despite the academic rigor behind it. 

The title describes the focus perfectly, so this is a good one for white women who do not think they are "Karens" -- maybe even find that term offensive -- yet still might benefit from looking into it a little more.

Dear White Peacemakers: Dismantling Racism with Grit and Grace by Osheta Moore

This one is pretty faith-based. I appreciated that in Austin Channing Brown's I'm Still Here, but not quite as much in this one. I still gave it four stars, but I have given a lot of these five stars. It may still fill an important role, and the focus on making peace and building community is admirable.

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee

This is well done, and a strikingly different approach in that it examines the literal cost of racism through an economic lens. 

Even while I doubted if that would move people (because people ignore their self-interests in favor of racism pretty frequently), I was still impressed with information.

Shame

It's not easy casting off shame.

Even now, where I am fairly advanced with it, I still feel a certain defensiveness writing about it. It tempts me to add all of these justifications and clarifications to prove that I am not just in denial.

I suppose that is why I wrote about the various employers screwing me over rather than some other topics, including how interest -- and therefore debt -- drives the economy, so is encouraged and reinforced, even though individuals will have their debt attributed to bad choices.

As it is, I have seen and elucidated clear examples of racism and sexism creating problems, and then people who were invested in the status quo continued to deny and downplay. There is often a limit to how much that type of engagement helps, though you don't always know that going in.

Therefore, I know as I write these things I am leaving myself open to judgment, but I also know that the people most likely to discount what I say are also the least likely to read what I write. I guess that works out.

What I am driving at is that some of what I write about is so baked into societal beliefs that if the initial response is denial that is not even weird. Keep an open mind, and reach out if you have questions.

Getting back to those three employers, the first one did not end up making much of a difference, but the other two really set me back. There were other factors in that (a worldwide financial crash, my mother's dementia), but I lost ground that I never regained.

This is pretty normal. If you have more resources, even setbacks can work in your favor. For example, that worldwide financial crash did affect the stock balances of rich people, but if they didn't need to sell so were able to hold out, there was a big rebound coming. 

That was not how it worked for us.

That could be a reason to be skeptical about those arguing for the privatization of social security, but I am mentioning it more to get to the other area where I needed to let go of shame...

I am no longer ashamed I am fat.

I admit this is not the same as being happy about it.

I recently told a friend (who had been fat-shamed by her doctor) that if I had never dieted I would probably be about sixty pounds lighter.

That's only an estimate, and I would definitely still be considered fat (otherwise there wouldn't have been all of the dieting attempts along the way). It still would have been better. It would have made clothes shopping easier (though I hated clothes shopping back then too).

This is a thing that is remarkably well-known: 95% of dieting attempts fail, with the dieter gaining back anything lost, plus a little extra. Since even people who know that are desperately hopeful of making that 5%, the diet industry makes billions annually. Not millions; billions.

There are so many problems with that I can't even get into it now, but my point is how brilliantly this fits into dominator culture, and why people have such a hard time letting go of it. 

You can see if someone is fat -- though not if they are healthy -- by looking at them. Judging people by color has developed a bit of a stigma, but judging by body size is still A-okay. That is strong motivation to change, but in reality you just end up getting farther behind, probably poorer, probably less healthy from the strain, and almost certainly with a bit more heft to be judged by. Then no amount of science will convince hordes of people that it is not because you are just a slug who doesn't even try, and you don't deserve to ever taste anything good or ride on an airplane.

Incidentally, I have read that when it became common to judge people by their weight, assuming the sin of gluttony, it was partly because it was becoming too unpopular to criticize the greed of capitalists.

It tracks, doesn't it?

I think the order that makes sense here is to return to financial issues next Tuesday, but I am going to leave one thought here first:

The primary purpose of emphasizing personal responsibility is to weaken collective power.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/04/changed.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/05/anger.html

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/07/reparations.html

Spotlight on STAMPED -- Black History Month 2024

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi, was published in 2016.

True to it's title, it goes over the history of racism and its influence on the United States, preceding the formation of the country with racialized justifications for a shift in the slave trade from Slavs to Africans under Prince Henry the Navigator in Portugal, including the first introduction of Black slaves to the American colonies in 1619 and the legal changes in response to Bacon's Rebellion a few decades later. It then goes all the way through to the presidency of Barack Obama.

For those who read a lot of Black history, a lot of the names will be familiar, but there will still be some new information, and a lot of good analysis. For those less familiar, it is a good and thorough course.

I first added Stamped to my reading list in 2017, not too long after it was published. I just finished it this week.

That wouldn't necessarily merit its own post, except for all the other versions read before.

The first version I read was Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You, an adaptation (actually a remix) by Jason Reynolds. 

This was published in 2020, and I was gifted it shortly thereafter. I have some fondness for Reynolds anyway, and I thought it was really well done. 

I would say the target audience is teens. Shortly after reading it I passed it on to some teens who also liked it.

I always knew I would still read the original, but then I came upon two things I wasn't expecting:

Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America

This graphic novel was adapted and drawn by Joel Christian Gill, published in 2023. Of course I had to read that, but it still didn't change any plans.

2023 also saw a movie on Netflix: 

Stamped from the Beginning

The feature, directed by Roger Ross Williams, combines interviews, animation, and narration to essentially cover the same ground. 

That made me wonder if I was missing anything. It turns out that I was:

Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Anti-Racism, and You

Sonja Cherry-Paul adapted Jason Reynolds' adaptation, with illustrations by Rachelle Baker. It came out in 2021.

I think the fact that people keep finding different ways of getting out the material testifies to its importance. 

There should be a version that works best for you.

Some people would rather watch a movie, but then there are all those people who always believe that the book was better.

I think the graphic novel is the most faithful to Kendi's original structure of following five historic figures through the time periods. I also found it a little crammed and hard on my eyes.

The "For Kids" version is not for small children; more for older kids. I think they might just as well wait for the version for teens, which has more information but is still not overwhelming.

The full, original version gives the most complete picture, and that is worth a lot. However, if you are not ready for just over 500 pages, well, maybe go for the Reynolds adaptation.

And remember that the subject matter is important, and worth seeking out.

Anger

Again, from the sheet...

I am angry that I have had three employers screw me over.

Significantly, I only started allowing myself to feel anger at anyone but myself in January 2018, so this came about 18 months later.

The reason I include it is that this is a big part of me no longer being ashamed of being poor.

Now, I know "poor" is a relative term. There can be a lot to be explored there, but right now I want to focus on digging into those employers, which I will nonetheless do without naming them.

The first one I started working for about a month after I got back from my mission. I went back to her on school breaks, and when I was about to graduate she asked me back and raised my pay. I thought "Great!" 

I went back in June. She started messing with my hours while it was still summer, supposedly due to lack of work. I actually took a temp job while I was technically still working for her, and it didn't interfere at all.

Since I was looking for other things, I did not come out and quit, but that is what she was trying to make happen. One night as I was walking out the door she said that since I was doing a lower class of jobs, without the more complex ones coming in, she would have to lower my wage. I told her I would just look for something else, and not to worry about it.

That was not good enough. She called me while I was on my way to the bus and asked me, "Are you saying you quit?" 

I was so done with her; I said, "Yeah, fine. I quit." 

What I did not realize -- but she understood perfectly -- is that she was guaranteeing I could not collect unemployment.

Shortly after, I got a call. In fact, one of the clients had been desperately trying to get her to take their money, and she kept putting them off. A few of us were shortly reunited on the client's site. It was temporary, but through that contractor I got two other assignments with that client, and was kept busy for over a year.

The explanation I got later was that the boss had a faulty heart valve and was not getting enough oxygen to her brain, making her behave irrationally.

Personally, I think she was trying to work out a business loss for tax reasons. I say that because in retrospect I recognized behavior I had observed with other employees as being really unfair and manipulative. It was uncomfortable at the time, but I was giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe these people really were thieving and irresponsible and bad. After all, she was always good to me... until she wasn't. 

She was a small business owner, but the next time it happened with a big corporation. Two, actually. 

The client did kind of set things in motion, with one VP getting a plan to outsource our entire department. They offered retention bonuses to the crew, but not the manager. He found another job by the time the outsourcing vice president was fired and the switch was deemed impractical. We had a succession of weak, disinterested, and corrupt managers after that. 

I needed some extended time off, which would involve one unpaid week. The one corrupt manager knew and was fine with it, but he didn't get it on the books. He was replaced by a different corrupt manager who wanted to teach me a lesson. 

I admit I asked the wrong question to corporate. I asked what I needed to do to get it arranged, but what they really were researching was if they could just not save my job for me. They told me the day before I left, but even then they were lying and thanking me for being so professional and please call when I get back. Once again I was jobless and with no unemployment.

It screwed them up really badly, too, because they had a hard time finding someone, settling for someone incompetent and a little irrational, but at least I learned I wasn't special to them.

Finally, another big corporation did send our jobs to India, but they promised they weren't going to. The training in India was just for the overflow. I don't even think they were deliberately lying; they were probably just like "Wow, this is so much cheaper!"

At least in that case, I was able to get unemployment. Still, some advance notice would have been nice. There were coworkers who saw the writing on the wall, but I was too preoccupied with my mother's decline.

I am not saying that there were not any bad choices on my part. There was certainly naivete, more than once. 

However, circumstances always favored the big guy, and the big guy also was way more likely to be a creep. Also, the big guy was not always making smarter choices or choices that were better for the economy.

That is not coincidental.

(For this last job, no one really screwed me over. The problem there is that health care is collapsing. While that is an important issue and there are economic principles that could have some overlap, that's a whole different subject.)

Back to the '70s: Daily Songs for March and April

I'm taking a quick break in the Black History Month reviews because I just finished two months worth of songs.

It has been an ongoing project, but I had been choosing ten charting songs per year, starting in 1980. 

(I did not blog about the songs in the 80s, but I have the links for the posts on the 90s songs down below.)

The initial impulse partly came from loving the '80s and a lot of the '90s, but also the thought that someday I might want to go on Beat Shazam. It made sense to see if there were hit songs where I didn't remember the title.

Having gone through 1999 on the last round, I fully meant to keep going forward into the 2000s, but then I didn't want to. There were too many unfamiliar songs, and I suspected that a lot of them would suck. Sure, I would probably find some cool things, but it would take so much effort.

I decided to go the other direction: 1979 - 1974.

That's been much groovier.

I will eventually get back to 2000, but currently 1973 is more appealing.

Just in case anyone is wondering how far it can go, Billboard started tracking end of year hit songs in 1946. There are 35 songs, but also going through 41 for that year, which may have been due to different listings for individual sales and jukebox play. The "Hot 100" debuted in 1958. 

I can definitely see myself going back to 1958, and potentially to 1946. 

It would not be impossible to go back further, but then the popularity indicators become harder to define, including it moving away at one point from recordings to live performances and sheet music sales. 

That is not insurmountable, especially since I am choosing popular songs based more on my liking of them than their overall popularity.

For now, I will just keep doing a few years at a time, here and there, for as long as it's interesting.

Wherever the music takes me, kitten.

1979

3/2 “My Sharona” by The Knack
3/3 “Music Box Dancer” by Frank Mills
3/4 “What A Fool Believes” by The Doobie Brothers
3/5 “My Life” by Billy Joel
3/6 “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor
3/7 “Le Freak” by Chic
3/8 “September” by Earth, Wind, & Fire
3/9 “Heart of Glass” by Blondie
3/10 “A Little More Love” by Olivia Newton-John
3/11 “I Was Made For Lovin' You” by KISS

1978

3/12 “Sweet Talkin' Woman” by Electric Light Orchestra
3/13 “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood” by Santa Esmeralda
3/14 “Blue Bayou” by Linda Ronstadt
3/15 “Come Sail Away” by Styx
3/16 “On Broadway” by George Benson
3/17 “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione
3/18 “Love Is in the Air” by John Paul Young
3/19 “Can't Smile Without You” by Barry Manilow
3/20 “Last Dance” by Donna Summer
3/21 “Sometimes When We Touch” by Dan Hill

1977

3/22 “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder
3/23 “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” by Leo Sayer
3/24 “On and On” by Stephen Bishop
3/25 “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett
3/26 “Don't Give Up On Us” by David Soul
3/27 “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” by Andy Gibb
3/28 “Hotel California: by Eagles
3/29 “Jet Airliner” by Steve Miller Band
3/30 “The Rubber Band Man” by The Spinners
3/31 “Best of My Love” by The Emotions

1976
4/1 “The Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy
4/2 “Right Back Where We Started From” by Maxine Nightingale
4/3 “A Fifth of Beethoven” by Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band
4/4 “Boogie Fever” by The Sylvers
4/5 “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen
4/6 “Saturday Night” by Bay City Rollers
4/7 “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)” by Diana Ross
4/8 “I'd Really Love to See You Tonight” England Dan & John Ford Coley
4/9 “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate
4/10 “You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” by Lou Rawls

1975

4/11 “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tenille
4/12 “The Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet
4/13 “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian
4/14 “Why Can't We Be Friends” by War
4/15 “The Hustle” by Van McCoy & the Soul City Symphony
4/16 “Dance With Me” by Orleans
4/17 “You're the First, the Last, My Everything” by Barry White
4/18 “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” by Freddy Fender
4/19 “Best Of My Love” by Eagles
4/20 “Sister Golden Hair” by America

1974

4/21 “Love's Theme” by Love Unlimited Orchestra
4/22 “Come And Get Your Love” by Redbone
4/23 “Hooked On A Feeling” by Blue Swede
4/24 “Annie's Song” by John Denver
4/25 “The Joker” by Steve Miller Band
4/26 “Takin' Care of Business” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
4/27 “Please Come to Boston” by Dave Loggins
4/28 “Time In A Bottle” by Jim Croce
4/29 “Rock the Boat” by Hues Corporation
4/30 “Tell Me Something Good” by Rufus & Chaka Khan 

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https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/05/april-daily-songs-top-songs-1991-1994.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/09/daily-songs-1995-1999.html