nail75Ich denke ein interessanter Aspekt ist die Tatsache, dass die Baroness eigentlich alleine war. Sie war eine Kuriosität, eine Unmöglichkeit, eine weiße Frau, die mit lauter Schwarzen verkehrte und dann auch noch schwarzen Musikern, in einem Milieu voller Drogen, zwielichtiger Gestalten und sozialer Probleme. Das war für eine Frau von Stand derart inakzeptabel, dass es auf keinerlei Verständnis stieß.
die baroness war ganz bestimmt in jeglicher hinsicht ein spezieller fall. aber was diejenigen angeht, die nicht von stand waren – sheila jordan jedenfalls hat erzählt, dass die meisten jazzer in den 50ern weiße freundinnen hatten. und dann erzählt sie folgende episode von 1953 (hier hat mal jemand nachgefragt):
JW: In New York, did you encounter the same kind of racial prejudice that you had faced in Detroit?
SJ: Yes. One time I went out to get some Chinese food with two black artist friends. On our way back, coming around 26th St., four white guys jumped us.
JW: What happened?
SJ: The guys threw me down and started kicking me, knocking out a cap on one of my teeth. They had run out of a bar as soon as they saw me with my two black friends. Three of the white guys grabbed my two artist friends and held them while the fourth guy was kicking me. He was ready to kill me when a white detective got out of a car and came across the street with a gun pointed in my direction. He approached the guy beating me up and asked him what I was to him and did he know me. The guy who was beating me up said, „No.“ The detective ordered him to stop beating me and put them all up against the wall This plain clothesman saved my life. It infuriated those guys in the bar that I was with two black guys. People today think this stuff went on only in the South, but it also happened on 26th St. in New York.
und die begegnung mit einem anderen weißen polizisten:
He said, “You see my gun? If I found my daughter with a—that word again—I’d blow her brains out.” You can’t even imagine what life was like back then without understanding the kind of blind hatred that existed for blacks by whites in certain cities, particularly among the police. There was racism and then there was this horrible fury that was reserved for interracial couples. It was horrible to experience.
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