Greetings Geoffrey,
Thanks for taking the trouble to review my book.

Here's a review that just came out in The Beat which
is much more positive.

I respect the right of people to draw their own conclusions.
And I'm not trying to change yours. But I do want to point out
what I think are a few distortions of my position.

1) The book is not about "black cultural icons" and I give abundant
evidence of why all three men rejected such definitions. This is
not something I project on them, it's an essential part of
how they defined themselves.

2) At the same time, while I do give a good deal of emphasis to
Bob's mixed heritage, this in no way means I'm describing
him as "escaping" his Jamaican identity and blackness.
Far from it. But again, he didn't call himself a black man,
he called himself a Rasta. This is evident in countless interviews,
as in the one with Afro-American journalist Greg Broussard in
which he says that as long as people call themselves black,
this will always be used to block them. "With Rasta, One Vibe
ya get." Or when he says "racial unity is the world's key,
and until the black man stops calling himself black, and
the white man stops calling himself white, we will not see it."
Clearly Bob did see himself as a black man in some ways; certainly
as an African. Rasta included his "blackness" but in a larger
community which was about "red gold and green, not black and white,'
as he said.

3) You could only say I favor 1970s roots music, or depreciate
dancehall, by seriously distorting my message. I'm constantly
trying to open the ears of close-minded people on RMR, for
instance, who think nothing good has happened since the
1970s. I've been doing reggae shows for many years focusing
on dancehall, albeit mostly the conscious variety.
But please don't put me in the bag of those who think that
nothing good has happened since Marley died. I listen to
the whole of the culture, and value its evolution.

Any culture rejects the past? Maybe. The Rastas certainlyl
re-invented the past, but they didn't reject it. I thought
I was rejecting the past when I left my parents church,
but I've been able to embrace it through Jamaican music.
I hope my children listen to as broad a range of music
as your son. My daughter not only sings Bob, but Capleton,
as well as merengue, etc.

Finally, anyone who draws attention to a new aspect
of a person or legacy can be accused of finding what they
look for. I did not start out looking for "biracial" themes
in Marley's life. I looked for why Rasta Reggae, primarily
through Bob, went global. And surely we could agree that
Marley's decision to emphasize Selassie's "without regard
to race" words played a major role in that?

As for your criticisms about my take on Bob finding
the "perfect father," when half of Jamaica is without a father,
well, you're right. I'm just arguing that this gave Selassie's
message additional resonance for Bob.

Alright, once again, respect for writing the review.
Norman Stolzoff loves the book, by the way.

Blessings,
Gregory

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 08:50:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gregory Stephens <gstephen@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: gstephen@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: The Beat review of On Racial Frontiers by Michael Kuelker (fwd)

[from The Beat, annual Bob Marley issue, June 2000]

On Racial Frontiers: The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and
Bob Marley, by Gregory Stephens (Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Reviewed by Michael Kuelker

"Out of many, one people" goes the motto of Jamaica. The United States
version reads E pluribus Unum. Lofty, noble and heralding activity both
solemn and vibrant, these expressions constitute the heart of a democratic
ideal, the unity of diverse peoples around core principles. But only by
ignoring the evidence of our senses could we fail to see that they are also
stillborn promises. Or, to shift the metaphor, national motto as myth, a
banner to hoist in the service of forgetfulness. Is "color blindness"
anything but code among American conservatives that it is okay to eliminate
considerations of race and thus rid ourselves of affirmative action and
bilingual education? (Its latest incarnation: Governor Jeb Bush's "One
Florida" initiative.)
Maybe we need new metaphors, or at least a better way of establishing a
large, multiracial context for dialogue on race that is now largely
partitioned within the pages of newspapers (and poured into 800-word
canisters) or relegated to the classroom. President Clinton planned a
national dialogue on the subject-remember?-but Hurricane Monica quickly blew
that train of thought right off the tracks.
Gregory Stephens, a journalist and presently a university
instructor of communications, finds an ideal language in three
figures-Frederick Douglass, the most famous abolitionist in the world; Ralph
Ellison, author of Invisible Man, one of the most important novels written by
an American; and Bob Marley-who share the aim of reaching a multiracial
audience. All three were of mixed heritage, racially and culturally, with
pluralistic appeal. Envisioning communities which transcended racialism, all
three were pioneers whom Stephens calls "integrative ancestors," harbingers of
a "new culture," which accounts in part for the accusations leveled against
all three, during their time and after, of being inadequately radical.
A transracial worldview doesn't dismiss race, as the political
conservatives would have us do, but moves beyond binary thinking. Stephens'
scholarship comes with a deep personal investment and a clear sense of why
this worldview gathers adherents and meets resistance. He aims for "the
possibility of a transracial, if not a postracial, style of communication,
leading to the creation of 'new cultures' which cannot always be defined in
racial language... [and] the development of multiple allegiances in
multiracial public spheres in which no one group is either centered or
excluded. Such an 'ideal speech community' may be presently unattainable, but
it is an orienting horizon, I agree with public sphere theorists, which must
be continually redefined and reaffirmed."
In his very personal "afterthoughts," he writes, "I remain convinced
that, more than ever, these 'big questions' are worth asking: 'how do we build
a multiracial democracy?' Or, 'what kind of language do we need to build
multi-ethnic coalitions?' And, 'what cultural resources can we give our
children to prepare them for the future?' His short-form conclusion is,
"don't forget your history, but don't get stuck in the rear-view mirror."
His 70-page treatment of Bob Marley can be read by itself, though it
resonates better in context with the chapters on Frederick Douglass and Ralph
Ellison. Douglass, he writes, upheld a multi-racial "imagined community"
which helped him combat slavery; today he has a legacy ranging expansively
from valedictory praise to blunt dismissal (such as rapper KRS-One's Vibe
magazine interview in which he termed Douglass a "house nigger" and a
"sellout"). Equally edifying is Stephens' reading of Ellison's Invisible Man,
whose narrator gains a brief epiphany of multiracial unity at a workers rally
and spends the rest of the novel seeking to make it a reality.
Marley is revolutionary, writes Stephens, for his critique of racialism.
Though he frequently made statements in interviews heavily streaked with black
essentialism (e.g. black man as earth's rightful ruler), Marley affirmed that
he stood on "God's side, who cause me to come from black and white." In 1976,
Marley mined Haile Selassie's speech "What Life Has Taught Me" for "War," and
sang this "new creed" of unity and liberation for the rest of his life.
"Don't talk to me about black and white-we fly a flag which is red, green and
gold," Marley said, referring to Rasta colors, the colors of African
liberation. And while the movement of Jah people was toward African unity,
Stephens underscores that its theme of equal rights and justice "without
regard to race" inevitably carried international relevance and pushed
Afrocentrism to a new millennium. Historically, religions tend to move from
ethnocentrism to universalism, and Marley helped advance the "one love, one
heart" conception, which is torn from the pages of the Bible: "of one blood,
God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26).
Stephens at times has found his book a hard sell, and on the
rec.music.reggae newsgroup, at book readings, in the classroom, he has been
greeted by skeptics. (Here I admit an admiration for Stephens, the patient
consensus-builder, for consistently willing to address even nasty criticism
evenhandedly. The Internet dialogues have occasionally seemed like an
exercise in masochistic enlightenment-some days like an enlightened
masochism.) Whiteness and blackness are never just about skin color and have
deeply contested histories.
Unquestionably, reggae developed out of black Jamaicans' search for a
music that spoke to their identities as Jamaicans and as members of the
African Diaspora, and the music continues to foster an identification to
Africa. This is where Stephens and the race ideologues and cultural
nationalists part company. Stephens cleaves to a view shared by Charley
Gerard, whose Jazz in Black and White concludes that jazz, traditionally an
African American cultural product, has a history and destiny too mutual to
sustain race-based claims of cultural "poaching," authenticity or ownership.
For that matter, Stephens' thesis finds another Caribbean counterpart in the
Creolite literary movement in Martinique, where writers like Patrick
Chamoiseau slough off the old Negritude as an "African illusion" that led the
West Indian to the unhealthy inclination, first established by French
colonizers, to seek his identity outside his island.
Concluding, as I do, that On Racial Frontiers is a necessary book isn't
contingent on agreeing with every assertion in it. For instance, Stephens
writes that Marley began, in 1979, "to concede that his 'African Zion' might
have to be located somewhere other than Ethiopia." True, and furthermore,
Jamaicans have often made Ethiopia and Africa synonymous. Beyond that, Rasta,
the self-styled "community of prophets" ("every Rasta is a church unto
himself," wrote Joseph Owens in Dread) seems eminently receptive to
decentralization. But the speculation is worth pursuing further, for to
displace Ethiopia chips at a cornerstone of Rasta in ways the movement isn't
ready to do. Ethiopia, eternal resistor of colonialism, and Selassie, whose
royal lineage is said to trace to the Solomonic dynasty, function powerfully
as orienting, even determining, symbols. (Marley's four-day trip to Ethiopia
in late 1978, one of the lesser known chapters of his life, probably ought not
be understood apart from that country's civil war. And Marley never gave up
on Ethiopia.) Stephens understands the full implications of his thinking:
"Can the act of faith be recognized as more important than the object of
faith, without destroying the faith itself?"
Consistently, the book rewards with fresh insight. Stephens' reading of
Marley takes deep account of Jamaica's complexities vis-¦-vis race, his oeuvre
(with special emphasis on Survival), the marketing strategy of Island Records,
and the resolution to the twin impulses of Marley's movement toward both
"blackman redemption" and "one love." Stephens has done an admirable thing,
rarer than it should be in scholarly works, which is to hit the center and
explore the circumference of his subject. Too often academic studies,
saturated with jargon and aimed to narrow audiences, uphold a mandarin level
of exclusivity. To his great credit, and making for a dicey endeavor of
writing, Stephens has contributed a convincing piece of cultural study which
should resonate on campus and off.
Till now we have seen a stream of biographies of Marley come out, but the
scholarship on his work is still at an early stage. On Racial Frontiers
compellingly pursues Marley's career and the large ideas he continues to
raise, and the book deserves a wide audience. To answer the questions it
poses calls for a challenging, multidisciplinary intellectual project. At the
same time, it is clear that finding the One in the many becomes just as much
an act of faith.

[Michael Kuelker is a Lecturer in English at St. Charles County
Community College, St. Louis, MO]