The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard

"The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard of": (Re)positioning Literacy through African
American Blues Rhetoric

Author(s): Carmen Kynard
Source: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 2008), pp. 356-373
Published by: International Reading Association
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"The Blues You Ever
Playingest Dog
Heard Of": Literacy
(Re)positioning
African American Blues
Through
Rhetoric
Carmen Kynard
St John's University, Queens, New York, USA
an analysis ofWalter Dean Myers's

Building on scholarship inAfrican American rhetorics and African American language,
(2000) The Blues of Flats Brown is presented as a methodology for (re)imagining educational issues and research related
to voice, agency, reading, and literacy in the face of racial oppression and subjugation. In the analysis, blues music is
viewed as an articulation of the reciprocal relationship between the political, economic, historical, and social struggles
of African American masses and a unique cultural expression. The analysis also foregrounds the constructs of crossroads
and code as heuristics for understanding how
theory (Meacham, 2000, 2001a, 2001b) meshing (Canagarajah, 2006)
literacy and language function inmultiracial contexts for people who confront discrimination and subjugation. Several
discourse strategies are highlighted in the analysis of the text: the use of the Great Migration and fugitive slave narratives,
the use of linguistic markings to represent 20th-century white supremacy and the maintenance of southern and northern
Jim Crow policies, the use of the South as a literary symbol of black home/motherland, the use of the blues and spirituals
as a lyrical blueprint for narrative writing, and the use of the psychic and historical politics of the trickster as central to
textual organization and characterization. The analysis of The Blues of Flats Brown is used to argue for an approach to
reading in classrooms that centers students' cultural rhetorics.
on scholarship in African American rheto literatures, and cultural politics in and for writing are
Building
rics and African American language (AAL), this brought together for the purpose of illuminating pos
article presents an analysis ofWalter Dean Myers's sibilities for classrooms. Briefly, analysis of The Blues of
(2000) The Blues of Flats Brown as a methodology for Flats Brown is used to "exploit and explore the intellec
(re)imagining educational issues and research related tual depth of African American vernacular practices"
to voice, agency, reading, and literacy in the face of ra (Richardson, 2003, p. 33).
cial oppression and subjugation. The use of scholarship Myers's distinct use of AAL embodies both the
in African American rhetorics and AAL for theorizing structure and theme of the blues in his text. Discourse
reading and educational issues is consistent with recent strategies in The Blues of Flats Brown include the use of
trends in which literary theory has been crossed with the African American narrative of the Great Migration
as theme and genre; the use of linguistic markings to
literacy theories, cultural politics, and discourse analysis
(Gilyard, 1996, 2000; Grobman, 2003, 2007; Lee, 1993; represent 20th-century white supremacy and the main
Logan, 2003; Perry, Steele, & Hilliard, 2004; Pough, tenance of southern and northern Jim Crow policies;
2004a; Richardson, 2003; Rickford & Rickford, 2000; the use of the South as a literary symbol of the black
Royster, 1990; Smitherman, 1977, 2000). Contributions home/motherland; the use of blues, jazz, and spirituals
of this direction in scholarship include examination as a lyrical blueprint for narrative writing; the use of
of how discourse communities; how political, the fugitive escape narrative to incorporate an aspect
shapes
social, and historical contexts situate texts; and how of African American histories; and the use of the psy
texts represent cultural knowledge systems and ways chic and historical politics of the trickster as central to
of being. The article follows this direction of scholar textual organization. Although Myers is a prolific writ
ship, such that theories of African American literacies, er, only The Blues of Flats Brown has been selected for
356 Research 43(4) pp. 356-373 ? 2008 International Reading Association

Reading Quarterly dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.43.4.3

discussion in this article because this book is distinct of code meshing so that the specific historical, cultural,
from his other works inasmuch as it uses the vernacular and political context of Myers's AAL in The Blues of Flats
to provide an intellectual history of the blues. This is Brown can be closely examined. A more experimental
not Myers's only book about the blues, jazz, and African reading of the story's rhetorical ethos and organization
American culture, but it is his only narrative to situate then follows. The article closes with a polemicization of
the blues and jazz as simultaneously representing rebel African Americanized rhetorical and textual encounters
lion (against Jim Crow's racialized poverty), travel, the in classrooms.
Great Migration, fugitive slaves, the southern homeland, For educators and researchers, respect for AAL
third-person narrative form, and tricksterism. These so means understanding how and why its rhetorics are
cial functions are realized in this particular book not used?and there's just nothing quite like the blues of
simply because of the story that Myers is telling but Walter Dean Myers to take us there.
because of the way he tells it. A rhetorical analysis of
this one book, shaped by the scholarship of African
American rhetorics, is presented as a methodology for
(re)imagining educational issues and research that seeks (Re)visiting the Politics of AAL
In "Discriminatory Discourse of Afro-American
to illuminate the issues of voice, agency, and literacy in Speech,"
the face of racial oppression and subjugation. Smitherman (1988) presented a comprehensive history
Because an understanding of Myers's text requires that situated scholarship on AAL as a field that had po
a complex, litical and social for the lives of African
cross-disciplinary exchange of knowledge consequences
about AAL, literatures, and histories, The Blues of Flats Americans. She cited James A. Harrison's (1884) "Negro
Brown can be used to illuminate how AAL works as English" as the first "scientific" study of AAL, one that
form, theme, and structure. In the elucidation of this configured AAL as deviant and inferior, a long-lasting
one space in which AAL operates, I hope to engage in representation that still dominates many debates, espe
a microscopic to advance the larger goal cially in the media (Rickford & Rickford, 2000). The
investigation
of complicating macrodispositions toward AAL and the racist historiography of studies of AAL was further
work of crossroads entrenched in the early 20th century in the works of
theory. Meacham's (2000, 2001b)
notion of the crossroads offers a heuristic for under Tillinghast (1902), Mencken (1919), Gonzales (1922),
and Krapp
standing how and why literacy and language function (1924).
as they do in multiracial contexts for people who con Lorenzo Dow Turner's 1949 work Africanisms in the
front discrimination and subjugation both politically Gullah Dialect marked a turning point when it countered
and culturally. Meanwhile, (2006) notion this racist historiography on AAL. The Black Power era of
Canagarajah's
of "code meshing" offers a framework for discussing the 1960s and 1970s further challenged the earlier, rac
how texts formed at the crossroads look and function. ist research on AAL, with Labov (1967, 1972), Wolfram
Myers's blues rhetoric is code meshing enacted at the (1969,1971), Kochman (1969,1973,1981), Fasold (1972;
crossroads, a that can be seen, read, and Fasold & Shuy, 1970), Dillard (1972, 1977), and others
phenomenon
heard in The Blues of Flats Brown; yet this is a text that is (e.g., Abrahams, 1970; Baldwin, 1979) emerging as key
often introduced to young children in classrooms with theorists. Scholars argued that AAL was being widely
out a concomitant invitation to the kinds of literate pro interpreted by whites as legitimizing historical notions
cesses that it encompasses. of black inferiority. These pioneers, with Labov playing
This article opens with a brief examination of schol the seminal role, used quantitative investigations into
arship on AAL that has had political and social con the morpho-syntactic-grammatical features of AAL to
sequences for the lives of African Americans and for show statistically that AAL was rule governed and sys
advocates of linguistic freedom for diverse students. tematic. The result was a shift in public and academic
An introductory exploration of themes in the study of discussions of AAL as a nonstandard or restricted code
African American rhetoric as it relates to student writing to AAL as a highly structured communicative system.
is used to situate "cross-language writing as the norm Smitherman appeared in this era as the critical African
for our teaching and research" (Horner, 2006, p. 570). American linguist whose work on AAL, most notably in
These themes are focused specifically on six discourse her 1977 book, Talkin and Testifyin, was revolutionary in
a
strategies that will be featured as rhetorical guide into its focus on discourse, history, literature, politics, and
Myers's text. The history of the blues, as it represents culture. Smitherman describes this period of her schol
communities, audiences, and performers, is further ex arship as one during which she revised her ideas about
amined in terms of its implications for how we under black toward an understanding
"dialect" of black lan
stand language and literacies and, thereby, classrooms. guage. She argued that even the dissidents concurred
Meacham's (2001a, 2001b, 2003) notion of the cross that black "dialect" is drastically different from other
roads will be married with Canagarajah's (2006) notion "dialects" of American English (Smitherman, 2000). It
'The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard Of: (Re)positioning Literacy Through African American Blues Rhetoric 357

was thinking about issues such as signifyin, semantic [both in Smitherman, 2000] "'What Go Round Come
inversions, and the blue notes in Nina Simone's expres Round': King in Perspective" and "Ebonics, King, and
sion "Itbees dat way sometime," that made Smitherman Oakland: Some Folk Don't Believe Fat Meat Is Greasy"
move away from seeing AAL as a dialect to seeing it as a for excellent discussions of both moments.)
language?hence the origin of the term African American As Horner (2006) suggests, recognition of linguistic
language that many scholars use today.1 diversity often goes hand in hand with students produc
A substantial body of work on AAL has contin ing finished writing in only one kind of English while
ued to examine its rhetorics and ideologies (Jackson teachers examine their morphosyntactic structures to
& Richardson, 2003; Richardson & Jackson, 2004; scrutinize students' approximation to academic literacy.
Spears, 1998); structure, use, and stylistics (Makoni, Differences may be recognized (and, on some holidays,
Smitherman, Ball, & Spears, 2003; Morgan, 1996, even celebrated), but they are only something to be
2002; Mufwene, 1998; Rickford & Rickford, 2000); lex overcome on the way to schooling's
bourgeois standard
icon (Holloway & Vass, 1997; Smitherman, 1994); hip ized literacy norms. This clamoring for the acquisition
hop nation language (Alim, 2003, 2004, 2006; Morgan, of standardized literacy norms, though politically well
2002; Olivo, 2001; Richardson, 2006); community intentioned, largely functions within deficit models as
contexts (Dyson, 2003; Fisher, 2003; Kinloch, 2005; as and multidialectal text
long multilingual production
Lanehart, 2002; Morgan, 2002); discourse patterns as is not encouraged and embraced as academic literacy.
they relate to student writing (Ball, 1992, 1995a, 1995b, As Horner argued, multilingual textual production in
1999; Gilyard & Richardson, 2001; Redd, 1995); and classrooms is inevitable, otherwise instruction "evades
its applicability to the educational achievement of AAL and is, in many ways, less practical
ongoing history,
users (Adger, Christian, & Taylor, 1999; Alim & Baugh, than an approach that engages composition's multilin
2007; Baugh, 1999; Crawford, 2001; DeBose, 2005; gual nature" (p. 570).
Foster, 2001; Gilyard, 1991; Mahiri & Sabio, 1996). It is
Ball and Lardner's (2005) definition of AAL that guides
the spirit and content of this article:
African American Rhetorics
[W]hen we speak of Ebonics or AAVE [African American Are AAL
Vernacular or Black we draw on
English] English,
Smitherman's definition to refer to the of the This article centers on a central aspect of AAL: African
totality
Africanized form of American English, the
language sys American rhetorics. AAL ismore than just words, gram
tems used at some time to some
degree by most African mar, and pronunciation; it is also rhetorics, "discourse,
Americans today. Encompassing
a range of informal and for not simply a set of grammatical features to be eradicated
mal and embodied in characteristic from speech and writing"
registers phonological, (Richardson, 2003, p. 120).
and discourse in its totality
grammatical, lexical, patterns, African American rhetorics are what we get in class
as a African American
language system, Language possesses
rooms, what we see in students' writing, what we hear
and speech-act components that define the linguis
stylistic from African American orators, and what we read in
tic competence of its speakers as
participants in a long
lived and thriving cultural tradition. As educators
African American literary works. They are the set of
claiming
"discourse strategies that represent how many African
expertise in "language arts," we recognize this variety of
as part of the repertoire of linguistic resources that Americans use language.. .the use of language as a high
English
contribute to the communicative of the diverse art.... [I]n other words, how and why you say something
competence
members of our English-speaking community, (p. 31)
is as important as what you say" (Redd & Webb, 2005,
p. 41).
Despite an extensive body of work on AAL,
a deficit Rhetoric means more than just the art of persuasion
model still largely informs understandings of AAL and or stylized speaking. It is a certain quality of language,
linguistic diversity (Diaz & Flores, 2001; Flores, Cousin, oral and written, where specific cultural meanings and
& Diaz, 1991). Public discussions of AAL can be regard histories are communicated such that attitudes toward
ed as a kind of litmus test for how we understand and language itself are central. Rhetoric is what gets said in
engage the multidialectal and multilingual nature of our stories, dance, song, paintings, and everyday banter,
classrooms in the context of social hierarchies and racist and, as such, it communicates belief systems, social
exclusions. AAL has continually been part of racist pub values, a sense of the past, notions of shared identity,
lic dialogues, from the Ann Arbor "Black English Case" and communal aspirations. Wright (2003) has argued
of 1979 to the Oakland Ebonics Movement of 1996 against the limited view that the rhetorics of African
(Alim, 2005; Smitherman, 2000), and it captures our Americans primarily work to protest oppressive condi
most schizophrenic and hypocritical language politics: tions. He has pointed to a view of rhetoric that can reveal
We want to value children's home languages but not for an "active presence of strong ideological and epistemic
formal school work. (See Geneva Smitherman's essays foundations regarding what itmeans to be in the world
358 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

and to engage the world" (p. 86). Thus, rhetoric emerges distanced enough for academic or school writing
out of the social world and consciousness in which it (Redd & Webb, 2005, p. 45)
is constructed and in turn (re)shapes those worlds. As
Richardson (2003) has further argued, These six strategies do not encompass and theo
rize all of African American rhetorics; that would be "a
African American discourseand rhetorical practices ema
task virtually as daunting as if the object were to sum
nate from Black American social, economic, cul
people's
and historical At the heart
marize all reportage and analysis of the Black experi
tural, educational, experiences.
of these are African American that ence overall" (Gilyard, 2004, p. 1). There are also "hush
epistemologies, ways
African Americans come to know and act in response to harbors" (Nunley, 2004), Nubian rhetorics (Crawford,
their environment, (p. 33) 2004; Karenga, 2003), technological rhetoric (Banks,
2006), religious oratory (Pipes, 1951/1992), agitation
Contextualizing and politicizing African American al rhetoric (Smith [Asante], 1972), jeremiads and civil
rhetorics means that we must understand the ways that
rights discourses (Miller, 1998), Black Nationalisms
can empower themselves new or alter
groups through (Moses, 1996; Pough, 2002, 2004b), and Afrafeminisms
native discourses and alter the ways that knowledge is
(Royster, 2000), to name a few. However, these six dis
constructed for them and about them. course strategies of African American rhetorics will
Key discourse strategies of African American rheto serve
simply as the specific discourse features that
rics have been identified by various theorists (Jackson frame the discussion of Myers's text, in which the blues
& Richardson, 2003; Redd & Webb, 2005; Smitherman, embodies African American rhetorics.
1977). These include
Call-response and field-dependent strategies,

in which writers become directly involved with Won't Mean a Thing If ItAin't Got
their topics (also called direct address) and seem to
be speaking directly to the audience, almost as if That Swing: Code Meshing and the
waiting for a response, rather than using the tradi Crossroads for Blues Rhetoric
tional academic or school conventions of distance
and Literacy Research
and third-person pronouns (Redd & Webb, 2005,
For the purposes of this article, the blues is defined
p. 43; Richardson, 2003, pp. 155-156)
in simple terms as a vocalized, instrumental aesthet
Signifyin (or siggin), an art of insult where hu
ic based on the use of blue notes, a repetitive pattern,
morous and quite decorous put-downs serve as
and a 12-bar structure, with historical roots planted in
an indirect form of serious criticism or casual
African American spirituals, work songs, field hollers,
joking?verbal indirection, however, is also linked
shouts and chants, and call and response. Although
to cultural survival, as in the African American
slave-era spiritual "Steal Away," which referenced they are related, in this article the blues will seem at
times superficially disconnected from jazz.3 The lines
slave escapes as well as a heavenly home (Morgan,
2002, p. 56; Redd & Webb, 2005, p. 44)
often drawn today between jazz and blues were once
nonexistent. Whereas Louis Armstrong might have
Tonal semantics, the sounds of things that get cap
been considered a jazz artist, his playing partner,
tured through repetition, alliteration, and rhyme
Lonnie Johnson, was considered a bluesman. T-bone
in writing to capture the talk-singing and stresses
considered a blues artist,
of speech (Morgan, 2002, p. 55; Redd & Webb,
Walker, played with jazz great
Charlie Christian. What we regard as classic jazz
2005, by
p. 45; Richardson, 2003, p. 138) Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Wes Montgomery
Narrative sequencing, meandering stories (also are blues songs at heart.
called narrative interspersion) that are narrated In the first full-length analytical and historical
study
right alongside a main story (Richardson, 2003, of jazz/blues written by an African American, Blues
p. 136)2
People: Negro Music inWhite America, Jones [Baraka]
"Historically" black words (not a deep feature of (1963) presented the original argument that the mu
AAL), injections that many readers define as "col sic is a kind of cultural sociology of a distinct African
loquial" but are actually signals of an African American ideology and history. Stylistic traditions and
American rhetorical process of "strategically style in the music mirror historical at
changes changes,
shifting to make a point" (Redd & Webb, 2005, titudes, and social conditions of African Americans.
pp. 23, 49; Smitherman, 1994) Baraka's writing is itself as much a cul
Interestingly,
Directness, a verbal aggression that is regarded tural history of the music as it is an artistic/blues perfor
as confrontational and therefore not objective and mance of the music (Brennan, 2003; Mullen, 2001).
"The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard Of": African American Blues Rhetoric 359
(Re)positioning Literacy Through

in the wake of this scholarly ethos of Standard In other words, an important element of
Following English.
on scholars such as an for impact on an audience results from
writing black music, propelled by essay's potential
the choice of using AAVE-based discourse features, (p. 49)
Jones [Baraka] (1963) and Murray (1996), the blues here
is treated not as the musical invention of individual,
skilled artists, but as the rhetoric of a people, as "text, Canagarajah's (2006) definition of code meshing is
as tale, as
story,
as
exposition, narrative...[of] actual, quite different from that of mainstream language schol
lived lives" (Baraka, 1999, p. ix), such that sound and ars. He points to the work of Anzaldua, bell hooks, and
can be regarded as a cohesive blues idiom. other scholars who discuss "third space" as being in
experience
Meacham (2001a) has specifically translated this blues sync with his notion of code meshing, which also more
sentiment for literacy and education by tracing how closely and critically represents what Myers does with
this "collective language" can allow scholars to locate a the blues as a unique rhetoric and ethos in his written
ethos inherent to rhythm and sound rather than text. In code meshing, as opposed to code switching,
unique
multidialectalism is embraced, such that more than one
simply towritten texts (pp. 213-214). Thus, the history
of the blues represents communities, audiences, and language or language variety is accommodated so they
and has for how we understand can be merged into the same hybridized text.4 Code
performers implications
language and literacies?and, thereby, classrooms. meshing requires that students of color not only show
In the blues, both audience and musician experi how they master dominant varieties of English but also
ence and create a new meshing of meaning, language, that they know how to deploy multiple language com
and experience according to a social and historical munities and bring them together to write and speak
condition of being oppressed as African Americans. for their own purposes. Alternating codes within the
Meacham (2001a, 2001b, 2003) defined as the cross same text means that one knows the rules and plays the
roads the continual movement, disruption of norms, game?and yet changes the rules at the same time. As
and (oftentimes harsh) change that get represented examples, Canagarajah noted the scholarly works of bell
in the lives and music of blues/jazz artists, a cultural hooks and Geneva Smitherman, for whom such rheto
concept that has been defined by Murray (1996) as a rics have socialized their audiences into revised rules
challenge that requires new information and
and crisis and have redefined mastery of what was once consid
strategies. For the blues/jazz, this crossroads connotes ered a singular code. Differences and divergences in lan
the experience of the break (crisis and disruption of a guage are, thus, relational, the ways
politically showing
foundational concept), improvisation (necessary revi in which "Black Discourse is an academic discourse in
sions and alterations to standard
applications), and constant flux, in negotiation with other discourses, in
affirmation (new relationships and encounters). The the dominant discourse" (Richardson, 2003, p.
cluding
crossroads, thus, demands its own language and prac 97). Myers's book can act as a kind of politicized, illu
tices where ideas and sounds must be encountered, de
minating mirror of the ethos of code meshing.
fined, transgressed, and transcended. Code meshing and crossroads in African
politics
I propose that we marry Meacham's notion of the texts to
American might be best linked Royster's (1996)
crossroads with Canagarajah's (2006) notion of code argument when she says, "I claim all my voices...even
meshing. The crossroads is a lens into literacy and lan when for others to imagine a person like me
it's difficult
in multiracial contexts for people who confront
guage having the capacity to do that" (p. 37). Campbell (2005)
discrimination and subjugation both politically and arrived at another critical intersection for this ethos in
culturally; code meshing explains how these people do his writing:
what do at the crossroads. The blues in Myers's
they
and ethos?becomes a textual ex I do not deny the authenticity of any of my voices (academic/
text?lyric, sound,
formal standard some
ample of code meshing. professional, English?what might
see as white middle class Christian,
An African American rhetorical framework for un speech?southern,
Black vernacular, and so forth), but I refuse to be ridiculed
derstanding blues rhetoric in writing?the crossroads
into only one of these voices the sec
and its code-meshing articulation?re by others (especially
phenomenon ond) as my own, be it for public or private consumption.
quires what Ball and Lardner (2005) called a
Middle-class and an academic career have
aspirations
stance the shifts in voice or rubbed off on me, fo sho, but all hell or Texas gotta freeze
of reading that accepts register
AAVE features are used...[since] this stance of read over befo you see me out on a genuine respect and
where copping
moments not as unfortunate love for my native to one homog
ing would regard these signs of tongue. Limiting myself
the writer's lack of mastery of academic conventions but as enized, so-called American voice, as some would have it,
formal elements in the composition would be tantamount to self-negation and self-hatred. And
potentially significant
and perhaps a key to its strength. This stance of reading after many years of monitoring my sure
speech, making
that some dimensions of intended I sounded like I wasn't from a one-horse, southern town
acknowledges important
cannot be "translated" from AAVE to and later a poor Black in the big city, I seek
meaning probably neighborhood

affirmation of the self, of my vernacular voice, and the voice Wallace Thurman's The Blacker
the Berry, the Sweeter
ofmy peoples, (p. 3) the Juice; Albert Train Whistle
Murray's Guitar; James
Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues"; Sterling Brown's "Ma Rainey,"
As a writer, I also attempt to be mindful of the sugges
"Memphis Blues," and "Strong Men"; and Ann Petry's
tions of scholars like Dixson (2005) and Calmore (1995), The Street. Baker's (1984) classic in literary theory, Blues,
who have argued that knowledge of African American Literature, as well as Hall's
Ideology, and Afro-American
rhetorics and blues/jazz also bears consequences for (1998) Gloria Feminist Blues Aesthetic, gives us
Naylor's
how we write about this research. For Dixson, just as a treasure of information on how and why a blues aes
the jazz artist adds improvised embellishments to an thetic is central to African American
life, literacy, and
established guideline, the scholar-writer can and will literature. Put another way, African American music, lit
mirror this "heuristic or expressive idiomatic instru erature, and art are always talking to one another, mak
ment" (p. 121). In much educational research, "some
ing new sounds and meanings and regenerating African
one else"?researchers, teachers, and American rhetorics.
ethnographers,
are not AAL users?describes
who AAL,
policymakers Myers's The Blues of Flats Brown extends the form of
such that those literacies exist merely within quotation the blues and its content to the printed page and also
marks and summaries rather than as central methodolo builds on the theme with its secondary characters (e.g.,
gies and frameworks (Holmes, 2006). In this way, schol the club owners, audience members) and settings (e.g.,
arship and knowledge become solely categorized inside waterfronts, churches, juke joints, and railroads). With
the genres and researcher positionalities that place ways stories that create one narrative, the text de
meandering
of speaking, writing, and being on the outside?stuff in
ploys multiple languages and moves forward according
quotation marksto capture other folks' lives (Guti?rrez to the following structure: The act of migration exists
& Orellana, 2006). I intend to seek an awareness of the as its own narrative; southern brutalities and north
ethos of my own writing and may end up employing ern realities are rewritten as part of living the blues;
what might be regarded as interruptive rhetorical strat the South is constructed as motherland; spirituals get
egies; as nontraditional forms of academic writing; as resounded in gospel, jazz, and the blues as a type of
part of the work that researchers can do in challenging "worrying the line"; a trickster successfully reaches his
a continual, privileged paradigm that deems AAL inap ultimate destiny through clever use of language. Myers's
propriate for academic, school, and professional texts. text, thus, unfolds where AAL and African American
In the next section of this article, Iwrite something histories merge.
of a "traditional" history of the details of the distinct
African American rhetorics that shape Myers's book. In
a subsequent
The Great Migration as African American
section, narrative sequencing will func
tion as the way to tell Myers's story. Narrative
Myers's text about the blues uses the rhetoric of the mi
gration narrative tomove forward. Willis (1989), Carby
(1989), Griffin (1995), Scruggs (1993), and Rodgers
Make ItDo What ItDo: (1997) have all written extensively about the migra
tion narrative as a distinct form and genre in African
Understanding Literature, History,
American literature that emerged from the sociohis
and Rhetorics by Reading the Blues
torical moment of the Great Migration. The very travel
and The Blues of Flats Brown and-blues motif of Myers's text represents the Great
The blues is an articulation of the reciprocal relation the Great Migration,
Migration. During usually delin
ship that occurs between the political, economic, and eated by the years 1900 and 1930, almost 2 million
social struggles of African American masses and a African Americans left their homes in the South and
unique cultural expressivity. Thus, the blues is also moved to the North for new jobs and life opportuni
a cultural ethos that shapes the work of even visual ties (Harrison, 1991; also examined in Jerry Pinkney's
artists. Painter and muralist Aaron Douglas, for ex [2004] children's book, God Bless the Child). Instead of
ample, paired ?Needs a Dime for Beer with Langston the "promised land" that it had been made out to be,
Hughes's blues poem "Down an' Out" in a 1926 issue of the North offered the same kinds of racism that African
Opportunity magazine (Powell, 1989, pp. 20-25). In his Americans thought they had fled. The worst jobs went
1929 painting Blues, Archibald J. Motley Jr. used blues to them?blast furnace jobs, metal foundry work, and
people as his content, message, and inspiration (Powell, janitorial and cleaning positions (Ringer, 1983). White
p. 26). A brief list of novels and poetry that represent a ethnic unions treated them unequally or excluded them
blues aesthetic includes Langston Hughes's "Blues I'm outright (as referenced in Faith Ringgold's [1991] chil
Playing," The Weary Blues, and Not Without Laughter; dren's book Tar Beach). Locked out of labor unions,
"The Blues Dog You Ever Heard Of": African American Blues Rhetoric 361
Playingest (Re)positioning Literacy Through

African Americans were often used as strikebreakers, American literature: Richard Wright's (1940) Native
who bore the brunt of striking white laborers' anger Son in the years after the Harlem Renaissance, Ralph
and violence, as was the case in East St. Louis in 1917 Ellison's (1952) Invisible Man after World War II, and
when white immigrant factory workers killed 125 peo Toni Morrison's work after the Civil Rights and Black
ple, mostly African Americans (Marks, 1989). The irony Power movements.
is that blacks migrated to escape the violence of the

South, especially and met a similar
Rewriting of Jim Crow's Southern
lynchings, yet they
brutality in the North. The legal system was no more
on the side of African Americans in the North than
Brutalities and New Northern Realities
it had been in the South, where Jim Crow and Lynch The seemingly unending brutality of Flats's owner, AJ.
Law ruled (Royster, 1997; Wells-Bar nett, 1892, 1895). Grubbs, can be compared with the Jim Crow brutality
In places like Chicago, deed restrictions of white southern racism that marked the post-Eman
and housing
contracts were used to bar African Americans from al cipation era. Flats writes a song about Grubbs called
most all of the new housing built in the early 1900s; "Gritty Grubbs Blues," which could almost be a follow
meanwhile, whites who lived on the borderlines of over up to the actual satirical song "Raise a Ruckus Tonight"
that was popular at that historical moment (as repro
crowded African American ghettoes resorted to arson
duced in Hill, 1997):
and bomb attacks to intimidate, with police doing little
to intervene (Jimoh, 2002). In the late 1910s and early
My ol' missus promise me,
1920s, race riots, lynchings, and arson were used to When she die she set me free.
keep blacks away from white neighborhoods and other Lived so long her haid got ball,
white social spots. In Chicago, a black youth was killed Give up the notion of dying at all. (p. 216)
for crossing into the whites-only section of a beach at
Lake Michigan (Griffin, 1995); similar incidents were A disagreement with Grubbs marks the first aspect of
repeated in communities like Greenwood in Tulsa and the migration narrative as it becomes the central event
Harlem in New York and in cities like Rosewood and that propels Flats north.
Elaine (E.M. Goodwin, 1990; Griffin, 1995; Trotter, True to the story of migration captured in books
1991). Nevertheless, migration continued to trickle into like Adero's (1993) collection, Up South: Stories, Studies,
the 1970s, shifting the locus of African American cul and Letters of This Century's African American Migrations,
ture from the South to the North and from rural to ur the northern promised land does not keep all of its
ban (Grossman, 2000). promises. Flats's blues rhetoric must convey that reality
In The Blues of Flats Brown, the dog Flats, the main also. Flats does experience some freedom in the North,
character, can no longer stay anywhere in the South but for two reasons it is only relative: First, Grubbs can
because his boss/owner, AJ. Grubbs, will always op oppress him in the North just as he did in the South;
press him; he has no choice but tomigrate to the North second, racist employment practices in the North limit
along with his music. As he travels, Flats uses the blues Flats's opportunities, as is evident in his lyrics about
to make sense of his migrating reality, much as Davis New York:
(1998) argued was the case for bluesmen. As Davis not
I got the New York City Blues, far from down home blues
ed, this migration was a gendered phenomenon, and so
(I said) I got the New York City, far from home blues
Myers rightly creates a male character for this text: a
Ain't in no union, but I sure done paid my dues
traveling bluesman.5
Flats's travel can be seen as a mirror to Paul
Here, Flats uses a traditional
blues composition: two
Laurence Dunbar's (1902/1970) novel The Sport of the almost identical first lines, with a new third line that
Gods, the first migration novel, as this kind of narrative
rhymes (Gilyard & Wardi, 2004, p. 453). Placing Flats's
has four moments: (1) a central event that propels the classic blues in reference to the Great Migration along
text or character to the North, (2) details of a confron
side a commentary on life in the city marks a particular
tation with the new urban North, (3) descriptions of
historical, literary, and rhetorical moment for African
how life in the North was survived, and (4) a vision of
Americans. Myers's language here is not simply gram
new possibilities (Griffin, 1995). Thus, the structure of
it is history and political
mar, dialect, and vocabulary;
the migration narrative in African American literature is
ethos?everything that rhetoric conveys.
akin to the crossroads phenomenon. Griffin (1995) re
minds us that migration narratives exist also in music,
for The South as Person, Place, and Time
poetry, and painting. The painter Jacob Lawrence,
tells this same story with his fa Flats, after experiencing some small measure of free
example, consciously
mous Migration Series. Griffin argues further that three dom in the North, goes back to the South despite the
dominant narratives have influenced African brutality of his history there. In their discussion of
migration

song lyrics, Gilyard and Wardi (2004) include Arrested emergence. In the 1930s, Dorsey became involved with
"Tennessee," a song with a parallel Chicago's African American Protestant churches, where
Development's
theme about returning, spiritually and physically, to his background in the blues merged with his compos
the South. The South often gets marked in this way as a ing and singing and gave birth to today's gospel music
type of psychological motherland (Jones, 1998; Killens (Harris, 1992).
& Ward, 1992; Steptoe, 1991). This is certainly the case
for Flats, so much so that he (and the narrator) don't
even care if you don't know Flats today, as Flats chooses Worrying the Line: (Re)sounding the
not to become famous but to go back South instead. Spirituals With Gospel and Jazz/Blues
In this children's book, you hear what Spirituals, which are closely connected to the blues,
Killens (1992)
are also central in Myers's text. The connections that
called a "Black Down-Southern voice":
Myers makes between the blues, the Great Migration,
is a Black Southern a voice that is
spirituals, and religion are also deeply rooted in African
[T]here literary tradition,
and distinct from other in the coun
special, profound, any American cultural and historical experiences. The Great
try. It is a voice, more often than not, that is distinguished
Migration was as much a religious or redemption move
by the quality of its anger, its righteous indignation, its real
ment as it was an economic and cultural movement
ity, its truthfulness. It is a voice that speaks and
eloquently,
for (Sernett, 1997). Southern migrants ended up changing
artistically, change, (p. 1)
the religious landscape of northern cities by increasing
the membership of established churches and starting
Thus, the kind of complex dialectic between the spo
their own churches, particularly storefronts. Migrants
ken and the written means that "Black southern voices
are richly textured and sonorous came to cities with their own cultural resources and
in the oral traditions
and no less eloquent and compelling in the literate ways of worship. With these religious changes also
came a change in sacred music: It is at this time that
traditions" (Ward, 1992, p. 5). The African American
oratorical quality of Myers's text allows him to manifest gospel music was born. Gospel became the leading style
of the South. of sacred music in black American communities after
representations
The South is also represented in the names of World War II and represented how race, faith, and iden
Flats's the character Blind Buddy tity became central questions in 20th-century African
costars, including
who is the of the American life (Jackson, 2004). Myers's characters move
Doyle, "King Country Blues." (Myers's
reference to country blues alludes to a specific genre in and out of tent revival meetings as they leave the
of the blues and a specific social and cultural reality South, such that their migration also becomes a journey
for the African Americans who were connected to it.) through the spirituals, blues (country and urban), and
Myers's characters, whose names appear at first glance gospel.

to be charming nicknames, The number of spirituals created after the
signify a very specific his
and a cultural location in which African American Emancipation Proclamation is small, but spirituals lived
tory
on through the blues. As Jimoh (2002) has
bluesmen and blueswomen were ritually named. By argued, the
1924, recordings in the genre called the "Down Home body of spirituals is the story of the African American
Blues" (what we might even call the musical-ancestral journey from slavery to freedom; the blues is the story of
home of today's Dirty Dirty South in hip hop) started the second journey and struggle for freedom after slav
to sell, with Papa Charlie Jackson's hit "Lawdy, Lawdy ery. The crucial point of difference in the two genres is
Blues" (Southern, 1997). After that, the stage was set for in the way that group and individual identities are lived
and expressed. The blues emphasizes more individual
things like Memphis Minnie's songs "Bumble Bee" and
"Weary Woman Blues"; feature performances for black ity given the relative freedom experienced after eman
audiences from characters like John Lee, "Sonny Boy" cipation, but the blues still denotes collective struggle,
Williamson, and Big Bill Broonzy, who played at house as the spirituals did, given African Americans' contin
parties, juke joints, and rent parties (as blacks were not ued disappointment with pain, racism, and oppression
allowed in places like the Cotton Club); Blind Lemon (Jimoh, 2002). The singular pronoun ? exists in both
Jefferson's songs, such as "Broke and Hungry" and spirituals and blues, but it actually means the collective
"Penitentiary Blues"; and collaborations between folks we: "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen," "I'm
Going
like Tampa Red and Barrelhouse Tom Dorsey that re Back toMy Used To Be," "I've Been Buked and I've Been
sulted in rather risqu? pieces like "It'sTight Like That." Scorned," "I Be's Troubled."
Barrelhouse Tom, also known as Georgia Tom, was the have had a powerful
Spirituals history. African
pianist, composer,and arranger for prominent blues American slave communities used these songs to rework
Ma he became the fa to reflect an African aesthetic
singers, including Rainey. Later, Christianity alongside the
ther of gospel music (Jimoh, 2002, pp. 48-53), an indi political longings of "a people in bondage"; today, these
cation of the interrelatedness of the blues and gospel's songs represent "the space of modern-day psychological,

economic, and physical oppression" (Cummings & narrative is a smaller portion of that larger genre in that
Latta, 2003, pp. 62-63; see also Levine, 1977; Lovell, these tales center on recounting the experiences of slav
1986). In spirituals, stories are told in an Africanized ery and the adventurous escape north (Bland, 1999).
is redefined in direct con the a time when the abolitionist movement
English, where spirituality By 1830s,
trast to the dominant culture's Christianity, which does was growing, the fugitive slave narrative was one of
not recognize itself as compromised the most popular genres of American writing. By 1865,
though its believers
enslaved other human beings (Jimoh, 2002). Myers uses about 6,000 of these narratives, published and unpub
the rhetoric of spirituals alongside the blues to histori lished, were being circulated to invigorate the antislav
cize the lived realities of African American masses at ery campaigns of the time and to provide true stories
the time of the Great Migration. of "action and adventurous escape against monumental
As with spirituals, the blues uses odds" for northern white audiences (Bland, 1999, p. 29).
"traveling phras
es" (Jimoh, 2002, p. 23). Cummings and Latta (2003) These "Black messages inside a white envelope" (Gates
called this "a certain dynamic that exists & McKay, 1997, p. 133) were not merely descriptions
redundancy"
within African American sacred musical texts (p. 57). of a horrific reality in relation to a specific social and
This means that popular phrases from another song or political moment; they were also a specific form, genre,
the social surroundings are used over and over again and structure of American writing. The escape-journey
in different The of "worrying the motif was a strategic device that allowed formerly en
songs. philosophy
slaved Africans to create a sense of order and progres
line"?taking a phrase and repeating itwith variations
a different sion that may not otherwise have existed for them. The
in inflection, sound, or pitch?means idea
journey also represents a dislocation from family, ances
will be produced by reusing the same materials, shifting
tral home, or stability and creates a feeling of the sepa
and subverting meanings. Wall (2006) saw the blues
ration and disenfranchisement that African Americans
as a vernacular music, and its textual strategy of wor
faced. Yet, at the same time, the journey itself suggests
rying the line is also a central textual strategy of black
new possibilities and a faith that America can live up to
women writers who subvert, revise, and extend liter
its dream for all citizens (Bland, 1999, pp. 30-35).
ary traditions by resounding oral, visual, and written
records from history their texts. The body
In Myers's text, Flats is humanized by his escape to
throughout the North. During that journey, he crafts a language, sto
of wandering verses in the spirituals also comes from
For the blues, migrat ry, and song about his unique experience. This is a dis
hymns and camp-song meetings. tinct marker and purpose of the larger world of African
ing words (so to speak) come from other songs as well
American literature and language that Myers provides
as from sounds and lyrics of actual experiences: travel
to a seemingly simple and quaint dog who, doggone it,
ing on freight trains, field hollers that originated dur
wants to the blues. Flats Brown stands out as
sorrow just play
ing slavery, shouts and songs of street vendors, an individual because of his blues improvisations but,
songs, spirituals, and mourning songs of levee and oth at the same time, he is literally incorporated into a com
er workers (Southern, 1997). In the case of Flats Brown,
munity?the human family in this case.
the very sounds of freight trains and all the places that
he has traveled through become part of the country
blues that he plays for Blind Buddy Doyle. These are not Tricksters and Trickstering Language
this is African American blues rhetoric. Myers's use of dogs as characters is linked to another
coincidences;
The lyrics from the spirituals are also carried over into important tradition: Dogs in this book are archetypal
Flats's blues (which you can hear on the musical CD tricksters. Gates (1988) has called the presence of a
that accompanies the book). trickster motif one of the
fundamental terms for order that the Black enslaved brought
Defining African American Histories

with them from Africa, and maintained through the mne
monic devices to oral literature...a sign of the dis
With Fugitive Escape Narratives wholeness
peculiar
of an African of meaning and
rupted system
Flats's escape to the North followed by Myers's use of belief that Black slaves recreated from memory, preserved
a spiritual in the text hint at fugitive slave narratives. oral narration, upon in ritual?especially in
by improvised
Slave narratives were not the only writings published by their rituals of the repeated oral narrative, (pp. 4-5)
African Americans in the United States before the Civil
War, but they are the most dominant. The slave narra A trickster need not be human and seems to be able
tive opened up a critical space for African Americans to outwit anyone?and, of course, it is what the trick
to bring a collective identity and definition of black ster can do with language that makes all the difference
self-determination into a formal, verbal structure that (Gilyard & Wardi, 2004). Myers's anthropomorphizing
of an African American in his children's literature has very specific cul
would shape the foundation dogs
1969). The fugitive slave tural purposes (Burke & 2004). Although
literary tradition (Robinson, Copenhaver,

tricksterism is certainly not restricted to African songs_that_sample_george_clintons_atomic_dog).
In
American culture, it has roots in African oral traditions fact, the book starts much the way Clinton's song be
that survived the slave trade, where language and nar gins. Myers writes, "This here's the story of Flats Brown,
rative subverted oppressive racial and social hierarchies the blues playingest dog you ever heard of. If you ain't
(Gilyard & Wardi, 2004; Honeyghan, 2000; Roberts, never heard of Flats, that's okay because he probably
1989). In Myers's book, blues-playing dogs are new never heard of you neither." Myers has sampled Clinton
trickster types, improvised by the author through the right on the page here, setting up the tonal semantics
African American oratorical nature of the text. Myers's of his first sentence to match what is perhaps the most
main trickster, Flats, is a dog who can sing even the famous song by one of the most famous funkateers of
most horrible man into realizing his humanity. What black culture. This funk that Myers is sampling has
this blues-playing dog can do with his songs, with his its roots in what are called the Five Funk Dynasties:
language and lyrics, and with his guitar ruptures the the music of James Brown in the First Funk Dynasty
status quo?in this case his own oppression. of 1965; the emergence of large funk bands, such as
The dogs also become an archetype of the African Earth, Wind and Fire; The Commodores; and The Ohio
American creative artist who can transcend the bound Players, from 1972 to 1976; the P-Funk Dynasty of 1976
aries of form and blend genre, theme, structure, and to 1979, dominated Parliament/
by George Clinton's
experience to articulate African American history and Funkadelics; the dance music of 1980 to 1987, captured
culture. They represent a primacy that is given to the with groups such as The Time and Zapp and artists in
African American musician in fiction and poetry. Flats,
cluding Prince and Rick James; and, finally, the hip hop
the quintessential trickster, is also the quintessential nation of the late 1980s (Vincent, 1996). But the dogs
blues performer who experiences the pain of brutality, that this narrator tells us about are not funkateers; they
maintains his humanity, and transcends his experienc are bluesmen who play the music that is the precur
es with a comic lyricism. After all, what ismore comic sor of the funk the narrator
speaks through. Thus, by
than a dog who can play blues songs like "The Freaky the end of the first two sentences, Myers has given us a
Flea Blues" so deep and real for black audiences that introduction to African American rhetoric:
multilayered
start to itch? Even the black folks Flats and an animal trickster
they though signifyin, a narrator who uses call
Caleb meet down South may not know what it is like to response and other field-dependent strategies and even
have fleas, the hard times that these dogs express carry tricks the audience, and a storyline whose rhythmic me
forth the human connection, so much so that even the ter and tonal semantics incorporate a cross-section of
blind man can see it. black music genres.
Through Flats's blues, there is an awareness of pain Myers sets up the problem next.6 Way down some
and an ability to confront and move past the dirty, low where in Mississippi in a place called Mound Bayou, a
down meanness of life, represented by AJ. Grubbs. dog was born. That dog was Flats. His owner's name
Flats never loses hope, even when he is as thin as the was AJ. Grubbs, a man that "was so mean he didn't
rails he travels on to get away from the South. That dog even like himself. He had a little piece of mirror on the
just lets the blues come right on down and lift him back door of the hut he slept in and every time he saw his
up. Flats's blues-ness becomes African American iden face in it, he spit on it." Caleb was Grubb's other dog
tity, language, literary imagination, and, finally, a call and he was much older than Flats, who was still really
to live up to the ideals and promises of freedom and
just a teenager (ifwe count in dog years). Caleb was so
equality for all. old he already had real bad arthritis in his hip. Now, just
because Flats was a dog didn't mean that all he liked to
do was lay around, bark, and sniff around on trees and
dirt and stuff. This dog played the blues! He even had
Them Doggone Blues-Playingest
his own guitar, "an old National guitar and he could just
Dogs: A Story About a Story about make that thing sing!... Did I tell you he could
So what is this book, The Blues of Flats Brown, really? It is he could sing up a storm. You hear me?"
sing? Man,
a picture book about dogs, with an CD.
accompanying By the illustration in the second frame, we are intro
But these are not just any ole dogs, and these are no duced to the blues and a guitar that becomes a central
body's domestic pets. These are junkyard dogs that play character when it comes to life and sings as Flats starts
the blues. The only dogs that might even come close to to play. Making the guitar a character in the text is also
these blues-playing dogs are the clapping dogs, rhyth a central feature of what I call
Myers's African American
mic dogs, harmonic dogs?the dogs that George Clinton blues rhetoric. In the blues, the "bent" notes of a gui
immortalized in his song "Atomic Dog," which includes tar solo are
particularly meant to accent and capture
the most sampled rhythm hook of all time in black pop human moaning and, thus, take on human qualities
ular culture (Vincent, 1996; see www.fiql.com/playlists/ (Vincent, 1996). As Jones [Baraka] (1963) observes, it
"The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard Oi"\ African American Blues Rhetoric 365

is "the closest imitation of the human voice of any mu of rhyming; this is an aspect of African American rheto
sic" (p. 28). The narrator uses tonal semantics through rics (called semantic inversions) where words and their
word repetition to keep the ideas of a talking guitar and sounds are recombined to have dual meanings.
blues-playing dog in sharp focus and rhythm. What happens when Flats finally makes it to the
The narrator continues to move the story forward land, to with his He has an
promised Broadway guitar?
with the use of call and response. Myers's text ain't hard time in New York until he meets
incredibly City
just supposed to pass you by. The narrator is speaking Blind Buddy Doyle, the owner of a club where Flats is
directly to you, expecting a response to the call being to play. You see, Flats never saw nothing like
hoping
made throughout the story, a classic African American New York City before. When he first got there, he felt
rhetorical device. "as out of place as a three-legged skunk at a
funny-like,
Because Grubbs thinks he owns these dogs and can
Georgia hoe-down." By the time he found Blind Buddy
use them for profit, he decides to turn them into fighting the main man in town to see if you played them
Doyle,
dogs. Flats is a teenager and Caleb is old with that touch down-home country blues, Flats was about as skinny as
of arthritis in his hip, so Flats is the one he chooses. a toothpick. And hungry, too. He was nervous to play in
Flats and Caleb, however, do not experience themselves
front of someone as famous as Blind Buddy Doyle, but
as being owned and so they "Steal Away Home," to bor
he did his best. He just thought back on all the sounds
row from the African American spiritual. Myers's dogs of his home and played them like there was no tomor
explicitly use spirituals-inspired lyrics in their music, as row: "He played the sounds of the waterfront in Mound
in the opening of this song:
Bayou and the music from the little church down the
I been 'buked, and just as
steady scorned street from the junkyard. He played the lonely sounds
steady
I been steady 'buked, and just as
steady scorned of a freight train and the hot sounds of the Curley-Que.
Been beat up and chased down, since the Tuesday I was He really put his heart and soul in his playing." Blind
born
Buddy Doyle was so impressed with that music that
Flats played that Blind Buddy Doyle told Flats that he
(This song can be heard on the accompanying CD, be felt like he could seeeeee the music that Flats was play
cause what would a blues-playing dog look like not hav a blind man see. Ain't that
ing. That's right, Flats made
ing his own CD?) something?
When the dogs realize that they will be fighting New York is good to Flats after he meets Blind
dogs, Myers constructs his slave escape narrative. Flats but not for AJ. Grubbs catches up
Buddy Doyle, long.
just can't understand why AJ. Grubbs is so mean. Caleb, with Flats again, with Myers seemingly the
evoking
being the older and wiser dog, explains that Grubbs is
a Fugitive Slave Law: Despite the fact that he has made
simply "like the junk in that yard... Just throwed away
it North, Flats is still Grubbs' property and can be re
man." The dogs escape by crawling under the fence, and
claimed, just as the Fugitive Slave Law allowed southern
the story moves on to their becoming blues-traveling slave owners to reclaim their "property" in the North.
dogs. They play at black clubs like the Curley-Que in
Flats plays a special song for Grubbs called the "Gritty
the South, are welcomed by club-owners who have al
Grubbs Blues" about a man no one un
names like Shanty throwed-away
ready heard of them, go to cities with derstands or loves. Because that song, the blues of it,
Town, and make songs with titles like "The Bent Tail
touches Grubbs so much, Grubbs lets Flats go.
Blues," "The Freaky Flea Blues," and "The Bad Barking
You would think that Flats would have stayed in
Blues."
New York with all that money he was making. Shoot,
Grubbs, however, quickly finds Flats and Caleb and
he could have got filthy rich. But Flats wasn't really into
tries to claim them as his property, so the dogs must run
all that money and big living and stuff. He just wanted
faster and further?this time to Tennessee, where they
record "The Junkyard Heap." Unfortunately, they get
to be a blues-playing dog, not them kind of dogs in fur
run coats and fancy cars. So Flats packed up his guitar, put
caught again and just make it away from Grubbs,
tent revival until "some fried chicken in a cardboard suitcase," and left
ning down alleys, through meetings,
not be safe any New York for good. Nobody ever heard from Flats and
finally, the dogs realize that they will
where in the South. Caleb cannot make the trip North his music ever again. Every once in awhile though, peo
two
so Flats gets on the Midnight Special Train and goes
to ple from Savannah, Georgia, would talk about these
near the water. There
New York City alone. He is so sad to leave Caleb behind dogs that played the blues down
a song for him called "The Dog Gone was even a rumor that one could the some
that he writes play guitar
was talking
Long Gone Blues." Myers, of course, loves this kind of thing fierce, so fierce itwas like that guitar
alliterative word play central to African American tonal to you. The other dog was an old dog who "backed him
semantics. Doggone! In this case, there's really a dog up on the bones" when they played their favorite song,
gone here. But this ain't no Dr. Seuss-Hop-on-Pop type "The Freaky Flea Blues."

Now that might seem like a stretch for some people, distinct from this body of Myers's work inasmuch as
'cause you know some people don't really believe noth it is the vernacular alone that provides an intellectual
ing you tell them. Some people just may never believe history of the blues. It is not Myers's only book on mu
this story about Flats and Caleb. But I sho 'nuff do. Even sic aesthetics, and it is not his only book that exploits
got a new itch from those Freaky Flea Blues. Ain't you African American vernacular in urban settings, but it is
scratching, too? his only book that merges the two. The best accolade for
Myers's achievement with this book might come from
the crooning words of blueswoman Bessie Smith, when
she paid tribute to the unrecognized, genius bluesmen
AAL for Children's Literary of her time: You could make even "a king get down off
Education: The Case ofWalter his throne and he would break a leg, I know, by doin
Dean Myers the Charleston while you blow" (quoted in Davis, 1998,
Of the more than 5,000 children's books published in p. 127).
In each of Myers's books that exploits AAL, unique
1990, only 51 were written or illustrated by African
understanding forwhat it is and does emerges. The Blues
Americans. In her extensive treatments of Myers's life
and work, Bishop (1991) linked Myers to the land of Flats Brown provides a historical understanding of how
AAL works in and for the blues as black southern epis
mark period in the 1970s when writers of African de
temologies migrate to new northern, urban landscapes.
scent began to forge a new ethos in African American
children's literature (see also Collins, Meanwhile, Myers's texts that connect to contemporary,
1993; Hamilton,
black, urban landscapes have continually rewritten the
1972; Myers, 1979). Since the Civil Rights era, literary
artists such as Myers, Virginia Hamilton, 'hood as the "menace to society" (Vellucci, 1994). His
John Steptoe,
works arm young readers for the racial inequalities and
Eloise Greenfield, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, and
Lucille Clifton have crafted narratives of history and adversity that mark black life, making "the young Black
reader [a] testifying witness to and ex officio partici
identity, using African American rhetorics. AAL is not
used merely for dialogue but as the very structure and pant in the struggle" (Lane, 1998, p. 130). What Myers
theme of folklore, identity, cultural politics, and history achieves, then, with the character of Flats is a histori
cal interrogation of this urban condition via the Great
(Hamilton, 1981; Mikkelsen, 1998; Moss, 1985; Trites,
Migration and the conditions that led up to it, to which
1998). Thus, the "linguistic, musical, folkloric, and reli
the contemporary black urban condition is linked.
gious practices of common African Americans" (Gilyard,
2004, pp. 3-4) are the vernacular that exists as both
content and form. Works by these African American
authors marked a major cultural turning point in chil
AAL for Children's Literacy
dren's literature by providing images and histories of
African American culture and language that had not ex Education: The Case of Rhetoric
isted widely before (Johnson, 1990; Smith, 1994). Flats and his blues offer invaluable teachings about AAL,
Myers has issues related to African American literature, and African American
explored complex
African communities for and with young people since rhetorics where sociopolitical issues surrounding black
the 1970s: mysteries for young people that bring home identities and livelihoods are linguistically mapped.
the Easy Rawlins-type of detective stories written by Specific languages and histories live deep inside spiri
Walter Mosley; vivid accounts of the Vietnam War and tuals, the blues, funk, and fugitive slave narratives. The
World War II that intertwine his own autobiography Great Migration lives on through migration narratives
with historical
nonfiction; fantastic tales of dragons, that have their own distinct genres and content in mu
magic, treasure, and the black children who coexist sic and writing. Direct address, tonal semantics, direct
with them in amazing worlds; emotional and hilari ness, signifyin, and narrative sequencing create distinct
ous sagas of teens who navigate white supremacy at genres of music and code meshing in writing. Blues
the same time they celebrate themselves and African form, stories of tricksters, in-yo-face interactions with
American culture; voices of young men and women and an audience, and African Americanized notions of free
their triumphs and trials on the basketball court, base dom and struggle are just a few examples.
ball diamond, or gang turf and at the barbershop, mod Literacy researchers understand that literacy is
eling agency, or block party; historical investigations historically, socially, and politically situated, and they
that span slavery, the Amistad, life for black cowboys, use "a large discourse data base that includes rich and
and the experiences of African Americans in the Civil varied topical sets collected across a range of literacy
War; poetry and word plays with photo essays; bio events and settings" (Guti?rrez & Orellana, 2006, p.
graphical narratives from Malcolm X and Martin Luther 504). Yet literacy events and settings can never be fully
King Jr. to Muhammad Ali. The Blues of Flats Brown is described without a serious of the very
understanding

distinct cultural and political histories (and imagina and the trickster character: The weak can always as
tions) of a people. Every word, every character's name, sert themselves (and successfully so) against the strong;
every setting, and every plot turn that Myers makes ex power is never permanent or irrevocable, not even the
ists through AAL. power of standard English. Language is more than a
Myers's rhetorics are the lived experience of a dy mere reflection of an existing reality; it creates the real
namic culture and people, not a distant set of technical ity.Wright's (2003) argument has, perhaps, the most
abilities employed by a seasoned, practiced, success power for our teaching:
ful author and unattainable for AAL student writers.
Those groups that have suffered the most from the condi
As Garner and Calloway-Thomas (2003) have argued,
tions of marginalization and have the
disempowerment
there is an everyday rhetoric within African American
most to teach about the roles of language as as
ideology,
culture, "a culturally bound way of practicing and fram as as force, as weapon in the ongoing and
synergy, catalyst,
ing language, discourse, and patterns of behavior... for liberation. More than any other,
unrelenting struggle
rhetoric in its practical daily use" (pp. 44-46). We can African American rhetoric is rich in traditional forms of ex
get at what Garner and Calloway-Thomas were talking as well as in its variable transformations over time,
pression
about if respect for linguistic diversity and multicultural in response to the
changing character of domination and the
literature means that we critically understand the cul conditions of existence that it seeks to impose,
(p. 95)
tures and social worlds that have constructed languag
es, literatures, and literacies. This cannot happen when Ifwe are in favor of a language arts pedagogy that will
"standard" and "nonstandard" then itmakes sense that their cul
language varieties play empower students,
some kind of strange tug-of-war inwhich seemingly dif tural rhetorics should take center stage. Scholars such as
ferent registers are easily separable on opposite sides of Lee (1991, 1993, 1995, 2000, 2007) and Morgan (2002)
the rope. The presumed, mainstream norm inevitably have focused on and argued for the unique rhetorical
strong-arms ethnic rhetorics and literacies, which fall quality of AAL as it affects classroom instruction. In her
down somewhere in the tugging. How can you under work, Lee has shown that signifyin is a cultural code of
stand Myers's text inside of a standard-nonstandard meaning and way of analysis. When teachers fully un
its function, signifyin is a powerful tool from
binary? Of course, you can look at morphosyntactic derstand
structures: The standard-nonstandard which to scaffold critical reading strategies. Morgan has
binary explains
bits and pieces of a sentence, but it cannot illuminate the argued that a philosophy of language exists for black
way that the blues exists as genre, theme, and structure urban youth whose language, most notably in rap lyrics,
for the entire text. And what about the ways that Myers represents a kind of disposition toward continually ex
marks African American identity, culture, and history ploring and experimenting with standard grammatical
through a Great Migration story, blues lyrics, characters' patterns. Most important, Ball and Lardner (2005) have
names, a slave escape narrative, travel destinations, and pointed out that the "expectation that AAVE speakers
a black down-South voice? None of this language can must code switch to Standard English in their speak
and avoid the use of AAVE rhetorical styles in their
be categorized simply as nonstandard. And what about ing
this decidedly African American journey, told by a sig writing [is directly connected to] white privilege arbi
narrator, toward freedom and humanity for dog trating the 'codes of power' and the 'everyday racism' of
nifyin
trickster characters? How do we talk about all of that in white supremacy" (p. 37).
a standard English versus home language binary? The Today we know that many African American chil
spirituals,
the blues, migration narratives, slave narra dren enter kindergarten with a sense of identity and lit
tives (and Myers's own history as an African American erate agency connected to African American rhetorics
children's book writer who emerged from the 1960s so via rhyming games, songs, he-say-she-say instigating,
cial justice movement) all speak powerfully to the real quick wit, word plays, improvisations, and signifyin
can alter old conditions abilities
ity of African Americans who (M.H. Goodwin, 1990; Hale-Benson, 1982;
by rhetorically creating new possibilities and worlds. Heath, 1983; Richardson, 2003; Taylor & Dorsey
Whether we are talking about blues or slave narratives, Gaines, 1988; Vernon-Feagons, 1996). We do know
these languages and literacies are always worrying the what they do with African American rhetorics; now we
line, adhering to old traditions of a dominant culture just need to match those rhetorics. At the least, when
at the same time they are sounding something new, in you hear uncomplicated discussions about standard
venting something brand new. and nonstandard language varieties that do not meet
multilingualism or multidialectalism to at the crossroads, when you hear about AAL without
Confining
the stranglehold of (economic) success in the real world sophisticated representations of those histories and cul
according to current power configurations actually goes tural rhetorics as code meshings, you can think back on
against the very discursive and curricular messages of today's story about that blues-playing dog Flats Brown.
spirituals, the blues, slave and migration narratives, Don't let amean, gritty Grubbs-type of ideology inhibit

use of the term hybridized texts speaks to these polemics in the way
you. Like the narrator tells you, some people have not
that Grobman (2003) has defined them. The construct of hybridity
believed in new possibilities. So when you face them,
places "unequal relations of power" at the center of my discus
just be like Flats: Don't you never mind all that. In the sion "but does not posit text as exclusively a result of one culture's
end, folks like Flats's narrator will always remember and dominance or imposition on another" (Grobman, 2003, p. 22).
5
go out to spread the word, the rhythm, and the rhyme. In the early 1920s, New Orleans musicians migrated north after
clubs in the Storyville area were closed. Chicago became a focal
Notes point, where musicians including Earl Hines, Johnny Dodds, Louis
1 Armstrong, and King Oliver performed. New York City was an
AAL is currently a term, though African American
widely accepted other
focal point, where the first piano style was incorporated into
Vernacular English (AAVE) is still quite popular; other terms in
jazz, developed from ragtime. The city was also the center of the
clude Black English and Ebonics, both of which reflect different
music publishing business and the work of Fletcher Henderson,
political ideas. Redd and Webb (2005) engaged in a very teacher
who put together a band Coleman Hawkins and Don
directed discussion of the polemical issues these featuring
surrounding Redman that first at the Cotton Club in 1923. When
terms: appeared
"Black English encompasses all English-speaking Blacks and
Henderson brought Louis Armstrong from Chicago, the band
denotes this speech as a dialect of English; Ebonics encompasses
became a in the swing era.
full-fledged jazz group and ushered
the multitudes of languages spoken across the African Diaspora? Duke moved to New York from Washington,
Ellington D.C., in the
the Caribbean, the Americas, and Africa; and African American
early 1920s, as did Clarence Williams. In the late 1920s, Kansas
Language suggests that such speech is a language and not a dialect"
City's Bennie Moten Band and Walter Page's Blue Devils formed in
(p. 17). Crawford (2001) and Makoni et al. (2003) present thor
Oklahoma City and evolved into the Count Basie Orchestra. Other
ough discussions of these issues from scholars across the African
cities witnessing the in-movement of jazz were St. Louis, Memphis,
diaspora. and Detroit
2 (Charters & Kunstadt, 1981; Morgan & Barlow, 1992;
Narrative sequencing has been one of the most highly discussed
Schuller, 1986).
aspects of African American children's discourse styles in elemen 6
This part of the article employs narrative I tell the
often referred to as topic-associated that interspersion.
tary classrooms, styles
story of the book as a set of stories inside this article.
include "implicitly associated personal anecdotes" (Michaels,
1981, p. 423). Edwards and McMillon (2000) have also pointed
to the ways that African American children are still stigmatized
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"The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard of": (Re)positioning Literacy through African

American Blues Rhetoric

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an analysis ofWalter Dean Myers's

356 Research 43(4) pp. 356-373 ? 2008 International Reading Association

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358 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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Call-response and field-dependent strategies,

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360 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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is that blacks migrated to escape the violence of the

362 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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Myers's characters, whose names appear at first glance gospel.

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that accompanies the book). trickster motif one of the

fundamental terms for order that the Black enslaved brought

Defining African American Histories

364 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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366 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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368 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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University Press. K. (1991). Voices of the self: A study of language competence.

370 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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37(2), 96-114. administrators (pp. 207-224). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

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372 Reading Research Quarterly 43(4)

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Ward, J. (1992). Foreword. InJ.O. Killens &J. Ward (Eds.), Black

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