So Much Slips Through Black Fingers

‘Calling out around the world, are you ready for a brand new beat?”

- Martha and the Vandellas

It’s been 40 years now since the “brand new beat” was born.

Forty years since sharkskin suits, pomaded curls and beehive ‘dos that stabbed the sky. Forty years since sweet sugar met raw rhythm and soul music was born. Forty years since a song by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles ignited a fire called Motown.

Forty years. And, as is usually the case on such occasions, we find ourselves gathered here, looking for legacy. Accordingly, ABC will roll out a two-part special beginning Sunday night on ABC: “Motown 40: The Music Is Forever.” Of course, the music is the easy part. Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder … if no one ever speaks another word on their behalf, their immortality is still assured.

But other record companies have produced immortals and none of those companies holds the public imagination the way Motown does. That’s because Motown isn’t just a record company. Hasn’t been for a long time.

Rather, it’s the smell of a Detroit that no longer is, an aphorism about riches and rags, a snapshot from days when black people were steeped in a sense of hope that seems alien to these faster, coarser times. Moreover, it’s a story whose moral we have yet to truly understand, much less pass on.

I felt that when I visited the company’s birthplace summer before last. Drove the poor tour guide crazy, asking her to show me the exact spot where David Ruffin stood when he sang, “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.” And from what corner of the room did the Temptations contribute that airtight harmony? And were these the same floor boards that were stomped upon to create the marching effect on “Where Did Our Love Go?” the first hit by the Supremes.

The guide, who I’d guess was in her early 20s, didn’t know the answers. I don’t think she even understood why I asked the questions.

Too young, I think. For her, Motown would be a distant echo from the heat and hope of civil rights years - the theme music for integration’s army. An army that lost its battle.

So, what does Motown mean - if, indeed, it still means anything? If the music is just an old sweet song and the assimilation it presaged never quite happened, why should any of this still matter? Granted, Motown opened doors, made possible a Whitney Houston - black artist with a largely white fan base.

But I think Motown’s greatest contribution goes beyond even that. Think about it: A depressed neighborhood in a declining city yielded a sound that rocked glitter palaces a world away. Motown reminded us that there are diamonds in the dirt.

African Americans need that reminder more than most. We have become too used to thinking of ourselves as the poorest of the poor; we often forget to value what we do have and to exploit it for our own benefit.

That’s the lesson of Motown; Berry Gordy dared to love black genius and to think others might love it, too. He found black talent from around the way and sold it around the world. Forty years later, his example stands as both reminder and rebuke: We have power we don’t use, opportunities we fail to exploit.

Blacks are a primary engine of American pop culture, but a back bumper of the wealth that culture generates.

We invent a fashion but white guys manufacture the clothes. We play a game but white guys own the team. We conceive a music but white guys market the CDs. We create a catch phrase but white guys make the T-shirts.

I don’t scorn white guys for this. In capitalism, if you snooze, you lose. So the onus is upon black people to stop snoozing. To scratch the dirt where we live and learn to identify and exploit the diamonds found shining there.

Every day we don’t do that costs us more than money.

Leaving Motown that day, I drove streets where Miracles once happened. Found cracked sidewalks, filthy yards, shuttered buildings and a pervasive sense of emptiness, as of a place abandoned by strivers, forsaken by dreams - a place filled only with waiting.

It struck me that black people could use a little more of what Motown had.

Aren’t we ready for a brand new beat?

xxxx