{"id":56673,"date":"2018-07-29T01:04:28","date_gmt":"2018-07-29T01:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56673"},"modified":"2018-07-29T22:52:55","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T22:52:55","slug":"interview-white-people-are-so-fragile-bless-em-meet-rhiannon-giddens-banjo-warrior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56673","title":{"rendered":"Interview: ‘White people are so fragile, bless ’em’ \u2026 meet Rhiannon Giddens, banjo warrior"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview: ‘White people are so fragile, bless ’em’ \u2026 meet Rhiannon Giddens, banjo warrior<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2018-07-23<\/p>\n

Emma John<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\u2018I\u2019m<\/a>
\n\u2018I\u2019m not here to be famous\u2019 \u2026 Rhiannon Giddens<\/a>, who is curating the Cambridge folk festival<\/a>. Photograph: Tanya Rosen-Jones<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

She pours fire and fury into powerful songs that target everything from police shootings to slavery. The musician reveals all about her mission to put the black back into bluegrass<\/a> \u2013 and Shakespeare<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re all racist to some degree,\u201d says Rhiannon Giddens<\/a>. \u201cJust like we\u2019re all privileged to some degree. I have privilege in my system because I\u2019m light-skinned. I hear people say, \u2018I didn\u2019t have it easy growing up either.\u2019 But when did it become a competition?\u201d<\/p>\n

As someone on a mission to bridge such divides, Giddens thinks about this stuff a lot. The Grammy-winning singer and songwriter was born to a white father and a black mother in Greensboro, North Carolina<\/a>, in the late 1970s. Her parents married only three years after the landmark Loving v Virginia<\/em><\/a> decision, which reversed the anti-miscegenation laws that had made interracial marriage illegal. Their union was still shocking enough that her father was disinherited.<\/p>\n

While much has changed in the 40 years that Giddens has been alive, her latest album, Freedom Highway<\/em><\/a>, is a powerful testament to the inequality and injustice that remain. It opens with At the Purchaser\u2019s Option<\/em><\/a>, a devastating track inspired by an 1830s advert for a female slave whose nine-month-old baby could also be included in the sale. \u201cIt was kind of a statement to put that one first,\u201d says Giddens. \u201cIf you can get past that, you\u2019ll probably survive the rest.\u201d…<\/p>\n