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In reply to the discussion: Prom dress prompts 'cultural appropriation' row [View all]cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)I play the banjo, and have learned that it has a really complex history and relationship with racial and cultural identity. It's ancestors are a family of very old instruments from West Africa, recreated by slaves in America, but the modern form was invented barely 200 years ago by a white man. It was hugely popular all through the 19th century among blacks and whites, but through minstrel shows, became part of the whole ugly "fried chicken and watermelon" caricature of rural black life. In the 20th century, it all but disappeared from American cultural life, except for a tiny pocket of Appalachia, which developed a really rich musical culture around it. Then it was rediscovered by the rest of America, this time tied to a bunch of ugly stereotypes about white rural life.
So in the span of a couple hundred years it's been a "black" traditional instrument, and a "white" traditional instrument, and it's carried more than its fair share of baggage over the years. But ultimately, it's become part of the fabric of American music, and we would be poorer had people stuck to some artificial boundary about which culture it belonged to.
Similar stories for the harmonium in Pakistan/ N. India, or the ukulele and pedal steel guitar in Hawaii.