Kara & Michael’s Blog

I was walking through the New Carrollton (Maryland) metro station yesterday, on my way to catch the bus home. As I passed through the station, I could hear music, and on exiting the station I could see the source of the music: There was a young smartly-dressed man playing jazz saxophone against a backing track from a boombox. He was, in my humble opinion, pretty good. Next to him was a sign indicating that the performance was sponsored by the Prince George’s Arts Council or something of the sort.

You don’t commonly get live music at metro stations outside of DC, and inside the city they’re usually asking for money. But no one could have paid this man if they wanted to — he was quite obviously not accepting donations.

As I stood waiting for my bus, I began to take notice of the way people reacted to this man’s presence. About half of the people flowing out of the metro station took no notice of him at all. Of the other half, many reacted positively. They accumulated in a little crowd around him. Some people even took a few pictures. There was a general tapping of feet going on. The remaining group of people, however, scowled at the man. Many of them pushed their headphones deeper into their ears to drown him out. How dare he interrupt their prepackaged music with the real thing?

Maybe I’m a strange person, but I’d rather listen to practically anything live than prerecorded. I happen to like jazz, but I see that as less important. What I couldn’t shake from my mind was that about a quarter of the people leaving the station were angry that somebody was trying to brighten their day with happy sax.

I stood and watched for five minutes or so, vaguely conscious that something was still bothering me. By the time my bus arrived, I had figured out what it was: the people who had scowled at the saxophonist were all white. Every last one of them that I noticed, and I’d like to think I was being fairly observant. The assembled crowd was a pretty varied group, but everyone who had walked by irritated was white.

Was it because the saxophonist was black? Was it because jazz is strange inaccessible black-person-music? Or can white people just not stand having their solitude invaded, even in such an obviously pleasant manner?

–Michael