Anthems, Pledges and Change (E)

0:00Through the perilous fight O 'er the ramparts we watched Were so gallantly streaming And the rockets' red glare Hey, it's Arov, and this is a special archived episode of Akimbo.

0:41Fifty years ago, Aretha Franklin, the late, great Aretha Franklin, was the most successful American musician in the country. She was on a tear that had lasted more than a year, one hit after another. So having her perform the national anthem at the 1968 Democratic Convention was a little bit of a coup. After the anthem was broadcast, however, the voices came out of the woodwork. She crucified the song and tore my heart to shreds, wrote one newspaper reporter. Here's another one from editor David Shuler in Mississippi. Quote, the national anthem was tossed around as so much garbage when soul sister Aretha Franklin jazzed it up beyond the realm of the musicians.

1:35On September 2nd, 1968, the Orlando Sentinel wrote, I am ashamed as an American. Our national anthem can soar like an eagle. Why must it be subjected to barnyard bop rendition? Why all the hatred? Was it just about Aretha? A few months later, Jose Feliciano, who was also a hit musician, an American from Puerto Rico, blind from birth, had a top 10 single based on The Doors' Light My Fire.

2:21Having him perform the national anthem at the World Series also seemed like a coup. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Please rise and join in the singing of our national anthem, which will be played by Merle Alvey's band and will be sung by Jose Feliciano.

2:45Oh, see, can you see Why the dawn's early light Was so bright You've probably already guessed what happened. Aretha Franklin hadn't quite cleared the way for Jose Feliciano and those that followed. there was outrage. All of a sudden, Tony Kubek, who was one of the announcers, comes up to me and he says, Do you realize what you've just done? And I said, No. He said, You have created a commotion here. Veterans were throwing their shoes at the television, and the switchboard really got deluged by calls. I mean, you've created a real stir here. But after that happened, everything that I was doing was stopped.

3:39Radio stations stop playing my records. Fast forward a dozen or so years into the future, and it's the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. Larry O 'Brien, the commissioner of the NBA, is sort of freaking out. They've asked Marvin Gaye to sing the national anthem, but that's mostly because Lionel Richie, who had an even bigger hit at the time, didn't resonate with the people who were picking the singer. So Marvin Gaye it was. But the day before, Larry O 'Brien, feeling a little bit off-put by the style of music, instructs the Lakers to start looking for a backup. Fortunately for history, Marvin Gaye saunters in at the last minute and performs a rendition of the National Anthem that electrifies the people in the room.

4:41What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last Everyone was thrilled. Everyone, that is, except for Larry O 'Brien and those like him. So what is it about the national anthem that gets people so upset? Well, there are three kinds of people in the world. Actually, that's not true. There are three kinds of people in every community, three kinds of people in every area of interest, at every event, three kinds of people. One kind of person doesn't want things to change. They've been sitting in the same seat at Yankee Stadium since it was built. They go to the baseball game because baseball doesn't change.

5:33The second kind of person, the masses, they want to do what everybody else is doing. And the third kind of person, the early adopter, the neophyte, the neophiliac, they're looking for something that's new. And one way we can define a cultural touchstone, a place, an event, is by the percentage of the three that are in the room. So if you go to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is a shadow of its former self, it is filled to the top with people who want to know what's new. And part of the reason the trade show isn't what it used to be is because the internet brings us what's new every day, not just once a year in Las Vegas.

6:19People don't want to save up their new for a trade show. They blurt it out as soon as they're ready. So the Consumer Electronics Show filled with neophiliacs. Then the mass market. So, for example, if you listen to America's Top 40 on the radio or watch CBS, you're probably going to see a program director who's obsessed with the masses. That the reason you're listening or watching is to see what everybody else is seeing. And then you've got events and organizations and moments where most of the people there are laggards. They want it to stay the same. And it turns out that anthems and pledges are a really good place to find this sort of person.

7:09And what about the pledge to the flag? Another bastion of laggard, let's not change it, thought. Well, like most new ideas, it came from the outside. A socialist preacher decided about 100 years ago that the nation could use a pledge that we could all begin with. Interesting to note that it contradicted the pledge that the Daughters of the American Revolution had embraced. But over time, working from the outside with people who were looking for something new and possibly better, it became embraced by people who wanted to be part of the masses. It also came with its own salute, a salute that most people don't remember, a salute that looks an awful lot like the Nazi salute.

8:00So that was dropped. Then, in the wake of the communist scare of the 1940s and 50s, Dwight D. Eisenhower was persuaded to add the words under God to the pledge because it was thought this would be a great way to fight communism. Or perhaps, as author Kevin Cruz has argued, it was part of the long-term plan for corporate America to align itself with patriotism and religion. I think that's a little bit of a stretch. The point being, from its beginning, a pledge, like an anthem, has to be embraced by people who like things the regular way. That's what it's for. What it's for is that you can go to a new town, to a new meeting, to a new event, and know that that pledge, that anthem, is going to be the way it's supposed to be.

9:02And over time, this idea of the way it's supposed to be goes beyond words or rhythm or meter or key. It starts to be, well, that person doesn't look like me. Well, this organization doesn't do things the way I want them done. That person's background, that person's rhythm, that person's voice, that person's ability or disability, that makes me uncomfortable. So I'm going to retreat into this thing that was supposed to be the way things are supposed to be. Don't go near it, because I don't want things to change. This idea that people are clumped together certainly affects media companies. Reader's Digest has been in a slow, gradual, inexorable decline for 35 years.

9:54And the reason is simple. It's a magazine for people who don't want things to change. Every year, the average age of the Reader's Digest reader goes up by one, until there are no readers left. There are other media publications that were designed for neophiliacs, like Blender Magazine, a magazine for new music lovers. But of course, living on that frothy edge of innovation is also fraught with a challenge. Because when the media changes, it's really hard to leap at just the right moment to keep up with these neophiliacs. The other problem media companies face, of course, is that as people get older, they get more comfortable with the culture they're used to.

10:41And so you have to keep replacing them with the new ones, with the people who want the new. So what to do with this information? Once you can see that these groups of people clump up, that the neophiliacs like to hang out, that certain places are filled with folks seeking other folks, and that some places, cultural institutions and ideas are surrounded by people who defend them from any change at all. Well, what do we do with that? Perhaps there are three things that we can take away. The first one is this. If you desire to make change, it is way easier to go to the neophiliacs. Go to people who want to hear from you.

11:26Go to people who are enrolled in the journey. find places where those people hang out, where they are eagerly looking for change to happen. Number two, if you make a mistake and you're in the wrong place, and this happened to me in 1994 when I went to raise venture capital for the internet company I was starting, before really there was much of an internet. And I'm sitting in a meeting with three or four very successful venture capitalists. And they are telling me that their home run was when they helped fund Federal Express decades earlier. That Federal Express is their gold standard. Did I have any Federal Express kind of ideas for them?

12:13Well, even though they called themselves venture capitalists, it was really clear they weren't neophiliacs. They weren't looking for something new. They wanted a rehash of something old. So once you realize you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's entirely appropriate to say, no, thank you, and to move on. And then the third thing to realize is this. If you are trying to spread a big idea far and wide, an idea, for example, about inclusion or racial justice, doing it around something that is surrounded by people who don't want change is a really good way to get on the cultural radar. So when Colin Kaepernick takes a knee during the national anthem, he knows exactly what he's doing.

13:09He has something he wants the culture to hear. There are a lot of things that are going on that are unjust, people aren't being held accountable for, and that's something that needs to change. He is bypassing the neophiliacs. He's even bypassing the masses. And he's going straight to people who don't want to hear from him, who don't want to see him, who don't want him to do what he is doing. And he's doing that knowing that that is going to start a conversation. Nearly 50 years ago, when Marlon Brando refused his Oscar for The Godfather and sent the activist and actress Sashin Littlefeather in his place, he was doing the same thing, sending a message straight to people who were in the anthem business.

14:00And the challenge of both of these heroic acts is that they start a long process, they don't end it. That they are using this juxtaposition of the super-traditional, with the urgent to create a ruckus that will be heard by the many. That takes real guts. It took real guts for Jose Feliciano and Aretha Franklin to do what they did, which enabled Marvin Gaye to do what he did. Of course, these are the famous incidents. We're overlooking the micro ones, like that junior accountant who went to see the board to blow the whistle on the malfeasance she found in the bookkeeping, or that person who hopes to change the way a university is going to act by showing up in the president's office.

14:54We can learn something from the Marlon Brando exercise. The thing is, it was too soon culturally for him to show up in front of the anthem makers. Certainly not too soon morally or ethically, but culturally, 50 years have gone by. And if you listen to Littlefeather's speech, to her composure, to her clarity, it can't help but resonate with you. Hello, my name is Sashin Littlefeather. I'm Apache, and I'm president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech, which I cannot share with you presently because of time, but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award.

15:52And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry. Excuse me.

16:08But the hard work of persuading the neophiliacs, side by side, person by person, beginning to change the culture, moving the idea to the masses, that hard work has to get done. The culture always changes, not from the bottom, but from the roots, the grassroots, from people like us doing things like this. side by side, together, and then eventually, the laggards, the ones with the anthems and the pledges, eventually, they can't help but hear the message. The challenge is how to get there. In putting together this episode, I was moved, again and again, moved by the bravery and the audacity of those who have stood up against injustice, who have stood up and said, no, stop this and stop this now, and who have had the temerity to do it in front of the anthem makers.

17:11And I won't take anything away from them or their guts. We're lucky that we have them. But I think it raises the bar for the rest of us to figure out the work that matters and to do it, to do it at the grassroots, to do it quietly, to do it consistently, to reestablish what it means for people like us. Not to let ourselves off the hook by pointing to history and to the injustices that are there, apparently from the top down. Because all culture starts and ends with us, the people on the front lines. Thanks for listening. Go make a ruckus. Hey Seth, it's Maria. Hey Seth, my name's Kyle. Greetings Seth, this is Stephen out in Madison, Wisconsin.

17:57Hi Seth, Alicia from Charleston here. Hi Seth, this is Anupam. Hi, this is Caitlin. Hi Seth, warm greetings from Curacao. Hey Seth, my name is Nick Ryan from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hey Seth, this is Rex. Hey Seth. Hi, this is Vestimus from Greece. Hi, this is Roberta Perry. My question is... And that completes my question. Hi, Seth. It's Joseph calling from Brooklyn. In the last episode, you had talked about how recent technology and I guess the spirit of the age has made it more possible for lots of people to have a voice and to make a difference and to create their art. Whereas before it was really in the hands of the few who had power.

18:40At the end of the episode, and you also hinted at this in in linchpin, you, you gave the impression that this sort of open, more open choose yourself sort of economy was a limited, had a, had a expiration date that it won't always be this way. And that gets me a little worried and be very curious about what you see is coming next. Because I can't imagine, is it, is it going to go back to this sort of a powerful few choosing people thing? Or is, are we headed somewhere even more democratic? Thanks. Thanks, Joseph. Great question. And there's lots of nuance in the answer. Let's start here. When the bookstore first came along, not just anyone could get a book into the bookstore.

19:25There was finite space. And if you didn't have a publisher, you weren't going to be there. Compare that to the telephone. Anyone can call anyone. Compare that to the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, where all the media moguls go. You can't get invited. I can't get invited. You can't get invited. But the people who are invited get access to each other. And so when the Internet came along, it was supposed to be, and it often is a giant open system closer to the telephone than to the Sun Valley Conference or the bookstore. Anyone can connect to anyone. But prophets, big prophets, empires are built around putting up gates in the commons, making it so that anyone can't reach anyone.

20:19So Facebook says, oh, if you want a lot of traffic, you should go ahead and build your building here. This spot, get lots of followers and friends. Of course, soon after that, Facebook starts throttling your ability to connect with those people, unless you're willing to pay them. Or consider the blog, which I've had a lot of experience with. For a long time, in fact, to this day, anyone can start a blog. And people can follow that blog with an RSS reader. RSS readers are completely open with no barriers. You can follow who you want to follow, sort of like the telephone. Except that Google built an RSS reader that was super popular and free and effective and integrated into their other tools.

21:08So lots of people switched and a lot of the other RSS tools went away. And then Google, sensing an opportunity, shut down their RSS reader, pushing people to subscribe by email instead. And once you're subscribing to a blog by email, again, email, the original API, wide open. You can get email from anyone. Except Google now takes lots of blogs and pushes them into the promotions folder so that they're not seen by the person who subscribed. Again, fences being built. And then back to honest signaling, our last episode. What we learned there is it matters whether you have a domain. It matters what the TLD is.

21:55It matters how you look, what signaling you're sending people when they get to your website. Amazon lets anybody who wants to make a book on the Kindle. But how will people find your book on the Kindle? The walls begin to go up. So the race is on, and the race is on to build a following, to be heard, to be seen, to be trusted, to make it easy for people to share the word about you and what you do. And it's a race because you're racing in an open world when lots of people are trying to build walls in that open world and make it much more difficult for someone to start from scratch. I could go on for hours about this, But suffice it to say, my original point holds true.

22:46There's no sense in waiting. Now is the most open moment that we're going to get. It's unlikely that going forward, things will get more open. The best time to start building your audience was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. Look at that. Picked them up from the printers yesterday. Good coloring. That's bone. and the lettering is something called Cilion Braille. Thanks for listening. If you've got a question, we'd love to hear it. Visit akimbo.link, that's A-K-I-M-B-O dot L-I-N-K and click the appropriate button.