[Is There a Folk in the City?

]: Discussion from the Floor

Author(s): George McMahon, Morton Leeds, Dégh, Aili Johnson, Moss, Stekert, Dorson,
Robert Tremain and Arnold Pilling
Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 83, No. 328, The Urban Experience and
Folk Tradition (Apr. - Jun., 1970), pp. 225-228
Published by: American Folklore Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/539111
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 IS THERE A FOLK IN THE CITY? 225

thinking now turns to the "unofficial culture" rather than remnants of peasant culture.
How we distinguish the official from the unofficial culture is a theoretical problem of its
own. The urban folklorist will not want for field data or intellectual challenges, so long
as man lives in cities.

Discussion from the Floor

George McMahon:-When I first heard of folklore in the city, I thought of col-

lecting what you or Dr. Degh mentioned, vanishing relics and idealized past. But what
I was hoping eventually that both of your presentations would do, and I don't think
you did it for me anyway, was to show how you can begin collecting folklore of the
culture that is developing in the city. I don't think either of you did that. How
would you go about collecting oral traditions that are right now developing, you know,
in Jeffries Project or on Third Avenue or on John R. Street ?

Degh:-This is exactly what we are doing; first we must collect ethnographic data.
We can't find out what its folklore is before we know the field. This is a new field for us.

Aili Johnson:-I'd like to make a comment. I think that if we're going to study
John R. we ought to study about Bloomfield Hills in exactly the same way, and Grosse
Pointe, too. We should compare the folk of Bloomfield Hills and Grosse Pointe with the
folk of any area in Detroit and see what the changes and differences are. One will find a
good many ethnic groups, if you want those, but you also will find certain other patterns.
Are they similar ? In what way are they different ? Why study one type of life in the urban
community and not the other? Would that be useful in helping solve our urban prob-
lems: studying different groups, such as economic levels, not usually investigated by
folklorists ?

Moss:-I think in defense of Dick Dorson's paper, he makes it eminently dear that
he does not limit himself to a single group within the community.

Stekert:-I think what Mrs. Johnson was saying was that we should study the folk-
lore of what is sometimes referred to as the "dominant culture" of the society as well
as the urban ethnic groups.

Dorson:-Yes, the executives as well as the employees.

Robert Tremain:-How much communication is there between these ethnic groups?

Is it fear or is it total ignorance, or what is the situation ?

Dorson.-That's a long story. There's violent hostility among certain groups; there
are all these animosities. But, on the other hand, there are bridges that have been built.
It seems to me that one has to be careful about generalizations.

Arnold Pilling:-I would like to comment on a recent Detroit phenomenon, which

I think might have some utility as a source of folklore. There has been established in

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 226 RICHARD M. DORSON

Detroit a rumor control center. I understand that at the center a telephone operator
is at the opposite end of the line to write down rumors, listing their time and date of
hearing, where they were heard, and where the person telephoning lives. It seems to
me that the availability of such precise material should not be overlooked. The rumor
control center material may easily be useful in telling us something about the dynamics
of folklore. I assume we all agree that rumors are in a folklore area. I think we know
relatively little about the dynamics of folklore, how folktales spread, and how they
modify in spreading.
It seems to me that we have here an easily available source on urban folklore. It
would be tragic if these records were lost. If nothing more can be done at this time,
we should urge that the records of this rumor control center be saved for later mining.
Enough data are apparently preserved so that students might later isolate motifs and
write of their changes as they move from one location and time to another. Some of
these rumor control center data have been noted recently in local newspapers, but more
analytical treatment is necessary. I think that we have very meaningful material here.
It certainly should tell us something of today's urban folklore.

Unidentified black woman from Detroit:-I'd like to ask Dr. Dorson a question. I
notice you talked about the Negro church and what you found there. What about the
other segments of the Negro community. Did you get any experience there?

Dorson:-Well, I had some contacts. I don't know that there'd be enough to make
any large generalization about it, but there seems to be a trend to imitating middle- or
upper-class white culture. I think that's pretty noticeable. I went to a Trinity Baptist
church, and I was informed about a book, again a reference to "the book," which was
available in a certain drugstore (I never was able to get ahold of it) informing Negroes
about certain cultural traits they should divest themselves of in order to become accepted
into the white community. Most unfortunate kind of publication, it seems to me, but
anyway there it was. It was certainly having an influence in the culture. Some of the
traits mentioned were-I think-loud talking, loud laughter in public places, the whole
series of these things, or the wearing of large hats with extravagant colors. That's one
kind of possible trend I could mention. Of course that's a very large question.

Same black woman:-I just want to know what way these things are used in social
relationships of the people that you're studying. It seems to me that cultural traits can
be absorbed by other cultures, have different meaning assigned to them, that the same
meaning can exist in two completely different cultural traits at different times in a people.
It seems to me, then, that the kind of difference between what we call folk from what
we call urban is the difference in the way we relate to each other as persons, the mean-
ing of social relationships. And to study the folklore, or the tradition, or how certain
cultural traits are maintained you must look at this deeply-rooted meaning of the rela-
tionships people have for each other. I think the difference between what we call the
ghetto community or the urban community is more than just economic difference. It's
a whole set of relationships that have a meaning-what the other person means to you,
what social relations mean. I don't see how the kind of study you're doing is rooted in
that kind of thing.

Dorson:-I'm not sure just what kind of personal-cultural relationships you're speak-

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 IS THERE A FOLK IN THE CITY? 227
ing of. Maybe I could give this example of Marion Tokarsky, the Polish woman, who
made common cause with the Negro community in Gary and in East Chicago. She pre-
sented her story to the Northwest Political Alliance group which was composed almost
entirely of Negroes, some Puerto Ricans. Now she presented it to this group really in the
form of a church service, I would say. I don't know if I'm speaking on your point, but
the relationship was effective within the terms of a traditional institution central in the
Negro community. This was the way in which they would understand this message, and
the way in which the bridge was built between this Polish Catholic woman and the
Negro Baptists. Well, that would be one kind of relationship that certainly enters into
our investigations.

Morton Leeds (Washington, D.C.):-There is one thing I'd like to say. Someone
raised the issue of cross-culturation of groups. This is occurring at all points in the day-
time at work, and it's the obvious thing we should always remember. Now the question
we could ask ourselves in this kind of study is to what extent do we communicate
across cultures in the daytime, to what extent do we not communicate. Because, if you
remember, our personal choices at the lowest tension levels are for evening communi-
cations with people like ourselves. This is one of the great problems that we as a society
face because we tend to drift back to our lairs and go back to the people we are most
comfortable with. Now this becomes a social rather than a purely anthropological or
folkloric problem, and it is also an economic problem. So you have the interpenetration
of at least three different levels of the society.

Dorson:-How do ethnic groups get together, how do they communicate, what are
their interpersonal relationships? I think that's what the question is. And it seems to me
there is relatively little communication other than on the job. Then it's a retreat, if I
can use that word, back into their familiar cultural traditions. For instance, I was told
that there is very little joke-telling on the job in the steel mills because ethnic jokes are
regarded as a divisive influence, so the management doesn't want this sort of thing. So
they don't have this common community of storytelling. Some groups have a good deal
more than others, like the Greeks, whereas the Croats will tend to mix. But again you
can't generalize.

Second unidentified black woman from Detroit:-I have a question. Last week I
worked with a preschool teacher who happens to be white, and we got into a discussion
as to what was racism. And she said it was any relationship between any kinds of people,
either good or bad. I sit here and listen, and presumably people are trying to solve social
problems. I was wondering when is someone going to begin to look at what racism is,
because obviously it is not a recent phenomenon, so it has its roots and genesis very
long ago in America. And if we look at the institution of the black church and know
that, again, its genesis is rooted in slavery-when are people going to deal with what is
racism because here, too, there are many things in folklore I am sure that perpetuate
racism. And I think that this certainly is a task for the folklorist as well as the anthro-
pologist, and I wonder when this is going to happen.

Dorson:-That's exactly what we're doing. We're dealing with the materials that
reflect racial and ethnic folk culture, divisiveness. I think perhaps racism is too strong
a term. It's lost its charge, I think, by being used in too many contexts. We were talking

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 228 RICHARD M. DORSON

here about ethnic or group folk cultural traditions and perhaps trying to look at them
positively as well as negatively. It seems to me from what we found that one group
knows little about the cultural traditions of another. And they don't understand or ap-
preciate the best of what the other tradition has to offer. That might be our way out.

Moss:-It's obvious that Professor Dorson has been collecting some of the materials
you allude to. I am reminded of one point where a Czech, pointing with pride to a
picture of his golden wedding anniversary, says that this could not have happened to a
Slovak since they have twenty wives just like the blacks. So he disposes of two peoples at
one time, and within that expression it is obvious that he is establishing a nexus of social
relationships within which he interacts. It is within this kind of guts of a folk culture
that you find relationships established. When you hear a Sicilian say, "Lite tra padre e
figlio, non ci vol consiglio," you know damn well he means, "There's an argument be-
tween father and son. Outsiders keep out, this is family."

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