Whitey on the Moon

Gil Scott-Heron was a poet, jazz musician, scholar, and novelist of Jamaican and African American descent. His 1970 debut album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, contained spoken word pieces that showcased his many literary and musical influences, including Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, and the Last Poets. Scott-Heron wrote the poem in the summer of 1969. His mother, Bobbie Scott, suggested the refrain and the closing line. which was recorded late in the summer of 1970 in a studio belonging to Atlantic Records. alongside a conga drum accompaniment of a sort common in street poetry, and used by contemporaneous artists such as The Last Poets. The track is just under two minutes long. Although the album has been frequently described as being recorded live in a nightclub in New York City, it was in fact recorded in a studio, with an audience present to simulate a live crowd. "Whitey on the Moon" narrates the story of Scott-Heron's "sister Nell," who is bitten by a rat while Neil Armstrong lands on the Moon. It then talks of medical debt that is incurred for her treatment, and rising costs of basic necessities as a result of the Moon landings. It ends with the sarcastic promise that when the next bills arrive, Scott-Heron would send them by "air mail special to Whitey on the Moon". The first lines of the poem run as follows: ==Analysis and reception==

"Whitey on the Moon" became exceptionally popular among African-Americans in inner city neighborhoods in New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles. While the album, described by AllMusic as a "volcanic upheaval of intellectualism and social critique", did not receive much airtime, it received considerable attention in Black and progressive neighborhoods across the US. While Small Talk at 125th and Lenox did not chart, it earned enough attention for Flying Dutchman Records to authorize a second Scott-Heron album, Pieces of a Man in 1971. The poem critiques the US space program by connecting its use of government funds to the marginalization of Black Americans. A majority of the US public was against the expenses for the space program, a stance called "moondoggle". This criticism of the space program has been described as reaching its epitome in "Whitey on the Moon." Scott-Heron's handling of difficult material with dark humour has been praised by commentators. Writing for The Atlantic after Scott-Heron's death in 2011, Alexis Madrigal stated that "Whitey on the Moon" had taken spaceflight out of the "abstract, universal realm in which we like to place our technical achievements". Madrigal added that the poem raised questions about "which America" got the "glory of the moon landing", and of what the costs of putting "whitey on the moon" were. A 2014 biography of Scott-Heron described "Whitey on the Moon" as a "gem of a prose poem" that was well-received critically, and that it was "devastating in its harsh counterpoint" to adulatory coverage of the Moon landings. Also writing in 2021, MSNBC columnist Tal Lavin stated that the poem "memorialized, in sardonic fashion, the saccharine patriotism that had arisen around Apollo 11". Also in 2021, a review of Scott-Heron's work commented: "Rarely has a point been made so forcefully while artfully avoiding the full brutal bludgeon of the nose." ==Legacy==

The 2018 film First Man, a biographical film about Neil Armstrong, prominently features "Whitey on the Moon". Director Damien Chazelle and writer Josh Singer sought to portray the "passionate feelings" of those opposed to the cost of the program: Singer stated he was interested in "pulling the veneer off" of what had been a "pretty sugarcoated story". The poem is also used prominently in the second episode of HBO's series Lovecraft Country. The episode, which is titled "Whitey's on the Moon", debuted on August 23, 2020. "Whitey on the Moon" received renewed attention in 2021 following spaceflights by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson in July 2021. 2021 was also the year Scott-Heron was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A piece on The Conversation said that the "whitey" of the poem could represent any of the billionaires, as the poem highlighted the economic inequalities upon which their wealth was built, and which allowed them to be space tourists. ==References==