Jonathan Butler

By Ken Capobianco

INTERNATIONAL JAZZ SUPERSTAR JONATHAN

BUTLER hardly needs an introduction. The singer-songwriterguitarist who has enchanted listeners with his crossover pop-jazz-gospelworld music fusion since the late 1970s is a native of South Africa. So, he brings a unique perspective to the Black Lives Matter-fueled protests propelling change in the United States. A survivor of South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime, Butler watched the long-imprisoned Nelson Mandela rise to become the country’s first Black president—an experience that has given him a keen understanding of what must occur for genuine reform to come to America. When he speaks, one listens carefully.

“For systemic change to happen, it takes a collective mind, body and soul of a nation to actually acknowledge that there’s actually been systemic racism and injustice to begin with,” he said recently via phone from his Los Angeles-area home. “Let me quote Scripture: ‘Confess your sins unto another, so you may be healed.’ Unless we get to a place where we acknowledge that we have strayed from what we profess to be the truth that God created man in his image, and we are all created by God, it won’t happen. It’s going to take a lot of work.”

Butler knows that changing entrenched American prejudices and the unyielding power structures will not be easy, but his experiences in South Africa make him hopeful.

“I’m an optimistic person, ultimately. I am a child of the struggle in South Africa, and come from apartheid and segregation, and I

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continued from page 11 have experienced racism. I’ve lived it. Racism didn’t just fall from the sky. It was taught.

“I grew up in a society in South Africa, where even the German shepherd police dogs were trained to bite and kill a Black man. So, I do believe there is a positive way forward to get us to move past this horrific systemic racism. Let’s say, it’s positive that we are addressing this now.

“But you are always going to hear so many white people say ‘I’m not racist’ or ‘I don’t see color.’ Well, you know what? I do. I’m Black, and you are white, and we have to recognize the social injustice and the white privilege I grew up with that was in our faces every day we woke up. If you were light skin, you were colored; you lived in a colored community; you went to a colored community school or church. If you were Black, you lived in the townships. Whites lived in white areas. I have white friends in South Africa that live the most amazing lives. I lived with that in my face for so many years and will never forget it.”

By his own admission, the beloved vocalist believes the bitter divisions within America will make it difficult for real reform to take hold. “Right now, America, France and Germany are recognizing the governments are failing. If the governments fail, the people must rise up. In South Africa, we rose up against apartheid because it was wrong.

“And it took a collective effort, including companies deciding not to invest into South Africa, which helped bring the government to its knees. The way the nation is right now— divided—it will be very tough. It must be a collective effort; you don’t accomplish much if you are divided. But how do we persuade some white guy in a rural area of America to stop all the systemic injustice and hatred? A lot of that is out of fear. Will they change? I don’t know.”

Changes to a belief system or way of life make people feel uncomfortable, but Butler believes this discomfort is not only good but necessary. “The most healthy place to start is when you are uncomfortable because that’s when you really learn to grow.

“Remember, in South Africa, it was Jewish, white, Indian people, Muslims, Christians together, and we all stood alongside one another in protest of a brutal government exercising brutality, hate, the killing of Black kids and innocent people. It was a collective fight. You must know the African National Congress wasn’t just made up of Blacks, and all the people who went to jail with Nelson Mandela were not all Black. This kind of collective effort is what must happen in America if we want to see real change. Human rights should not be about Democrat or Republican. Human rights are human rights.”

Animated and impassioned throughout the conversation, Butler emphasized repeatedly how much this issue mattered to him. He said white people must come to terms with the stain of racism in American history and the damage it has caused. “Until there is real admittance, if that’s the right word—and I’m not saying repent because everyone has to repent about something—but there has to be a real acknowledgment of it’s not right to say, ‘I’m not racist because I had a Black friend or two.’ No, that doesn’t make it OK. I have white friends too, but with them, I have to be very clear that I do see color because what they have experienced growing up is definitely not what I’ve experienced.

“And, here’s the thing: Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean only Black people matter. It means we matter, too. Our history of enslavement and brutality and incarceration. It matters. The cards were not dealt the same way for my white friends in South Africa who I love dearly or my white friends here. That’s an issue we must address.”

As an exalted musician, Butler says he is not inoculated from the random indignities and overt racism infecting the country. “I’m grateful to God for the platform I have to engage and enlighten people, but I don’t feel like I have a status that protects me from racism. It just allows me to speak up when I get the opportunity. You know why I am dealing with it still? Because I’m afraid for my children and very afraid for my grandchildren.

“I’m afraid if a policeman stops them or if they go to school, they will be called names or bullied. Or they may be stereotyped by their teachers or peers. Me, as a Black

“Racism didn’t just fall from the sky. It was taught.”