Jes Grew and Cultural Appropriation
Jes Grew is an amorphous idea that plays a key role in Ishmael Reed’s book Mumbo Jumbo . I interpreted its modern variation as the emergence and infiltration of non-white non-Christian forms of expression into the mainstream. One of the first examples we are given of Jes Grew is Jazz. Jazz originated in New Orleans, a city with a large black population. New Orleans also importantly has practitioners of voodoo. Voodoo contrasts with the monotheistic beliefs of Atonists with followers of voodoo believing in many different Loas for individual purposes. Mumbo Jumbo also attacks the notion of keeping other people’s culturally significant artifacts in museums. This idea manifests itself with the Mu’tafikah who steal back from “private collections of Europe and America” (Reed 63). The popularization of alternative practices and backlash against current systems alarms the Atonists in the Wallflower Order, so they begin a plan to exterminate Jes Grew. Mambo Jumbo deconstructs Euroce...