Funny enough, there’s a long history of worker’s struggle in the Appalachians and South.
Redneck Revolt is a good group organizing in these areas around this identity and history.
electoralcollege
Yeah regions where mining, agriculture, and similar industries are dominant tend to have a history of socialist organizing and labor agitation, funny how that works
democratic-bias
i love how many people are commenting on this basically saying it’s an oxymoron for rednecks to be communists like… in what universe is it an oxymoron for… actual poor and working-class people… to be invested in an ideology & movement that centers around working-class/labor struggle… lmao ????
cistrendered
literally the only reason why there has been a shift in later years is cus of fear mongering to the point where capitalist criticism has become a taboo even for lower class poor people. like many the southern states are some of the poorest states in usa??
discoursegrips
“Let’s show these fascists what a couple of hillbillies can do!”
-Woody Guthrie
coming from a non-informed point of view i feel like once again this is Reagan’s fault because he targeted workers unions a good deal…
People are saying its a oxymoron because “redneck” is usually synonymous with “racist/stupid af” in america. And “racist/stupid af” in america tends to steer very far right.
But there is a actually a whole population of “redneck” that isnt racist at all. They’re actually pretty well educated, theyre just poor and do poor people stuff. They’re the ones who end up introducing black people to white people shit. Like moonshine, mudding and camping. Theyre a trip to hang around.
Theres actually a lot of overlap in the “redneck” and the “hood” culture (large tight knit families, general disdain for authorities, love of bbq…etc), but the rich white people in power dont want people to know that because if the all the poor people reguardless of color realize they have shared interests band together and raise hell. Its over for the 1%. So they try their hardest to emphasize and exaggerate the cultural differences, in hopes of convincing the low income disenfranchized whites to vote right.
I LOVE capitalist critical Appalachian culture. One of the first things i learned that fueled my interest was the origin of the word ‘redneck.’
Coal mining was HUGE from the mid 1700s to the early 1900s in states like Virginia and Pennsylvania as coal was a primary source of fuel for a lotta shit. Unsurprisingly, mine owners were capitalist pigs and exploited the hell outta coal miners. Like, paying them by the pound of coal they brought in rather than by hours worked, paying them in vouchers that could only be used at the store owned by the mining company, and offering no kind of health assistance when workers would inevitably succumb to illness and injury caused by the work they did. So miners began to unionize in the mid 1840s. To show solidarity and to make their employers take notice, unionists would wear red bandanas around their necks. And thus, the term ‘redneck’ was coined to describe the union supporters who eventually dismantled a lot of the exploitive practices used by the coal industry.
Love these! Just discovered the hillbilly leftie podcast the Trillbilly Worker’s Party, and I am so excited to see more leftist organizing in these parts. We have an amazing history of labor struggle, and a fair amount of labor wins, in this region.
also, “redneck” in appalachia in the 20s-30s was used to mean “communist” because unionized workers would display their union affiliation by wearing a red bandana. here’s a jstor article about it
battle of blair mountain is the largest labor uprising in US history, and one of the origins of the term redneck, referring to the striking miners who wore red kerchiefs around their neck. apalachia has historically been one of the hearts of socialist movements in the US and there’s a reason history would rather paint them as backwards, racist, stupid and mean than let you remember that
Classism and anti-Southern elitism are used to divide the working class and push those with nascent leftist interests into liberal politics. Southerners are portrayed as biologically inferior, uneducated, homophobic, and racist despite being both a major site of labor disputes and the largest concentration of black Americans in the United States.
There have always been leftist movements throughout the South, anti-racist organizations and communities of LGBT people have worked for countless years to make the South a safer place to live for many marginalized groups. They are your comrades too, and we must work to overcome the longstanding state propaganda that stereotypes the people of the Southern United States as not worth helping and incapable of helping us.
This argument will be divided into threemain parts. The subject of magical creatures in the wizarding world, thesubject of humans other than English wizards, and the subject of Harry’scharacterization in the novels. But before I can discuss the novels andRowling’s (probably mostly unintentional) colonial fantasies, we must look atthe background information of those colonial fantasies. To do that, I willoutline and explain certain elements of the 1800-century cultural and politicalsituation, reflected in the literature of the time. (See! This is why you don’tdismiss history as the unnecessary boring subject Rowling!!!!)
(In this text, I use the word wizard akin tothe universal man, as in mankind. I do this, because Rowling herself does this,referring to unisex groups of witches and wizards as “wizards”.)
Racial thinkingin the British empire was heavily influenced by pseudo-scientific theories likephrenology and race classification theory. Humanist sciences like sociologywere heavily influenced by “hard sciences” and there was a strong demand tofind a scientific justification for the existence of the empire. Thisjustification came with race classification, that was divided into twodifferent equally racist branches of theory. The idea that different human races were actually subspecies inside the human main species, and that these subspecies had evolved to fulfill different functions and behave in different ways. Roughly divided, the Anglo-Saxon subspecies had evolved into a rational thinker and a natural leader, the Asian subspecies into servile and effeminate role, and African subspecies into manual labourer. Now, in order for society to live in perfect harmony, that society has to be built in a way that each human species can follow their natural predilections and follow their species-natural behaviour.
The other branch of scientific sociology argued that all humans had the same potential for civilization, but that all human societies were also in different evolutionary stages. Human societies were seen to evolve in a neat line, from promiscuity-matriarchy-transitional patriarchy-patriarchy. All human societies therefore started from hunter-gatherer tribes and would eventually turn into enlightened British style modern societies. As the British already had reached the top of the societal evolution, it was also their right and burden to protect the societies that had not yet reached this top evolutionary form. It is very important to remember that while the British empire was filled with straight up hateful and vile racists that saw genocide as a fun past-time, there were equally many people who condemned the mistreatment of the empire’s subjects and fully believed that the empire was in truth necessary in order to help their less-evolved human compatriots.
Another important note to make about the imperial mindset is how these rational leaders were created; in boarding schools. The future leaders of the empire were all sent to a boarding school, somewhere around the age of 10. These schools, rampant with bullying, pressure and straight up rape, were not places that a young boy was supposed to become a scholar or an athlete; his job was to make connections and learn to become charismatic. Doing too well in your subjects was not desirable, as a book-worm is not what the empire needed. Being good at sports was good, but not if you had to sacrifice time to practice too much. Sports and sciences were there to support the student’s growth into a proper English gentleman, not as an educational goal themselves. Debating, public speaking, and aggressive confidence were much more important skills to master for the future overseer of a colony. Your job as a student in, for example Eton, was to network and grow a stiff upper lip. A terrible educational system for sure, which caused damage to the British psyche that people today are still trying to understand; with Boarding School Syndrome and its consequences important when trying to understand the problems in British politics today
How do these facts then relate to Harry Potter? Well, let’s start working our way through from magical creatures. In the Harry Potter universe, the world is filled with creatures with human-sentience that however do not, at least in Britain, mix with the dominant human population. We know that there are house-elves, working as servants, goblins, working as bankers, centaurs, keeping away in their forest, as do merfolk in their lake. Dwarves were employed as cupids (entertainers) in Hogwarts by Lockhart, and there are veelas that work as exotic dancers in the quidditch world cup.
At first glance, you might think that Harry Potter and Dumbledore are on the side of the creatures. Dumbledore is noted for being a great advocate for non-humans when defending their right to exist, as opposed to the more genocide-minded goons at the ministry. Voldemort is happy to employ creatures that he deems “dark” and ignore the rest. At first glance it would even look like the narrative is advocating for tolerance, and it is, but it is not advocating for equalitybetween humans and non-humans.
The centaurs and the giants have lost their native lands to humans, and have been forced to live in reservations, as most notably pointed out by Dolores Umbridge in Order of the Phoenix. “Ministry of magic permits you certain areas of land.” (p.665) At the same time, the books do not portray either the giants or the centaurs in particularly sympathetic light. Centaurs are shown to be violent and even unreasonable towards any humans who would want to have contact with them. Giants are shown to be simply so stupid that they are killing themselves into extinction. (Order of the Phoenix p.377) Meanwhile, the races that do mingle amongst wizards all have something to offer to humans who allow them in their society. Goblins are useful to have around because of their hold over the banking industry and their superior metal-working. House-elves are useful as domestic servants. The creatures that wizards label as “dark” are all creatures that do not have any filled role that they can perform for the benefit of humans, (vampires, hags, werewolves), segregated from the wizarding society proper, and are therefore shunned as undesirables. Veelas on the other hand are blatantly fetishized, and they are only shown in two roles in the books. Either as entertainers or as married to wizards. The narrative does not even hint that a veela might have any non-sexual role in the society. It would seem, that all the magical races have either been pushed out of the wizarding community, or they fill some niche purpose in society that the wizards find useful, and that the wizards themselves do not want to perform.This structure of society, built upon the assumption that there will always be creatures fulfilling certain roles for the society, is not questioned by any of our heroes.
Dumbledore is happy to advocate for tolerance, but not inclusion. He is happy to create a dialogue between humans and centaurs- aslong as it is not humans who have to make any concessions in theirrelationship. Same goes for merfolk. Dumbledore advocates for their right toexists in their own segregated patches of land, and in return they will helpDumbledore. Merfolk will allow themselves and their home to be used as obstacles in the tri-wizarding tournament and the centaurs will let wizardstraipse through their forest. Inside the centaur society, we are supposed tosee territorial Bane as the “bad guy” and the meek Firenze, who argues thatcentaurs should take sides in a human war, and eventually accumulating into the human society (by becoming a teacher in Hogwarts, but only after he has been banished from the Centaur society and therefore is not a centaur culturally anymore), as the “good guy”. After all, Firenze placed the needs ofhumanity above the needs of his own species.
The same happens with goblins. They are at every turn shown to be unpleasant, unreasonable, and impossible to work with, and when Harry Potter shows the bare minimum of respect- acknowledging that goblins have their own legal system that defines ownership of an object differently than a human would, it is framed as the greatest height of progressiveness that anyone could ever show towards a goblin. Never-mind the fact that the books explicitly mention that goblins are deniedthe use of a wand by the dominant human government, which is neither an interest nor a concern to any of our heroes. Note of interest is also that most non-humans taking action against the status quo are antagonists. There are no creatures in the order of the phoenix fighting against the dark lord, (Remus Lupin identifies as a human with an unfortunate condition.) but there are several under the command of Voldemort. (Order of the Phoenix p.88) The most positive attitude towards non-humans comes from the heroes who show tolerance towards non-humans, but who also do not try to reach any deeper understanding about non-human experiences in the wizarding society.
The house-elves are the most blatant piece of yikes when it comes to the issue of creatures. The enslavement of house elves is explained away as a natural order of the world. At the end the series, even the protagonist Harry Potter accepts this natural order and becomes himself a master of the house elf Kreacher (Half Blood Prince p.55). Harry’s slave-master position is accepted,because we trust Harry to treat his slaves decently, there is never anyquestion what the condition of being a slave-master can psychologically do tothe master, or that slavery as an institution is too immoral to accept, nomatter the conditions. The reader is shown that the elves are not capable oftaking care of themselves without a master by examples of Dobby and Winky, the only freed elves shown in the books. Winky, after being freed, becomes an alcoholic. (Goblet of Fire, p.564) Dobby, while enjoying freedom, would be unable to support himself without the help of benevolent Dumbledore, to whom Dobby works in the same way as the other slaves in the castle, even if he is namely free. (Goblet of Fire p.400) (Both alcoholism and “frivolity” were anti-abolitionist talking points in the southern states in the antebellum era). Theimplication is that some races are simply born subservient, and the morally decent thing to do is to keep them in slavery but treat them kindly.
Hermione Granger, who in the books argues that slavery as an institution is by itself something that cannot be accepted, is presented with her views as ridiculous and misguided. On the other hand, those who argue for the institution of slavery appear as rational and reasonable. There is no way for anyone to think of her S.P.E.W badges as anything but childish and stupid. In Chamber of Secrets, the readers do see Harry freeing the house elf Dobby, after Dobby has personally helped Harry. However, the implication is that Dobby suffered from an unfit master, not from the slavery itself, and that his freedom came as boon after he had done a personal favour to Harry Potter. In the world of Harry Potter, slaves are happy to be slaves, as long as their masters are decent masters.
But if you stop and think of all this, it should not be rationally possible for a society like this to exist. If the giants truly are so stupid and violent that they are accidentally killing themselves to extinction, they should also not be sentient enough for humans to breed (and even create emotional bonds, as Hagrid’s family) with them. If these creatures have a society, they are sentient enough to realise the peril they are in and who their true enemy are. Same with the centaurs. Segregating an entire culture to a small reservation is not pretty, and it does not happen peacefully. Still there is never any indication that the centaurs would be actively fighting back to regain more land or that the wizards would be actively curbing their numbers in order to keep them in check. No creature segregated in their little reservation wants to leave that reservation, choosing to rather waste away amongst their own kind than pushing for their species to be integrated into the wizarding culture, or gaining more land from the wizards. The mythical tale of the noble savage who quietly goes into the good night, is real in the wizarding world.
Those creatures who do live and work alongside wizards are equally content with their narrow roles. No goblin wants to work anywhere else expect the bank, no house-elf wants to open a business, no veela wants to study in Hogwarts. Half-breeds might be allowed in, if the headmaster is eccentric enough, and as long as they are able to “pass” as humans. The fact that their creature parents would never have that change is not even acknowledged as the tragedy that it is. It is easy for the heroes to appear as progressive, when the only thing the creatures want is to be allowed to exist in their pre-ordained roles and be treated with the most basic decency.
We don’t know what Dumbledore’s answer would be if a young goblin wanted to apply as a student at Hogwarts. We don’t know what any of our heroes’ reactions would have been, if the centaurs demanded compensations for Hogwarts’ rights to use the Forbidden Forest. Or if Dobby would have been competent enough to actually start campaigning alongside Hermione for abolition. We don’t know, because the wizarding world is in perfect harmony, as long as the creatures are allowed to exist peacefully in their roles, without corrupt, dark wizards abusing them needlessly.
What about humans then. Not all humans are created equal either. We don’t really see about the state of the wizarding world outside of Britain, but we are given the implication that the political situation in Britain is equal to the fate of the world. Harry Potter is not fighting for a political cause in UK, he is saving the world. British politics are world politics. The international wizards we do see, are also almost as much stereotyped as the creatures are. The French boys and girls from Beauxabatons are vain and frilly, while the girls and boys from Durmstrang are brutish and coarse. And in the European stage, UK and France gets their own wizarding population, while the eastern Europe is apparently lumped together in a way that makes you suspect that the Soviet Union never fell in the magical world. (considering when Rowling was creating these stories, that is not impossible. Rowling started writing Philosopher’s stone a year before the Soviet Union was dissolved). In the world politics, these three are the only ones important enough to be included in the tri-wizarding tournament, (tournament that the British dominate easily in book four), and therefore clearly hold the political cards of magical Europe. What we do know is that British wizards have no trouble finding work overseas, while we do not see any foreigners living or working in the British wizarding world. Britain’s importance as the centre stage of magical world politics is simply a given fact of the world.
(Note that I havedecided to omit all nonsense that Rowling has added to Pottermore in her effortto world-build but rest assured that it makes the situation simply much worse.)
There is also the clean divide between muggles and wizards. The wizards once again are honour-bound from their superior position to protect the muggles. The books make it clear that it was not for the safety of the wizards that the worlds were divided. It was simply that muggles in their ignorance kept burning other muggles during the witch-hunting times. The idea that muggles, if confronted with an existential threat like the death-eaters and their genocidal tendencies, were to win the fight, is not even floated as an idea. The moral implications ofkeeping the muggle world ignorant about a part of UK population that wants to kill them, and has succeeded in several terrorist attacks against the commonpopulation, is not discussed at all. The wizards simply have the right to sacrifice the lives of muggles in exchange of keeping their society hidden from the “common folk”. The wizards who do show any interest in muggles, do it in the most condescending way possible. Arthur Weasley, who has spent years working in the ministry of muggle-affairs, cannot pronounce the word electricity or know what a rubber duck is. How exactly does someone work for muggle-affairs if one is completely ignorant of said affairs? Why are muggleborn’s not automatically working for muggle-affairs? How is it, that muggleborns all simply choose to embrace the wizarding culture without there being any underground muggleborn culture running counter the pureblood establishment? Hermione Granger wants to be seen as one of the witches, not as someone whose cultural knowledge of muggles could in on itself be a strength. Rowling really wants you to believe that the British wizarding culture is naturally so desirable that no counter-cultures have born inside it, or that there ever could be any other problem expect that muggleborns are restricted from accumulating into it.
And then we come to Harry. Our hero. At first look, he appears to be the underdog fighting against the unjust establishment of the wizarding world. However, if one takes a closer look at the story, Harry Potter is not an underdog at all. In the beginning of the story, he acquires a great inheritance from his exceedingly wealthy parents. (Philosopher’s Stone p.85) In every other character exceeding wealth seems to be a negative trait, but curiously Harry’s status as an heir to a fortune is never properly addressed in relation to Harry’s moral character. Harry is also a son of esteemed and powerful magical parents, both highly regarded in the wizarding society. From his father’s side, Harry can claim a connection to an old pureblood house, making him part of the purebloodwizarding establishment. Both the wealth and the bloodline inherited from thePotter family guarantees a place in the upper class of the magical society foryoung Harry. Even the extremely racist Draco Malfoy in the first book seemseager to make friends with Harry. (Philosopher’s Stone p.120). It is only Voldemort who has robbed him of his natural heritage and privileges and forced him in to hiding with his brutish and cruel (muggle) relatives.
The story of Harry Potter is not of someone who fights for acceptance, but of someone who returns to his rightful place on top of the wizarding society. characters who do not naturally have this privilege, gain prestige by being helpful and loyal to Harry. It is a deliberate choice by Rowling to make Harry a pureblood fighting for the rights of muggleborns and those lower than him in the wizarding societal ladder. He is the archetypical English gentleman hero, because he has both the privilege and the proper character to carry that privilege. Voldemort, Malfoy, and other “dark-siders” from the pureblood establishment have abused this privilege and are therefore unworthy of it.
Another important part of Harry’s character is that all his powers and abilities that help him champion against Voldemort are either inherited or inherent. Harry does no need to labour for his victory. His mother gives him “blood-protection”, his father and mentors give him magical items to help him on his journey, and he simply has skills that others don’t. His flying abilities making themselves known the first time he hops on a broom, and his inexplicable talent to resist the imperio-curse is never explained expect with “a strong heart”. What he is good at, he doesn’t need to work for, and what he is not good at, he never improves on. If there is something he doesn’t have the innate talent for, he has friends who will do it for him. When Snape claimed that all of Harry’s successes were due to luck and more talented friends…he wasn’t wrong. And the kicker is, that that’s the point. Harry’s main strength is the fact that he is good at networking and having a brave heart. That is the ideal that thousands of young Englishmentried to mould themselves into during the imperial days. Harry doesn’t need tobe the “smartest wizard of his age”, he needs to be charismatic enough thatothers will follow him into the battle. He doesn’t need to be shrewd, or ambitious,or smart, or even kind, he needs to know how to apply his inheritance correctlyand how to manage those in the lower position than him, in order to return thestatus quo into the wizarding world.
When both Harry’s already existing place in the magical society, and the question of how the books treat the magical creatures are considered, the main conflict in the book seems to be reduced to an inner struggle between the higher classes of wizarding society. Voldemort and the death eaters are evil because they misuse their power over the lower classes, and because they discriminate against other witches and wizards. Therefore, it is the duty of Dumbledore and Harry Potter to return the wizarding world to its former and rightful order. The narrative supports the idea that now that the proper people, the naturally noble-minded heroes, are once again in power all the social issues of the wizarding world will disappear. Those on the top of the social pyramid will treat those under them with tolerance, and those at the base of the pyramid will stick to their place.In other words, the world of Harry Potter has fulfilled the colonialist fantasy of the British empire, where everybody has their place in society, and theinferior races truly are without ambitions or nuances.
The wizarding world has the structures that the British empire had, but none of the problems that come with those structures. In the end, the wizarding world returns to peace. “all was well.” The house-elves are given laws that punishes a master that mistreats their slave. The goblins continue in their segregation. The centaurs and merfolk are given a promise of no genocide. The British muggleborns are promised a place in the dominant society, as long as they perfectly emulate their pureblood peers and don’t bring muggle culture with them. The superiority of British wizardingkind has been proven, and they benevolently reside over their less evolved subjects, making sure that they are allowed to fulfill their roles in the society, as they naturally desire, in peace. There are no troublesome creature-rights activists causing havoc on streets. There are no muggleborns who would wish to side with muggles against the wizards. There is no empire, there is only the natural order of things.
This entire post is golden, especially the analysis regarding the British Empire, Europe and the treatment of non-witches/non-wizards in HP (goblins, creatures, house elves etc).
This section in particular resonated with me, as it touches on the arguments I often make with regards to class in HP:
The story of Harry Potter is not of someone who fights for acceptance, but of someone who returns to his rightful place on top of the wizarding society. characters who do not naturally have this privilege, gain prestige by being helpful and loyal to Harry. It is a deliberate choice by Rowling to make Harry a pureblood fighting for the rights of muggleborns and those lower than him in the wizarding societal ladder. He is the archetypical English gentleman hero, because he has both the privilege and the proper character to carry that privilege. Voldemort, Malfoy, and other “dark-siders” from the pureblood establishment have abused this privilege and are therefore unworthy of it.
Another important part of Harry’s character is that all his powers and abilities that help him champion against Voldemort are either inherited or inherent. Harry does no need to labour for his victory.
Harry is artificially trapped by poverty; the Dursleys do not lack (they are squarely middle class) but their behaviour causes Harry to lack. However, this is fixed for Harry as soon as he is informed that he is special - he isn’t simply told that he is a wizard, but he’s shown that he is a rich wizard with a vault full of gold.
But also we’re not becoming allergic to everything nowadays like certain white moms fear. Allergies have always existed. They were just talked about differently
Like “oh clams always ~turn my stomach~”. Or “what a pity he was taken from us at age 5”
“Well we didn’t have all this fancy chronic illness stuff in the Olden Days, what did people do then??”
They died, Ashleigh.
rowantheexplorer
This is a picture tracking bullet holes on Allied planes that encountered Nazi anti-aircraft fire in WW2.
At first, the military wanted to reinforce those areas, because obviously that’s where the ground crews observed the most damage on returning planes. Until Hungarian-born Jewish mathematician Abraham Wald pointed out that this was the damage on the planes that made it home, and the Allies should armor the areas where there are no dots at all, because those are the places where the planes won’t survive when hit. This phenomenon is called survivorship bias, a logic error where you focus on things that survived when you should really be looking at things that didn’t.
We have higher rates of mental illness now? Maybe that’s because we’ve stopped killing people for being “possessed” or “witches.” Higher rate of allergies? Anaphylaxis kills, and does so really fast if you don’t know what’s happening. Higher claims of rape? Maybe victims are less afraid of coming forward. These problems were all happening before, but now we’ve reinforced the medical and social structures needed to help these people survive. And we still have a long way to go.
This is one of my favorite anecdotes to show how clever rewording of statistics can make them say the opposite of what they mean:
Every time a state makes riding a motorcycle without a helmet illegal, the number of ER patients seriously injured in motorcycle accidents skyrockets. Every single time.
When you phrase it just right, it makes it sound like it’s more dangerous to ride a motorcycle with a helmet than without one. Of course, the reality is that before those laws, those patients were going to the morgue, not the ER.
Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love, time is eternity.
It's only been December for 4 days, and I'm already ready to physically fight people over Hallelujah.
It's a deeply Jewish song
Removing the line "maybe there's a God above" and changing it to "i know there's a God above" is disrespectful and changes the whole point of the song. (Also, "love is not "Love" as in "God is Love", that is not a Jewish concept)
Putting the song in a major key is super effed up, don't do that
If you're not Jewish, just find a different fricken song to sing
And most importantly:
IT IS NOT A FREAKING CHRISTMAS SONG, YOU HAVE ALL THE OTHER SONGS, THIS ONE IS OURS. KEEP YOUR LITTLE DRUMMER BOY AND BACK OFF, FFS.
If you'd like to get really angry and kind of want to stab yourself in the ear, the Pentatonix version will do it. They actually keep the "maybe there's a god above" line, but it's featured on their Christmas album, so...
I'm think it's always been major. It has some minor chords, but that's normal for a major song. The major scale though, is what gives the spacious and soaring quality in the upper parts of the song. What you're hearing as a major cover is probably a very different arrangement with emphasis on chords and harmonies that emphasize the "happy" and "solid" emotive aspects of the major scale, when most versions sound more bittersweet.
However! Jews love modality. Modal music is when you have one collection of notes (like the notes of the C major scale) and you change the way they are perceived by temporally changing the focus to a different "weaker" note (like, by focusing on the area around the A in a C major song, you will give a minor feel). And that type of modality is exactly why the first part of Hallelujah feels so minor. Modality is a major feature in the religious music of Ashkenazi AND Mizrachi Jews.
I like Hallelujah because it's a great example that NOT every major song sounds happy, and not every minor song sounds sad. (Especially because I love minor and related modes, and I think they sound MORE joyous than the major mode.) How we interpret the emotions of music has to do with so much more than the mode - the way the chords and melody are structured, the tempo, the arrangement, and even cultural factors.
All that said, there is something special between Judaism and the minor mode. The natural minor is one of the only historical modes that was NOT used by the Christian church for religious music, because it was deemed unfit for holy uses. However, two very VERY closely related modes (identical except that they have certain other rules for melodic construction and modal shifts that don't exist in western music) have been used in Jewish holy music for centuries: the Magein Avot mode by Ashkenazi Jews and maqam Nahawand by Mizrachi Jews.
This is really cool to me because it's one of the hallmarks of Ashkenazi religious music being culturally distinct from all of it's European surrounding cultures. In fact, musical etymology shows a lot of links between Ashkenazi religious music and Middle Eastern music, and we can even make some inferences about what music in the Temples might have sounded like (probably mono or heterophonic, with only unison or octave harmony, and with modes we might recognize as Middle Eastern sounding today).
TL;DR - Hallelujah is a masterfully composed piece of music, that, while major, uses modality and structure to give some haunting and melancholy vibes. Also, Jews do have a special and historical connection to minor music and have used it as holy music for centuries, if not millennia.
I like to think there is a parallel universe where reading comment sections is known as a soothing pastime because everyone on the parallel Internet is as kind and polite as the commenters on yourdailypoem.com:
After you’ve been steeped in online culture for a while, it’s genuinely hard to summon up the vulnerability and honesty to leave comments like this. But it’s worth doing when you see something that you love, or that speaks to a good part of yourself.
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