Who Is Brian Kelly?

Until now, I have not said anything regarding the tragic death of Declan Sullivan. Declan Sullivan, if you do not know, is the young Notre Dame University student who died last week when the tower upon which he was perched while filming the football team’s practice last Wednesday fell over in the midst of fifty mile per hour winds. As is always the case in times of tragedy, the blame game has been running strong in the aftermath of the young man’s death. Many in the media are calling for the firing of Notre Dame’s head football coach, Brian Kelly. Some people are saying that none of the blame belongs to Kelly because Declan Sullivan was of sound mind and body and had the choice to climb down the tower. Still, others have been discussing the fact that the head coach cannot be blamed because, sometimes, tragedies happen and there’s nothing anyone could have done about it.

In my opinion, all of these people are missing the most fundamental issue that led to this tragic incident. I do not believe you can fire the person who is ultimately responsible for the events that led to Declan Sullivan’s death. I don’t believe you can bring that responsible person before the media. You can’t expect that person to apologize to Declan Sullivan’s friends and family or to the Notre Dame community. You just can’t do it. You can’t hold that person responsible because that person does not exist.

The responsibility for this tragedy goes above Brian Kelly. It goes above Jim Marchiony, the Notre Dame athletic director. It goes above the university president. This tragedy, I believe, is what can happen when proper safety measures are not followed. The safety protocol for the tower upon which Declan Sullivan stood does not fall under the head coach’s jurisdiction. It can’t. Who is Brian Kelly? What does Brian Kelly, or any other football coach, know about proper safety procedures and operation conditions are for a tower? How can anyone expect a football coach to be knowledgeable about such a thing? I’ll go so far as to say this: we have no right whatsoever to want or expect a football coach to make the decision about whether or not it is safe for a videographer to climb the tower. Putting the football coach in the position to make that decision is nothing short of reckless.

In my professional life, I deal with dangerous equipment and machinery every day. Even if I am trained to operate a specific piece of equipment, I cannot just operate it when there is a need to do so. There are protocols that must be followed. There are criteria that must be met. There are inspections that must occur. There are policies in place to make sure, as much as possible, that the equipment and environmental conditions are safe for operation. These policies exist in order to prevent loss of limbs and lives. When these policies are not followed, the risk of injury and death are greatly increased. If these policies are not followed, the FDA can and will shut down the facility.

No matter the job, safety must be the top priority of those in charge.
The problem with the Notre Dame football—and, I imagine, every other college sports program—is that there is no one in charge enough to be responsible for operational safety. It is the NCAA who sets the guidelines for overall collegiate sports. Among the NCAA’s responsibilities are governing player safety. The organization has no dominion, however, over the workload, working conditions, and other workplace safety issues for peripheral personnel. At the same time, people like Declan Sullivan are not truly employees, which means they don’t necessarily fall under guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. As such, there is a responsibility gap when it comes to providing safe working conditions for these students who work around college sports programs.

It’s easy for people to chime in and say that Declan Sullivan was a grown man and should have made the decision on his own to climb down the tower. Anyone who expects a twenty-year old college student to stand up to the head football coach and tell him that his practice will not be videotaped lives in the most naïve, idealized world I can imagine. That does not happen. So while it is true that Mr. Sullivan could have saved his life by getting himself fired from his job, it is crime against humanity to blame the young man for not doing so.

At the same time, that responsibility does not belong in the hands of anyone involved with the football team. Neither coaches nor administrators are qualified to make the type of decision that would have spared Declan Sullivan’s life last week. These people have their own jobs to do. Coaching a football team has nothing to do with inspecting equipment and/or wind conditions.

When I go to work, there are people who are specifically trained to inspect scaffolds, confined spaces, climbing equipment, and air quality. Oftentimes, those qualified people happen to be the same people who will be performing the work. The difference between us and student workers like Declan Sullivan is that we are professionals. This is our livelihood. We do this work full time. The same cannot be said for student workers, and that same burden should not and cannot be placed on them.

Every school has facilities and maintenance departments. To some degree, someone from these departments would be fit to be the one to make the final determination as to whether or not Declan Sullivan could have climbed the tower that day. In practice, however, this would not work. The person with the responsibility to keep someone from working in unsafe conditions would have to have a level of power. No one in anybody’s facilities and maintenance departments will have enough power to speak an enforceable “No!” to the head football coach. That’s just not realistic.
My other issue with the tragedy is the tower itself. Every piece of equipment, especially structures used to support weight at height, should have specifications and usage guidelines. Forklifts, for instance, have a specified maximum load. The tower used by the videographers should have a wind specification. I am not in the position to know whether or not this specification exists. If it does, then that specification was certainly not followed. Again, though, who should be the responsible party for making sure equipment is used in the proper fashion?

I don’t know what the right answer is. I just know that the right position does not currently exist. And, unfortunately, there is nothing in place to prevent this from happening again. Just as was the case last week, we are reliant upon the head football coach to decide to hold practice indoors. But as we know, college football coaches should never be relied upon to do anything but try winning the next game.

A Shouldn't Equal B

I should not be able to read a four paragraph long blog post about sports and entertainment news and be able to figure out the poster’s political affiliation when said poster never brings up the subject of politics. Similarly, I should not be able to read a book about baseball and determine, without his ever discussing the subject, which political party the author calls his own. A short while ago, however, I was able to. Neither of the two cases above involved actual discussion of politics, government, or policy. Nope, it was all about race. That’s a shame.

This thought was brought about because of what happened when I did a Google search on a rumor I heard on the radio. One day recently I heard that Brenda Warner had expressed a desire for Denzel Washington to play the role of her husband, Kurt, in a movie an upcoming movie about the former quarterback. That seemed odd to me, so I looked up the rumor. The first Google link was to a blog by someone named Debbie Schlussel. (Link) I’d never heard of Schlussel prior to this clicking on the link. In her blog post, she briefly quoted a column from The Arizona Republic:

He has met with producers interested in doing a movie on his life story. If Brenda had her way, Warner said, Denzel Washington would land the lead role.

“It would probably challenge Denzel in ways he’s never been challenged before,” Warner mused.

I shook my head as I read the quoted text. Then I read a bit further. The next two paragraphs and one sentence of Schlussel’s post are:

Washington is a great actor, but this is just dumb. What are they gonna call it–”Down Wit’ Dat, My Bruthah: The Kurt Warner Story, Exuberant Suntan Edition”? I’m always annoyed at the pretentiousness of people like Brenda Warner who want to show the world how “enlightened” and non-racist they are by insisting that someone Black should play someone White and vice versa in the most absurd of examples. That’s what’s going on here. And it’s phony. The kowtowing to liberals and political correctness stretches the bounds of the ludicrous.

See, she has it all wrong. And not because of race. Brenda Warner wants to play herself in the movie, and maybe she has a thing for Denzel Washington. But if she was really smart about this, she’d know that Denzel should play Brenda Warner. And if we’re really gonna keep it real on this, Whoopi Goldberg would be cast as Kurt Warner.

You know, just to be down with the struggle.

I shook my head again, but in a much different way. “This woman’s obviously a Republican,” I thought to myself. I clicked on the “ABOUT DEBBIE” link at the top of her blog. The beginning of the page begins:

DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL:
Conservative political commentator, radio talk show host, columnist, and attorney

Schlussel’s unique expertise on radical Islam/Islamic terrorism and a host of other issues make her a popular speaker and television and radio news talk show guest, both nationally & internationally.

The second and third sentences of Schlussel’s Wikipedia page read, “Her writing frequently targets the largely Muslim population of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, which she refers to as “Dearbornistan.” Her columns are often provocative and controversial, specifically those detailing what she considers the unsavory elements of Islam, the objectionable activities of American Muslims, illegal immigrants, as well as liberal and faux-“conservative” politicians.

Well, there you go.

Ignoring, for the moment, the racism exhibited in her statements, this is not to cast aspersions upon Schlussel’s political views, but rather to say that I should not be able to figure them out based on a comment she makes about the possibility of Denzel Washington portraying Kurt Warner in a movie.

Thinking about Debbie Schlussel reminded me of a book I read late last year, A Tale of Three Cities: The 1962 Baseball Season in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco by Steven Travers. When I reviewed this book, I wrote:

Frankly, it makes me sick to read someone repeatedly call 1962 the last year of American innocence. Not that things are anywhere close to perfect now, but referring to any time in America prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as "innocent" is insulting.

The author comes across as very dismissive and condescending of all the Black and Latino players on the 1962 Giants who ever expressed that some of the treatment they received in San Francisco was due to racism. This book takes place in 1962! And Alvin Dark, the Giant manager, was a man known to have trouble with the idea of non-White ballplayers in his clubhouse.

I went on to write:

My absolute favorite part, though—and by favorite, I mean the part that made me put the book down for four weeks and only pick it up again because I really did want to learn about the 1962 baseball season—was Travers' rant against a Chronicle columnist who wrote favorably about an experience he'd had in Paris when the people there learned he was from San Francisco. The City, "like John Kennedy," wrote the columnist, Charles McCabe, "has been formally canonized in Europe." Oh boy, does this set off Steven Travers, whose response is to say Europe is a continent that merely starts wars (World War I, World War II, Vietnam), that America has to take over and win for them. He blames the conflicts in the Middle East on the failures of the French. This next passage is Travers at his elitist best (bold text for my emphasis):

McCabe in his column wailed against our nation's tendency towards wealth and power thrust upon the whole world. The elite columnist again seemed unable to see that which was placed before his eyes. Here were a few tiny agrarian colonies, separated by an ocean from the salons of political, economic, and political influence, yet in a scant 200 years we had become the most powerful empire in the annals of mankind. McCabe and his kind were the last people on God's Earth to embrace the knowledge of the fact that such a thing could happen only by a divine, guiding hand.

As was the case with Debbie Schlussel, I determined that Travers was a hardcore Republican. After confirming Schlussel’s political leanings, I decided to look up Travers to confirm what seemed obvious. I found a document written by Travers entitled Repudiation of the Criminal Barack Hussein Obama. (Link) Boy, was this a biased piece of work. From reading his baseball book, I figured that Travers was a member of the far right. It turns out he’s a part of the ten miles past the furthest to the right person you’ve ever known.

Near the beginning, Travers, while apparently forgetting that the Anti-Christ and Satan are not the same individual, calms his readers’ fears that the President is the Anti-Christ/Satan:

A year ago, many worried that the criminal Obama was the anti-Christ. Biblical scholars generally conclude that such a creature is merely a malevolent spirit, and that the concept of Satan coming to fruition as a political or military leader is more a Hollywood construct. Brother Harold Camping is a Biblical scholar operating on a worldwide network called Family Radio. He says Christ will return on May 21, 2011, but offers no worry that our President is the Dark Prince.

For one thing, one might surmise that Satan would be a helluva lot smarter than the bumbling, stumbling Dumbo man with his stilted phrases, his incoherent speech in a lame attempt to “help” [Martha] Coakley, and his unimpressive arguments on behalf of most everything he advocates.

Later:

Meanwhile, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is called “dumb.” One listens to her speak of a “fallen world,” of man's true relationship with God, and why the Founding Fathers favored limited government because they recognized the inherent corruption of men's souls, and one hears articulation so far and above the yap-yap-yap of the “man” who never stops talking, or getting face time on TV, or showing up at every soiree in which he can honor himself; well, Palin runs circles around Acorn Man six days of the week and twice on Sunday. We are led to believe that the Ivy League elites are so much better educated, yet has anyone noticed that one can attend Harvard and graduate hardly without attending class these days? Everything is on-line there and most everyplace else.

Even more so than the passages quoted above, the most political sentence from Travers’ essay is, “The 1960s are over, baby!” He wrote that in reference to an earlier statement in which he wrote that 2010 would bring about the repudiation of, “the legacy of the 1960s counter-culture.”

Travers also wrote:

They call him articulate. Who are they fooling? Hearing the ignoramuses call Obama “articulate” is a joke. He is neither articulate nor particularly smart.

Never mind that I find it hard to believe any person, no matter his/her political feelings, can describe Obama as inarticulate or unintelligent without being a stone cold racist—one would have to perform a lobotomy on me in order to convince me otherwise—the point is that Steven Travers is a hardcore Republican. Reading one baseball book convinced me of that.

It is both sad and despicable that both sides of America’s mainstream political spectrum have moved to such far extremes that those who are political cannot speak about any subject without clouding their words with their political views. It epitomizes that fractured nature of this country. It also shows how much groupthink is occurring today. Common sense would tell you that most people exhibit a cross-section of so-called liberal and so-called conservative views. It seems as though that cross-section is getting smaller by the month. One is either in this camp or that.

I don’t know about you, but my political thoughts cannot be described in any generality. I am neither Democrat nor Republican. I do not believe in political parties. I am one man who thinks and feels for himself. I cannot be identified by one label. Why would anyone choose to reshape his/her views just to fit into a group? America’s political labels and party leaders are symbols of our societal weakness.

It’s stupid.

Her Name Was Mal

I saw Inception a couple of weeks ago. This was supposed to be a suspenseful film, and it was for a while. I thought it was a good movie, but it was far from great. I thought it was too easy to figure out. There were, I feel, far too many clues. Not too deep into the film, I thought I had figured out the hook; nothing I saw from that point forward told me otherwise. When I figure out a movie’s so-called twist early, my feelings about it are dependent upon the execution of the film’s other aspects. Essentially, it comes down to the quality of acting, how well the secondary stories are portrayed, and how much the movie makes me think and emote.

As I said earlier, Inception was too easy. The first clue was Cobb’s wife. If we are to believe in Cobb’s story, we must accept that he is trying to rescue the beautiful, wonderful love of his life. Her name was Mal. When a character in a thinking movie has an odd name, I can’t help but to try and think of what relevance that name has to the scope and plot of the film. It is a novelist’s technique. Admittedly, I did not know the spelling of the character’s name until I was back in my apartment looking at IMDB. Still, I heard her name and knew of only three ways it could have been spelled. Other than the actual spelling, Mal, her name could have been Mol or Moll. The former reminds me of the root –mal, as in malice. This was not hard to consider since she did her best to sabotage one of Inception’s first scenes. The other two possible spellings made me think of mole—and she certainly seemed like one in each of her scenes—and moll. Moll, as I remember from high school, is old British slang for a female criminal or prostitute. There was no way I could see this character as good. She was not going to be a damsel in distress whose rescue, return, and redemption I would eagerly anticipate. Not her. Not in that movie. Not with a name like Mal.

Then we have the other woman featured prominently throughout the film. When Cobb sought a young architect to help construct the dream world for the scheme on Fischer, he went to see his father-in-law, Miles, in France. Miles introduced his son-in-law to a bright, young student of his, who just happened to be an English-speaking American. Miles obviously had to be teaching at the American University in Paris, but I found this to be a little too contrived. Asking me to buy that was asking too much of me. Then we learned her name is Ariadne. They should have just named her Clue. Under normal circumstances I may or may not have remembered Ariadne from Greek mythology, but I just read the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series early this year. I do remember Ariadne.

There were other, smaller clues along the way that reinforced what I felt I already knew. Cobb once warned Ariadne not to let him touch her totem—the feel and weight of each totem should be private to its owner. The only totem we ever see with Cobb, however, is the one he said was Mal’s. We never see Cobb’s own totem. We never see any evidence that Cobb ever had one of his own; therefore, Inception provides zero evidence Cobb was capable of knowing if he was in the “real” world.

I’m sure Miles’ appearance to greet Cobb in Los Angeles is a big thing on the internet. It should be. Cobb’s team had little advance notice as to the departure of the flight containing the elder Fischer’s body. In order for Miles to know to be at LAX, he would need to have spoken to Cobb. Their meeting in Paris suggested, though, that the two had very little contact with each other. Furthermore, how would Cobb have known Miles would be in Los Angeles? He could not have flown there from Paris—he would have had even less advance notice than Miles; and if he had to fly into LAX, there would have been no real reason for him to show up there except that it makes for a nice moment on screen—so he had to already be in Los Angeles. What was he doing in Los Angeles? All of it is too contrived to be believed.

What was everyone’s motivation to help Cobb with the inception? We know Ariadne was intrigued by the opportunity to construct a world of her own design. What about everyone else? The only discussion of money was Cobb’s statement that he was giving up his share. There had been no previous discussion of payment by Saito. This was a giant red flag for me. I can’t recall a single caper type of movie that left out the scene when the terms of payment were discussed. We always know how much the thief is getting paid to commit the crime. Not in Inception. Furthermore, Saito had offered Cobb a chance to return to America as a free man. What more payment would he have needed; what leverage did he have to ask for more. Even if money had been negotiated for his team—whatever they earned should probably have come directly out of Cobb’s pocket, not Saito’s—why would Cobb get a share? That did not make sense to me. It came across as a line that was thrown in just to show that they weren’t working for free. That reeked to me.

In order to maintain suspension, Inception required me to believe in too many things that came off as contrived attempts at cleverness. I liked it, but came nowhere close to loving it. It probably would have worked better for me as a novel because much more introspective detail would have been required. In the end, that’s what Inception lacked for me.

The film did not lack superb acting. I thought all of the performances were outstanding. Inception required a great deal from the cast, and they all pulled their share of the weight. I found Ellen Page’s portrayal of Ariadne to be excellent. Among the cast, Page stood out to me. Playing her role well was pivotal to the movie’s success. Ariadne’s one-on-one dialogues with Cobb were the most important moments of Inception. She was the one who was trying to keep him focused. At its heart, Inception is about Cobb’s focus and mind. Cobb’s success or failure was largely dependent upon Ariadne’s ability to keep his mind focused. Even though I think she looks too young to actually be Ariadne, Ellen Page owned that role.

In the end, though, Inception is Cobb’s story. It is all his story. There were no true secondary stories because everything tied directly to Cobb; everything was about Cobb. There was no rooting for anyone else because there was no one else but Cobb. Every other character was but a tool to teach us more about the protagonist. The film tries to get the audience to care about the man along with his wife and kids. But I found Cobb too single-minded and self-absorbed to care about him. I didn’t care about faceless, voiceless kids. And I did not care about his relationship with Mal. I had nothing to root for in Inception, and that was its ultimate downfall in my eyes. It was 130 minutes of me not caring.

Beck On Slavery

Let me see if I can summarize Glenn Beck’s lesson on slavery from his August 19, 2010 show. The first Africans brought over to colonial America were done so as indentured servants. After a period of time, they were granted freedom while being denied citizenship and most other rights. Anthony Johnson, an African who earned his way out of indentured servitude went on to own a servant of his own and later sued to maintain possession of this servant for life. Thus, Anthony Johnson was the first official slave owner in America. This, Beck argues, makes Black people responsible for slavery, now White people.

The abolitionist movement was led by White Christians. The Civil War was fought by White Christians. Abraham Lincoln was a White Christian. Therefore, it was White Christians who freed the slaves.

Yes, Glenn Beck thinks that Black people are responsible for slavery in America, White Christians are responsible for ending it, and we Black people have nobody but ourselves to blame for it.

If Not Applicable...

My biggest problem with the movie Double Jeopardy is that the term double jeopardy did not actually apply to the situation that arose in the film. The entire movie was created upon a false premise; I can’t help but to believe that the film creators did not actually understand the term. I feel the exact same way about the American public when it comes to this Dr. Laura nigger fiasco.

The radio host announced that she will not renew her contract and that her show will not be on the air after the end of this year. On Larry King’s television show, Dr. Laura said, “The reason is I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that.” Later, she added, “Living with the constant fear of affiliates and sponsors being attacked is very distracting. I never called anybody a bad word. I was trying to bring—and obviously it has become a national discussion now—I was trying to make a philosophical point. And I made it wrong, but I wasn't dissing anybody. I was trying to make a point, and for that to say that I should be silenced is the reason why I'm saying to you that I'm obviously losing First Amendment rights.”

The First Amendment. OK, OK, OK. Let me explain this. THIS IS NOT A FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUE. No one is infringing upon Dr. Laura’s right to say nigger. People are only saying that she is not right to say it. Saying someone is incorrect, disrespectful, and racist for saying something is not at all the same thing as saying that person does not have the right to say that thing. Furthermore, when serving as the host of her radio show, Dr. Laura is acting as a representative of the radio company and her sponsors. If the people of this nation feel as if those companies are condoning and/or endorsing her words, then the people have a right to express their disagreement and outrage. The people also have the right to take their listenership and spending money elsewhere. This is a form of nonviolent protest. This is an example of people voicing their opinions, which they have the right to do as provided by the FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This is, in fact, the way the First Amendment was designed to work. This is also the way our country was designed to work. This is not a violation of Dr. Laura’s First Amendment rights; it is exercise of everyone’s.

This, to me, is very similar to the case of the Ohio church congregation who began protesting in front of a strip club on Friday and Saturday nights. The strippers retaliated by protesting in front of the church on Sunday mornings. All legal, all fine. The church members cried foul, of course, but everyone’s behavior was well within their rights. Same thing here.
The confusion here is that many people confuse their Freedom of Speech with the freedom from suffering the repercussions of what they say. The freedom from consequence does not exist. It should not exist. It can never exist in a land that, at least on the surface, claims to provide liberty and justice for all. Dealing with the consequences of our actions is our responsibility. The thing is that Dr. Laura knows this. As a whole, the general public does not quite understand it. They confuse these two freedoms all the time. That ignorance allows the Dr. Lauras of the world to manipulate their emotions and perspectives.
The people—the people never wake up.

Memphis Revisited

Something occurred to me as I listened to Memphis Lives in Me for about the fortieth time since Friday night. The two signature songs of the musical Memphis, the two epic and, quite possibly, iconic songs of this production, The Music of My Soul and the aforementioned Memphis Lives in Me are solo numbers sung by the White male protagonist. The Black female lead who was, ahem, a singer does not get that moment in a musical. Strange.

Memphis

My wife and I went to see Memphis last night. Memphis is a Broadway musical that won a number of 2010 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Both the lead actor and actress were nominated for Tony Awards for their respective Best Acting categories. As a stand alone entity, I loved the show. Also, surprisingly, I liked the music. I liked the music a lot. I liked the music enough that my wife and I purchased the CD after the show was over. However, Memphis has some serious issues. Boy, does it have some issues.

The tagline used in advertisements for the musical was, "His Vision, Her Voice. The Birth of Rock & Roll." He is Huey Calhoun, a poor White man in Memphis who falls in love with Black music and a Black singer named Felicia in the 1950s. She is Felicia, the woman with the voice that Huey believes will carry Black music to the center of the radio dial, that is, to the hearts of White people. This musical is the story of Black music exploding into mainstream American (i.e., White) society. Instead of being told from the perspective of the Black musicians, Memphis parallels the music industry, itself. It is the story of the White man who "made it all happen." Right away, the show was set up as a Dances with Wolves or Avatar type of production. In the end, Memphis turned out to be a little bit different, but not at all better.

According to a New York Times article dated June 27, 2010, the original tagline was simply, "The Birth of Rock & Roll." According to that same article, a focus group of Black women saw the original tagline and assumed the show was about Elvis. After seeing pictures of Felicia and being told about her romance with Huey, the women grew much more interested in the show. That is the point the producers came up with the new tagline.



I must give the writer of Memphis a lot of credit for the way Huey was written. What makes Huey different, and as a result, much better, than the lead characters in Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and Avatar is that Huey never had to be convinced or taught to ally himself with the oppressed people of the story. At no point were Huey’s actions political in nature. No, Huey was unique in that he was only driven by his love for the music. And his love of the music was true. It did not spawn from infatuation with a woman or for any reason other than that he felt it from the moment he first heard it. Huey’s love of the music may be the purest love of music I have ever seen in fiction.

While the plots of these types of stories usually revolve around the White protagonist learning to take up for the disadvantaged, Huey Calhoun was always on their side. More specifically, he was on the side of the music. He was willing to do whatever he needed to do to support and promote the music. At least at the beginning, Huey was not involved for any personal gain.

Given the time, place, and setting of Memphis, there is nothing I’d say was historically inaccurate. One could view that as an indictment of our nation’s history, but there’s no point in doing that here. The problem is that Huey was the protagonist. It should have been Felicia. Her story was more interesting, more powerful, and, ultimately, more important. The writing of Huey as the protagonist diminishes and undermines Felicia’s—and Black Memphis’—story. This was not Huey’s struggle. He was an ally, a supporter. But it was not his story.

Truth be told, Memphis is a show and a story for White people. Despite a plot that involves one of the important moments of the years immediately preceding the Civil Rights movement, there is nothing empowering in the musical’s plot for Black people. There is an enough of an illusion of empowerment, though, that those who do not think too hard about it will believe that Memphis is an uplifting tale about Black people. When they walk out, though, the most intricate details they remember will all be about Huey. Felicia is almost an afterthought.

Felicia’s first line is in song. “My brother runs my life,” are the first words we hear from her mouth. The secondary tale of Memphis is Felicia’s growing up and taking control of her own life. Whereas Huey entered her life and later attempted to exert control over her, Felicia stands firm and refuses to be controlled. As she matured, she developed into an independent woman who makes her own decisions. The Felicia at the end of the musical would not utter the words with which we were introduced to her. She claimed her independence and did not let anyone take it from her.

The shame of Felicia’s story is that it could have also been the story of the Black people. Unfortunately, it was not. There was no Black independence in Memphis. There was no movement toward independence. There was not even a mention of a desire for it. Instead, all of the Black people were happy to just sing and dance their way into White people’s hearts. As written, Memphis is a story about Black people trying to make White people happy with and accepting of them.

At the same time, Memphis trivializes Black culture and the struggles of Black people. The one time Felicia’s struggle is given center stage is when she sings Colored Woman, which is an ironic title. The song is about how Felicia’s mother had always told her the world is not kind to a dark-skinned girl, but how she now believes in this White man who said he can give her everything she ever dreamed of. One of the show’s other big numbers was a song named Everybody Wants to be Black on Saturday Night. The racism and oppression that segregated the Black community have, in this show, been reduced to an escapist and fun activity for the privileged oppressors.

One of the big numbers toward the end of the show includes the lyrics, "…prove that we belong." Why did or does anyone need to prove that he/she/they belong? The need to prove that one belongs carries with it the notion that someone has the right to accept or deny that belonging. Black people have been fighting for that acceptance of belonging for centuries in this country. The fact of the matter is, though, that we can never truly achieve it as long as we are looking for it. No one should be trying to prove something that is inherent in being. No one should be asking for it. Asking for it and trying to prove it are acts of diminishing one's self. It is an act of self disrespect. What I saw in Memphis was Black people begging for White people to like them. This is a show they are promoting to help bring Black people to the theater? The saddest thing is that it’s working.

The combined effect of the White acceptance of Black music was threefold. First, it made White people see how much money could be made off of Black people. Sure, a lot of Black people have grown rich from the entertainment industry, but so much more money went into the hands of White people because of it. Second, the performance Negro went mainstream. Singing and dancing still remain the fastest way for a Black person to gain acceptance into American society. Lastly, but most importantly, we now live in an illusory culture wherein every "advance" made by Black people is countered by the knowledge that White people "gave" it to us. As every intelligent person knows, independence can never be given.

All in all, though, my biggest problem with Memphis is that it was written in a way to make White people feel good about themselves. According the New York Times article, the producers are trying to attract larger quantities of Black theater patrons. Still, the stories are primarily about White people. The hidden effect of works like this—Avatar, Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and To Kill a Mockingbird certainly fall into this category as well—is that they make White people more acceptable to Black people while at the same time undermining the struggle of oppression. The true effects of oppression on the oppressed cannot be seen through the eyes of those who are not oppressed. The story of any form of Black oppression as told from the point of view of a White person can never be anything more than a Cliffs Notes version of the actual. In Memphis, we see everything from Huey's eyes.

The argument for this is a true one. If not told from a White person's perspective, White people will not watch a show like this. Just as White girls seldom have Black dolls and Black girls usually White ones, White people don't often watch Black shows about Black people, Black people are often stuck watching Black shows about White people. In Memphis, we have a Black show about Huey Calhoun.

While the plot of does not play Huey as a honorable figure, it does portray him as a sympathetic one. He is a man who came from nothing, but managed to make himself into a star. He faced true hatred and refused to back down from it. Huey was a man who exemplified living a life of personal racial harmony. And in the end, Huey is left a broken, hurt man without a place. He and his place in history have been all but forgotten. After working so hard to move Black music from the edge of the radio dial to the center, he winds up as far away from the mainstream as is possible. We saw what he did, and we cannot deny the role he played. By the end of Memphis, the audience has no choice but to feel sorry for him.

Isn’t that the cliché, though? The White man has gone too far in allying himself with the brown people, and now he is no longer accepted by his own community. It happened to Kevin Costner’s character. It happened to Tom Cruise’s. It happened to Huey Calhoun. He can never go back. He is a permanent outcast from White people. That is his punishment. Why does he need to be punished? Did there need to be a message that White people shouldn’t help brown people? I fail to understand why the plot had to written that way. Even at the end, it is the White protagonist who is set up to receive the audience’s care and concern. At no point is Felicia’s story treated as important.

Huey was far from perfect. Man, did he act like he had ownership over Felicia. He discovered her (we know this because he said so about twenty times). No, she could not, in his mind, leave Memphis without him. When he thought he was going to get a TV job in New York, it was fine for Felicia to want to travel there to become a national star. Once the TV thing failed to work out for Huey, he refused to let Felicia go to New York. To the writer's credit, Felicia left anyway. Still, there was a strong element of I did this for you and gave you this thing you wanted, so now all your decisions are up to me and I'm in charge.

"I discovered her." "I discovered you." Huey's oft repeated statements triggered an epiphany in both my wife and me. Independently, yet simultaneously, we both came to realize the significance of Huey's feelings as well as those of the local Memphis radio and television producer and the network television executive. Those men had the power to put Black music onto the radio and the television. They did so to line their pockets with money, but, still, they did it. Even though profits were their primary—only?—motivation for doing so, they did commit the act. And it made them feel good about themselves. The White consumers loved the Black music. That made them feel proud of themselves. The sum of this is that being involved in Black music in any fashion made White people feel good about themselves. A lot of them, as a result, feel as if they deserve the credit.

Still, I like the way Huey was written. His treatment of Felicia did not go unrecognized. She called him on it. In a literary sense, that’s really all I can ask for. The protagonist does not need to be perfect. I loved Huey’s main two songs. Both The Music of My Soul and Memphis Lives in Me were superb. Those songs’ lyrics and mood tell the character’s feelings about the music and the city. They are, in effect, Huey’s testimony, his defense against claims of exploitation and racism. In my mind, Huey’s character is fine. He is, I believe, a hero. Huey is loyal, even to his personal detriment. It was he who lost out on the network television show because he refused to replace Black dancers with White ones. Even when Felicia and her brother Delray told him that he should have known that would be the network’s demand, Huey refused to cave. “When did I get Blacker than you?” he asked Felicia. It was an inappropriate and misguided question, but its sentiment is meaningful. Huey was not a sellout.

Felicia and Delray are a different story. I would not call them sellouts; they did what Black people had to do back then in order to make it. The plot could have focused on the struggle of their decision to go to New York. It did not. In fact, it did not even portray it as a struggle. That moment was written in such a way as to portray nothing but Huey’s naivety. The most important decision of Delray and Felicia’s lives—the moment that should have been the climactic moment of Memphis—never happened. Maybe that would have been impactful had it been written better. As Felicia was never the focus, however, there was no reason for anyone to notice it. It just simply passed by.

All that said, I did like the show. In fact, I loved it. The music was great. It was energetic and engaging. Even if you were not a fan of early Rock & Roll, you could see and feel how Huey could fall in love with it. The passion of the actors and actresses’ really came through. From the seventh row, I could see the intensity and emotion in their faces.

One of the things my wife and I discuss anytime we go to the theater is that we are both waiting for the point when we are no longer consciously aware that we are watching a play. We don’t always get that moment. Memphis, though, took little more than five minutes to reach that point. From the moment Huey first walked into Delray’s club, I was engrossed. I cared about that goofy little kid. I felt for Delray, who just wanted to help his little sister become the star he believed she could be. And I rooted hard for Felicia.

I don’t like musicals. I’ve seen several; I’ve walked out of one. As a stand-alone entity, I would have loved Memphis. I cannot, however, escape the fact that it is but another of the same old White man leads the brown people stories. As it is, it still gets four stars out of five from me.

Ground Zero

I do not follow Sarah Palin on Twitter. I follow enough people who do follow her that every tweet of hers is retweeted to me at least twice. This afternoon, the former Vice Presidential candidate tweeted the following in succession:

Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate

Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real

Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing

I’m not going to talk about Palin’s continuing use of the non-word “refudiate”—that’s a topic for a different discussion—but instead the meaning behind the three tweets. The problem I have lies in the idea that a mosque near the World Trade Center site is an act of provocation. Provocation of what, exactly?

There is no logical way to look at this as anything other than a gross generalization of all American Muslims as peers of the terrorists. What Palin is doing here is associating every Muslim in this country with Al-Queda. This is no different, no different, no different at all from Christians who blame Jews for killing Jesus.

The argument being made against the construction of the mosque is about the feelings of non-Muslim Americans. These feelings are borne of perception, the perception that all Muslims are alike. Inherent in the opposition is the idea that Muslims in this country are somewhat less than American. Palin says that the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero stabs her in the heart. This idea requires the belief that Muslims were not hurt and horrified by the attacks of September 11, 2001. Ignorant is the only word I can use to describe the thought that Muslims in America and around the world felt anything different from everyone else at what happened on that day.

In Palin’s first tweet on the subject, she asks, “…doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland?” The heartland? What about the rest of America? What about New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Pacific Coast? Shoot, Alaska, unless American geography has changed in the last three seconds, is nowhere near America’s heartland. Then again, we all know what is meant when people mention the “heartland,” don’t we?

What is happening here is that Palin and the rest of the opposition are fighting back against something they view as threatening the sanctity of the pure White Christian man’s America. They see America as a Christian nation when, in fact, it is not. What Palin and the rest of the opposition to the mosque are saying is that it is fine for Muslims to have a place to worship as long as it’s not in this specific spot. You cannot do this and legitimately hold on the claim of religious freedom—and the United States of America is a nation of religious freedom. That means this country belongs to no one religion, and that no religion should take a back seat any other.

I cannot separate the words of the opposition from the idea that what these people really want is for Muslims in America to be low key in their religion. What people seem to want is a modified Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy when it comes to Islam. No, it’s not quite as bad as imprisoning Japanese-Americans, Italian-Americans, and German-Americans in internment camps during World War II. But, it is the same principle. And that’s bad enough.