Aretha deserved better

Now that the funeral is over and the Queen has been laid to rest, its high time we have a talk, family.

Aretha deserved better than the funeral she was given. Sure, the tributes were heartfelt, the speeches were poignant, and the music (for the most part) was beautiful. But beautiful as parts of the almost 9-hour "funeral" (I would call it a spectacle more than a ceremony to say farewell to a legend) was, the majority of that time was overshadowed by one specific portion that, for all intents and purposes, did not honor the memory, the legend, the contribution Aretha Franklin was to this world.

My people, we rant and rave about how the world treats our legends. Most of us had a fit when the current president remembered her as someone who "once worked for" him or when Madonna told a long-winded anecdote all about herself failing to sing an Aretha song at an audition when she was supposed to be doing an Aretha tribute (or more importantly, to MTV who failed to get a proper dedication created and presented).

That her funeral had several searingly disrespectful moments shows that maybe we aren't much better at honoring our own legends as well.

She was Aretha Franklin, yall. She was the queen of soul, one of the main voices of the soundtrack for civil rights movements, the voice that echoed in both churches and dance halls, whose work progressed her people, her music, and herself into the annals of music history.

And in one cringy, tone-deaf, tacky, tasteless failed eulogy attempt, Jasper Williams not only reminded millions of people why they shouldn't take the Black Church seriously, showed thousands of Black Millennials and young adults why they don't go to church anymore (another post for another day), but completely disrespect Aretha, her family, and her legacy in 50 minutes of foolery.

Quotes like “Everyone in our community is walking around like zombies. Everybody high, everybody drunk.” makes me personally wonder what community Jasper lives in? Saying things like:

“It amazes me how it is when the police kills one of us we’re ready to protest, march, destroy innocent property,” Williams began. “We’re ready to loot, steal whatever we want, but when we kill 100 of us, nobody says anything, nobody does anything. Black-on-black crime, we’re all doing time, we’re locked up in our mind, there’s got to be a better way, we must stop this today.”  

Do black lives matter?  

No, black lives do not matter,” Williams said. “Black lives will not matter, black lives ought not matter, black lives should not matter, black lives must not matter until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves.” 

Not only did his fiery flop completely missed the point of sharing Aretha's achievements like performing at inaugural events of three US presidents: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, ministering in song "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" at the memorial service of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., receiving over 40 Grammy nominations and 18 wins including three special Grammy awards, being a high school dropout yet receiving two honorary doctorates of music, from Berklee College of Music and Yale University, raising a beautiful family and being an advocate for human rights, receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame, and Apollo Theater Legends Walk of Fame, Jasper completely disrespected her own character.

Despite the embarrassingly long eulogy, Jasper shared only a scant few comments on Aretha's own life, talking more about her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin more than he spoke about her at her own funeral. He went even further by using the term "abortion after birth" to describe the situation of children being raised with a father. Meanwhile, Aretha's own sons that she raised alone sat mere yards away.

My heart breaks at the thought that Williams would rather occupy a pulpit and condemn his own people and shame the memory of Aretha with his own ignorant and biased and dated opinions rather than to honor a woman who's own significance vastly outshines his own, even in death. Face it, outside of this debaucherous dumpster fire dare called a eulogy, most of us who tuned in to the memorial service for Aretha, never heard of Rev. Jasper Williams, who now embodies everything we dislike about our own church experience.

Aretha is a legend, a hero, a voice that there will never be another like. She inspired voices that are now currently singing, she became the theme of those who stood up to the monsters of injustice, she sings the songs of love and loss and restoration and resurrection and she made us as listeners feel and be better.

If there were a way to completely remove the almost hour-long ignorant tirade, maybe the 8 hours of songs and speeches would have been a ceremony more befitting a Queen's farewell.

Aretha deserved better.