Playlist: Passing over into the Infinite

This is a playlist for honoring those we have lost, who have passed over into the great infinite. Many of the songs on this list are love songs. Feel them. They express the same feelings of love, life, longing, and loss that we experience with death. There are also songs of celebration. Feel them too, for while we grieve, we also embrace with joy the life and times shared, and the memories and spirit that lives on.

Passing over into the Infinite

1. Heavenly Day, Patty Griffin  

2. Someone Like You, Adele  

3. Blackbird, The Beatles    

4. In My Life, The Beatles    

5. Redemption Song, Bob Marley & The Wailers        

6. I Shall Believe, Cheryl Crow                            

7. God Bless the Child, Jill Scott      

8. Golden, Jill Scott      

9. A Song For You (f/Christina Aguilera), Herbie Hancock  

10. I See God In You, India.Arie      

11. Many Rivers to Cross, Jimmy Cliff    

12. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye    

13. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), Marvin Gaye    

14. Still I Rise, Melky Sedeck    

15. Skylark, k.d. lang      

16. Closer To The Sky, Michael Franti  

17. I Shall Be Released, Nina Simone    

18. Sail Away, Randy Newman    

19. Into the Mystic, Van Morrison    

20. Up Above My Head (I Hear Music In the Air), Ruthie Foster  

21. Love's In Need Of Love Today, Stevie Wonder  

22. As, Stevie Wonder  

23. Bandy Bandy, Zap Mama & Erykah Badu  

24. Salala, Angélique Kidjo Feat. Peter Gabriel    

25. Hallelujah, Brandi Carlile  

26. Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole  

This playlist can be found on iTunes here.

And then there is this:

Fear of the A Word

Alzheimer's, that is. And Dementia. Losing our minds, literally.


Most people know memory loss is a normal part of aging. But the very real terror of the possibility of getting Alzheimer's is a bit of a secret among my women friends who are 50 and older. We joke about our memory gaps, in part to ease our fears. (CRS or "Can't Remember Shit" is a favorite acronym of mine). But it's not funny when we have to whisper to each other at a party, "What is her name again?" And then, "Yes! How could I forget that!" We commiserate, but secretly worry. Do I have IT.


Most of us are still working, in top form, at the peak of our careers. Yet we don't let on at work that we forgot a name, make detailed to-do lists, sometimes forget where we are going from one meeting to the next (my smart phone saves me), and that we didn't set up that promised meeting right away because we forgot to put it on the aforementioned to-do list. Is anyone noticing? 


At home, we head into the kitchen, full of purpose, and then wonder why we walked into the kitchen once we get there. Oh yeah, to see what I need to get at the store. How could I forget, just like that?  I have started repeating stories so often that I now try to ask people before I begin one, "Have I told you this story yet?" I'm only 55. I've always had a bad memory, but...


Each time someone our age is in the news with that dreaded diagnosis of Early Onset Dementia or Early Alzheimer's we collectively think, "Could I be next?" I was stunned when we learned of Pat Summitt's Early Onset Dementia diagnosis just this summer - the type that will lead to Alzheimer's. Summitt is the head women's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee and the most winning coach in college basketball history, men's or women's. And she is only 59. She looked fine last season. She bravely came out with her story, and says she is taking medication and doing memory exercises with the hope of coaching for a few more seasons, with the help of her staff. News accounts say symptoms included missed meetings and forgotten plays. That's all?! What else did she and others notice? 


Do men my age worry like this? I don't hear them talking about it if they do. It's true that women are diagnosed with Alzheimer's at a higher rate then men, but it seems to be a woman's worry. I know a few women with simple memory loss symptoms who have made appointments with their doctors or even at memory loss clinics just to be sure it is nothing more than age. No one has come back yet with the diagnosis of Early Onset Dementia or the "Big A." But we are worried, even terrified. We know more than one of us will come back with the dreaded diagnosis some day. Please. Not me. Ever.


Summitt's courage in going public is a wake up call to those of us worrying and wondering. To take those little lapses seriously. To not ignore if normal memory loss is getting worse and starting to interfere with how we function. To know the symptoms and get checked out. 


An estimated 5.4 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer’s disease in 2011. This figure includes 5.2 million people aged 65 and older, and 200,000 individuals under age 65 who have younger-onset Alzheimer’s. As we Baby Boomers age the percentages will continue to go up. (Source)


So it's okay to be worried, but we also need to be empowered with information. A great resource is the National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine. Learn more about Dementia from them here and about Alzheimer's here. And here is a great list of symptoms of Alzheimer's that includes a comparison to normal memory loss.


Okay, I'm pretty sure it's just a normal aging memory thing after reading that list. 


Pretty sure. 

Someone Like You

Adele performing the classic "Someone Like You" live at the 2011 VMA awards last night. The chance to see these stunning, live performances is what makes suffering through music award shows worthwhile. Last unforgettable performance was P!nk's "Glitter in the Air" at the 2010 Grammys

Review: "The Help" doesn't help white people

If you've missed the outpouring of negative reviews, tweets, and general outrage over the release of the movie version of The Help from voices in the African American community, you've had your head in the sand. To bring yourself up to speed, read these reviews before continuing with this post:

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help, by the Association of Black Women Historians

Black-and-White Struggle with a Rosey Glow, by Nelson George

And for balance, here is an interesting interview with Octavia Spencer about her role as Minnie Jackson, one the of maids, and the movie overall.

Another great source for ongoing discussion of the movie is to search the hashtag #TheHelpMovie on Twitter. All kinds of people have lots to say.

I finally saw the movie tonight and came loaded for anger after reading all of that outrage. I was shocked to find myself liking it more than I thought I would. I could see and understand that the movie was a sugarcoated, whitewashed version of what really happened during Jim Crow, but it didn't send me into a fury. It didn't go far enough, but it wasn't that bad, through my lens. I was disappointed I didn't hate it.

That got me thinking about how differently black and white people are experiencing the movie and wondering why. Is there a white perspective on the movie, and if so, what is it?

Let's start with comedian Louis CK, who sums up things pretty well here:


Sadly what makes this spot so hilarious is that most white people are pretty clueless about our privilege.

We are also pretty clueless about the varied experiences of African American people of all education and economic backgrounds, from slavery to today.

I came of age in the sixties and early seventies, during the time in which The Help is set, and when the civil rights movement was in full force, changing our country forever. But I barely knew it was happening.

The environment I grew up in was virtually all-white, middle class suburbia. Anything I knew about Black people, slavery, Jim Crow, or the civil rights movement came from the history I was taught in school, what I saw on TV, or from the very brief, infrequent conversations we had about those topics at home. Which means I knew Jack, and what I did know was mostly distorted, watered down, or an outright lie. This is true for most white people.

I didn't begin to get another point of view until college, when I had my first opportunities to meet Black people, say stupid stuff in front of them, be called a racist, and thanks to the beginnings of African American Studies and Women's Studies programs, take classes that deconstructed the hell out of my naive reality.

More than 35 years and thousands of experiences later, I am no longer clueless. Yet I am clued-in just enough to understand that what I know about being African American is only by proxy, despite the fact that my most intimate and important relationships are with people who are Black, including my children, my grandchildren, and my spouse.

But I'm fortunate. Most white people stay in segregated enclaves and never get the chance to grow or to understand anything outside of our distorted realities.

So the stakes are very, very high for African American people whenever a movie comes out about The Black Experience, especially if it is a white person trying to tell the tale. (There is also the Tyler Perry debate, but that's a whole other post.)

No wonder people are seething at how The Help falls short, glossing over the exploitation and brutality of the time, and appropriating the real story of Black maids in the Jim Crow south by making the central character a white person who saves the day.

Which is exactly why movies like The Help are not helpful for white people. Most of us have not had enough experiences or education outside of our white worlds to have any critical context and perspective about what we are watching. We falsely think it is The Truth. Liberal white people in particular have a hard time wrapping our heads and hearts around the ugly truth of our nation's racial history without becoming paralyzed with guilt. Many liberal white people want desperately to believe that things are almost all better now, especially since we elected a Black man president.

The great racial divide is alive and well. Same country, two different worlds. And it's all playing out in reactions to this movie.

Read the screen grabs below from actor Wendell Pierce's Twitterstream. He recounts watching the movie with his mother, who was The Help at one point in her life, as was his grandmother. He sums up the great divide perfectly, 140 characters at a time. Especially this: "Watching the film in Uptown New Orleans to the sniffles of elderly white people while my 80 year old mother was seething, made clear [the] distinction."

Read from the bottom to the top:

Pierce: "The story was a sentimental primer of a palatable segregation that is Jim Crow light."

Yes. The The Help lets white people off the hook. It creates a partial truth that allows us to feel less guilty about Jim Crow and all the bad things our ancestors did during slavery because the feel-good outweighs the feel-bad, to keep our heads collectively in the sand about how we still benefit from all our privilege, and to be in denial about the incredible racist backlash caused by President Obama's election and how bad things still are for most Black people today.

There is an opportunity in all of this. White people, if you were moved by the movie (thanks in part to the amazing actors who play the maids) and are curious about the vocal controversy surrounding it, seek out knowledge about what it really meant to be The Help. We share this history. We need to understand it.

I recommend these books as a place to start:

Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody

Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

And here is a list of books offered up by Melissa Harris-Perry (@MHarrisPerry) after she did some scathing live tweeting while watching The Help. A great recounting of her tweets and an interview with her about the movie can be found here.

(Again, read from the bottom up.)

Note to readers: In all the searching I've done for reviews and responses, I've not found one critical piece by someone who is white. If you know of any, please leave them in the comments sections. Thank you.

Sept 18 Update: Read this great post by 74 year old Janet Cheatham Bell, an accomplished author who once worked as a maid. 

Jill Scott's "Shame:" An anthem for strong women everywhere

Dear Jill Scott,

I have loved you and your music since we first met through "Who is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1" in 2000. I've been jamming to your magnificence ever since. And you just keep getting better. Your new album, The Light of The Sun, is divine. And "Shame," the song and especially the video, is a new anthem for strong women everywhere. Thank you for what you bring to the world.

With love and respect,

Your loyal fan

I can 'fend on my own, I'm magnificent
I'm a Queen on my throne, I'm magnificent
I'm the magnificent (SAY WHAT! SAY WHAT!)
I'm the magnificent (SAY WHAT! SAY WHAT!)

P.S. If you don't have this CD yet, buy it, don't bootleg it. Support talented artists!