They missed the whole point. This is what I saw instantly when she appeared:
Aunt Jemima - Fictional black female with a broad smile, bandanna and kerchief round her neck displayed on packages of Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix and Syrup products first marketed by the Davis Milling Company in the 1890s. Nancy Green, a 59-year-old former slave and court clerk, portrayed the original Aunt Jemima at the Chicago World's Exposition of 1893. [...]
Keep in mind what was going on at the inauguration and where it took place. Rosa Brooks, in a 'must read' piece:
The National Mall is a haunted place. Stand on it, and if you listen carefully, you can still hear King speaking of his dream. Close your eyes, and you can still see those thousands of upturned faces. You can still hear the singing, not just of those who marched with King in 1963 but of the millions who marched before and after, for peace or for rights, all calling on their nation to make good on its promises of justice and equality.
Ms. Franklin's hat was a statement about what has gone before and now hopefully what has finally started to come together, a fancy, in-your-face even, version of a stereotypical old-time black woman's headrag from slave and Jim Crow days. A cultural icon if you will, as in 'we're proud of our heritage and you may suck it if you please'. Mrs. G called it "a Sunday go-to-meetin'" hat, and she hit it right on the nose. From the Motor City Freep:
Mr. Song Millinery's clientele is 90% African-American, churchgoing women, Song said. His wholesale business supplies hats to shops in other cities with large African-American communities, and the merchandise sells especially well in California, Houston and Dallas. He designs 100 hat styles every six months.
Detroit is very proud of the hat, and Mr. Song's phone has been ringing off the hook ever since.
Personally, I think the hat was gorgeous and cutting-edge appropriate for the occasion.
Me'n Aretha go back a long way. I first heard her in the squadbay* at Camp Lejeune in 1965. The splib dudes** all hung out together, and some of them had brought Roberts (Akai) reel-to-reel tape recorders back from Vietnam. Reel-to-reel was the state of the art in those days, and these guys had tapes just crammed with the stuff they liked, which us chucks*** had never heard before. I liked the music, and it was fun to watch those guys, in their skivvies and with nylon stockings on their heads over no hair, dancing. Individually, not with each other. I think.
Just as an aside, the white Viet Vets had tape recorders too. You could walk from one end of the squadbay to the other and musically go right from check-your-shoes-before-you-go-indoors country & western to downtown Detroit or Philly in 50 feet.
Anyway, the splibs really liked Aretha, whom I had never heard of, and I got to liking her, and soul music in general, because of them.
Here's one of my favorite Aretha songs. If ya go on the down-low side of double entendre this song is positively filthy! See ya there. Heh. Not bad for a church girl!
Freeway Of Love (In My Pink Cadillac)
*Squadbay: a large barracks room occupied by up to 100 Marines, half of whom are farting at any given time. Home Sweet Home.**Splib dudes: black Marines. The terms 'black' or 'Afro-American' were not in use yet, 'colored' was pejorative, and 'Negro' was simply not used. Sometimes the term 'dark green Marine' was used, mostly by officers and staff NCOs, and considered as phony as a $3 bill. The term was used openly by both blacks and whites and was most definitely not meant as an insult. I have heard that it is an anacronym, but I have no idea what the letters stand for. I wish we had a word like that now - one syllable and non-judgmentally descriptive. I don't know if it is still in use in the Corps, but I rather think not.
***Chuck or 'chuck dude': white Marines. From "Mr. Charles" meaning The Man, as in The Establishment that had kept blacks down. No offense was taken by white Marines.
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