I remember when, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place. Even your emotions have an echo and so much space. But when you're out there, yeah, I was out of touch but it wasn't because I didn't know enough. I just knew too much. Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Possibly…
(from "Crazy," by Gnarls Barkley)
If I am a prophet, I'm not one of those "behold for I bring you tidings of comfort and joy" prophets. Nope, there is nothing comforting about what God tells me to say. If I am a prophet, I'm more like Ezekiel or Jeremiah - one of those tormented, "woe be unto you" prophets.
Therefore, I stand before you today, the first official celebration of Martin Luther King Day at Judson, to pose the prophetic question outright that the Israelites and my ancestors before me could only sing: "How can we sing a holy song in a strange land?"
For they that carried us away to captivity required of us a song, and they that tormented us required of us mirth, and they that systematically oppressed us required of us silence, saying sing us one of those good old Spirituals of Zion…
A-men, A-men, Amen, Amen, Amen…
Don't get me wrong, I love the spirituals. And I love to sing the spirituals. And I will sing a spiritual wherever I am with no problem. I love spirituals because of the history they hold and the story of struggle they tell: God's presence in struggle, God's promise in spite of struggle… Most black music in its most authentic state tells the story of struggle and of ways to respond to struggle. This is why the blues are so central to black music in general. This is a genre, born out of the Spirituals and Work Songs. This is a genre that gave birth not only to Gospel but also to soul and funk, and is the grandparent of hip hop and contemporary Gospel. You don't have black music without the blues.
And that's why it bothers me so much when white people want to make black religious music so happy, so full of mirth, so to speak. But being hopeful and faithful in the face of terror doesn't exactly equate with happiness, in my mind. The pain that you may not hear in the words always comes through in the sound.
Let the church say Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen…
Yet even when certain songs actually do reflect struggle directly, so many white Christians still chose to skip over those things. My favorite example is the song "Oh Happy Day". In the process of my life, you don't know how many times I've been asked by a white person to sing "Oh Happy Day". "Oh Happy Day, Oh Happy Day" and those are the only words they know. But what's funny is how singers in black religious settings barely even care about that part. We basically sleep through the whole "Oh Happy Day" thing. The part we love is HE TAUGHT ME HOW TO WALK, FIGHT, AND PRAY!!!
I'm thinking most of you have never even heard of that part. But for Edwin Hawkins, who wrote the song, and African Americans in the mid 1960's when the song was first released, how happy the day was, was less important than being taught how to walk, fight, and pray.
But I think it might be easier for souls filled with white guilt to think of these songs as happy, just like it's easier to boil Martin Luther King down to an era and a dream. Or if you are more progressive, you might focus on the end of King's life when he began to speak about war and poverty and leave out the connection he was making between those issues and racism in America. But it was never King's intention to forget or leave out that connection. King didn't forget and neither will I. Because making that connection was so important to that day and is so unbelievably relevant today. But some of our more privileged brothers and sisters skip over these painful but important nuances because of the pain it might cause them. "Stop singing those sad songs. Stop talking about your oppression because it's making me feel bad."
By the rivers of Babylon-
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!'
(from Psalm 137)
My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done
Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably…
(from "Crazy," by Gnarls Barkley)
