Somehow I found Eric Olsen's article on the passing of my ultimate showman, Brother Ray Charles. Your article is excellent and helped me articulate his significance to another. I have maintained, that since I saw and heard Muddy Waters as a child, the only person that could hold a candle to him as a performer was Ray charles. He was the the first entertainer to break the color barrier at Delta State College. The school's administration came up with restrictions that would fit under the Patriot act. After the Rayettes did the first part of the show, Ray Charles came out and did almost two hours instead of the 45 minutes officials wanted him to. He like Muddy Waters before him got it. Music is neither black nor white. It is there for all; only some never "get" it. Thank you Eric for the notation on the passing of greatest. We shall not see his likeness again.

Thanks so much Jennifer, your words are kind and your thoughts and experience profound. I appreciate your leaving them here very much.

Someone just praising Eric, for an entry containing inaccurate information at that, is a blog entry?

As for a white person attending a segregated public event and bragging about how 'universal' it was, there's some unrecognized irony here.

Is there something wrong with whites going to see a black entertainer, MD?

Yes, there is something wrong with whites (or anyone else) supporting segregation. It is amazing that you needed to ask. If Jennifer wanted to see Ray Charles she could have waited until she could do so in an integrated setting. (I don't mean whites on one side of a rope, and blacks on the other, either.) Instead, she knowingly helped maintain segregation by attending a segregated event. And, all these years later, she is so blind to her own complicity, she brags about it.

MD, the barrier had to be broken somewhere. There was not going to be any instant reversal of segregation -- it was bound to be a long, drawn-out process.

What would you say to Ray Charles? He's the one who played there.

Obviously MD is morally superior to Ray Charles, who played segregated shows. Yes siree, the Diva is the very fount of enlightenment.

She just absolutely HAS to jump up in front of the memorial services here in absolutely every Ray Charles thread to proclaim her imagined intellectual and moral superiority.

Beyond anything else, this behavior is exceedingly disrespectful to the memory of Brother Ray.

bhw, I would say the same thing to Ray Charles. He should have refused those venues. It is not like he did not know he could. And, by the time Southern promoters could get the law bent for whites to see him, he was already successful. There were black entertainers who refused to play segregated houses. They survived.

Whenever I browse Right Wing blogs, I see posts like Jennifer's if race is mentioned. That is, white people complimenting themselves on having tender sensibilities while participating in apartheid, either here or abroad. The thought that they could have refused to attend a segregated concert or serve in the South African military does not even cross their minds. If they had really cared about ending segregation, they would have eschewed participating in it whenever they could. Instead, they happily participated and are too morally blind to recognize their own complicity. One give away in remarks like Jennifer's is that the civil rights issue gets short shrift, while her 'tender sensibilities' are the point. People congratulating themselves for aiding and abetting bigotry. Spare me.

MD:

Can you find racism in everything? Life must be like a "Where's Waldo" book for you, only it's "Where's Evil Whitey."

Try to find the racism in this:

"I like professional basketball and football, which are sports whose atheletes are predominately black."

C'mon, you bitter shrew. I'm sure you'll come up with something...

Billy Joel and Jim Croce are better then Ray Charles