Black Music Month: One Night In Miami

I really enjoyed the movie. It was more realistic than I expected, even if it is largely re-imagined:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a35204714/one-night-in-miami-true-story/

I appreciated the way each actor embodied their historical figure, giving an idea of their frailties but also their strengths and their likability. Well, maybe the movie was overly kind to Jim Brown; they probably could have dropped some hints of things to come there. 

As it was, in the film he primarily acted as the voice of reason,  especially trying to get Malcolm to back off in his needling of Sam Cooke.

This needling may have been the most fictional part of the created conversations. It related to Cooke's music pursuing a white audience and being rather shallow. In the movie (so I assume the play as well), Cooke admits that he has thought about doing more meaningful songs and was working on one, and then he introduces "A Change is Gonna Come" shortly after. In fact, Cooke had already introduced the song a few weeks before that night. 

The sentiments of the conversation are believable enough: not just that someone whose focus was on Black separatism might disagree with going after white money, or that a dedicated and religious person might find pop love songs trivial, but also both Cooke's and Brown's rebuttals about economic independence and the power that brings.

I see all of their points, and problems with their points as well. 

For example, Black economic prosperity seems like a clear good, but remember, we just commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Back when I first heard of it, the reading material focused on "Black Wall Street", though I guess it was really about the destruction of Black Wall Street. Anyway, that prosperity made them a target, and that is the story behind other massacres and generally behind lynchings. The perpetrators don't say that's the reason, true, but it is clearly the reason nonetheless. 

Economic solutions are important, but they aren't enough.

Also -- just for the record -- I think "You Send Me" is absolutely beautiful and moving. I can't trivialize romantic love or the thrill of infatuation. I like consciousness and inspiration to stay in the fight, but that fight can wear you out. Sometimes you need laughs, and thrills, and low-stakes drama. Sometimes things need to get a little hot. The brilliance of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On does not mean there is no place for Let's Get It On, and there are moments when Let's Get It On is more to the point.

What I keep thinking of is, oddly enough, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: "First Contact".

The residents of the Malcorian planet are getting close to their own space age, causing the Enterprise to make contact with their government. When I forget which episode it is, I can find it because I remember that Bebe Neuwirth played the alien who really wanted a close encounter with Riker,

Yes, the Malcorians were very similar to Earthlings of our time, and that included a dangerous xenophobia. Chancellor Durkin decides to delay relations with the Federation, to delay working on warp drive technology, and to instead focus on arts and culture. The goal is to bring the planet's residents up to where they can be open to other lifeforms and a more complex universe than they have been able to envision.

That episode was from 1991, but thirty years later we are still there. How frustrating for those who have been working on it since 1964.

A touching thing from Mary J. Blige's My Life was how many girls saw themselves in her, and so felt like there were good possibilities for them too. Representation matters for seeing yourself, but it also matters for seeing others, and understanding the value and validity of those other selves that are not you. It matters for seeing the ways in which they are like you, and the ways in which they are different.

That as much as anything is why my seeking out history has had to evolve to include seeking out art too. It has changed me. Not enough, but there is no going back.