Aretha

Laurie
Aretha
Starbucks, January 20, 2009

Aretha stood in front of the million people gathered in the frigid D. C. air, looking out with her practiced performer’s cool. A ridiculously extravagant hat in the shape of a giant bow sat at a jaunty angle above her brow. She sang America with her smoky, opulent voice. “Land where our fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, on every mountainside, let freedom ring.” The words shot into the icy air and drifted down, warming the crowd. Her velvet voice covered our glistening cheeks. She took her time in Club Planet, this woman with the proportions of a fertility goddess. She sang of how her life as a church singer was braided into the history of jazz, gospel, and soul, a history of black people in this country that produced the new president. She didn’t smile or shudder. She sang of choosing love over hate, although hate is comforting. Barack is the baby come out of this mixing. He is young enough not to feel described by the insult of racism. It has not made him feel stupid or ineffectual, and his mother did not have to dislike herself or regret her life—largely because of activists fighting for black people and women. The past eight years it had seemed their efforts could be turned back, but now it appears that an idea whose time has come can’t really be stopped.