Let There Be Joyful Noise:Celebrating Easter with Own

Make a joyful noise to God,all the earth! 

Psalm 66:1

 This Easter holiday season, I vowed to listen to and share as much music as possible and lift the Easter holiday up while working on my Easter reflection. I even curated a playlist to share for the season. Watching Own's Easter concert was icing on the cake and spurred me on to complete the music playlist project for family, friends and hopefully for inclusion in my Apple radio station. It is actually a compilation of all of my jazz,r&b and inspirational music. 

So, you could say that my Holy week celebration got off to a great start watching Own network's concert starring  legendary gospel royalty from the Winans' family including BeBe,  CeCe and Deborah Joy Winans.  CeCe sang while BeBe and Deborah hosted the inspiring line up of performances by Stellar and Grammy winning recording artists including Kirk Franklin, Travis Greene,Jonathan McReynolds, Koryn Hawthorne,Fantasia, Anthony Hamilton and the Hamiltones, Lewis, Michelle Williams, Cedric the Entertainer, and several others including some amazing pastors and spiritual leaders who shared some of their enlightening and educational perspectives on Easter. It was an enriching experience all the way around with music and Biblical education. 

Own network has the full video up on their website. If you missed the original broadcast a complimentary viewing  will be available at this link until the end of this month. Enjoy!

On Racism and Cancel Culture Osborne and Morgan Style with Weigh Ins from Fox on Soul Queens

 

While the media stratosphere and blogosphere is rife with incidents sparking debates and “cancel culture” actions, I thought it important that I dig into my archives and share some commentary on racism from some of our great leaders. I found an essay I wrote about how Obama handled and weighed in on the outcome of the Trayvon Martin trial. Although that verdict is now unbelievably 8 years old, it is relevant as the incident that sparked this modern debate and stirred a controversy on racism of the police and auxiliary police that has expanded to other areas of our lives and provided the impetus for the Black Lives Matter movement. The recent swift release of Sharon Osbourne a co-host of the Talk for her aggressive questioning of Sheryl Underwood about what Piers Morgan did in Underwood’s view that was racist caused enough of a stir to have her leave the show she has been co-hosting for 11years even though Underwood in her media remarks had no objections to Osbourne’s line of questioning. Nor did she seem to have been offended. Likewise, the abrupt and seemingly heated and non-sensical rift that occurred between Morgan and the Duchessof Sussex has resulted in the same course of swift firings or resignations without any  follow up dialogue.

On a healing note, I think we have to be very careful about alienating potential allies and folks of other races by knee jerking in the course of sensitive dialogue that may not be intended to cause harm, but is merely person’s trying to get to the heart of the issue without any racist intentions or objectives . Hear more on my upcoming podcast at a forthcoming link. I also mention a commentary I wrote about President Obama’s response to Trayvon Martin’s disappointing verdict which many thought was a racist and unfair outcome and what measures he thought could be taken to bring healing to the situation.