On The Staple Singers, Respecting Spirituality And Respecting Ourselves
Mavis, Roebuck, Cleotha, and Yvonne had it right. We can learn from them.
Stop what you’re doing and play the song above. Now get out the way and let this gentleman do his thang.
America is in an astoundingly bad way right now because we sacrificed spirituality and self-respect for the digital age and/or capitalism. Maybe if we all keep pressing play on that YouTube clip from Soul Train of The Staple Singers singing “Respect Yourself,” in 1972, we can maybe discover something of what we’ve lost and put the pieces back together regarding where were headed moving forward.
In embracing what computers can do and desperately clinging onto the things that money did for and in society for 100,000 years, we’ve denied a what should be deemed necessary embrace of spirituality and humanity. Yes, we talk about mindfulness, which is wonderful. But that’s largely done on sites like this and on social media posts. Sadly though, when one considers that the number of internet users worldwide has grown nearly 25,000% in two decades to now encompass literally half of the world’s population, which means that a must-heed message for any self-respecting American is getting scrolled by in a Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram instant, jumbled into a mess of Asahd Khaled’s baby pics, flat tummy tea ads, cat memes, and reposts of Amber Rose and her unshaven vagina.
It’s hard to get in touch with the buoyant spirituality and potent humanity of “Respect Yourself” if you’re not focused and present to receive the message. Focus and presence are clearly difficult because our country has become the world’s best-rated reality TV thriller. From basketball games to Uber’s sexism to congressmen being shot while practicing baseball, and Donald Trump not necessarily being President, but moreso a tweet-narrator/absurdist Greek chorus-in-chief, this is not normal. America’s abuse of the digital age in our most cash-poor era makes sense. Religion is no longer the opiate of the tired, poor, and huddled masses. Smartphones are.
“If you disrespect anybody that you run into, how in the world do you think anybody’s s’posed to respect you?”
At the time that sweet-baritoned Staples family patriarch and Staple Singers lead vocalist Roebuck “Pops” Staples intoned the aforementioned lyric, he was a cherubic 57-year old Mississippi-born and Chicago-relocated vocalist gospel and blues vocalist who was unlike very few other pop superstars in then-modern history. There’s something, well, “marital” about his performance, in the sense that he’s wed to the words by them being a combination of “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue” in lyric and delivery.
The old is the gospel, as the Staples family began appearing in Chicago-area churches some 23 years prior to releasing “Respect Yourself” in 1948. The “new” is the gut-bucket funk/soul sound, which developed in 1965 as the Staple Singers signed to Epic Records and began perfecting their “soul folk” sound. What’s borrowed is the folk-aimed easy listening groove of their style, something much more Peter, Paul, and Mary than Motown. What’s blue? Well, that’s “Pops,” who always conveyed a wise, yet weary sensibility, as if he were a parent sitting on a porch advising his children (yet again, for the millionth time) as to the ways of a universe that he’d seen come far, but not far enough since just 50 years after the end of the Civil War.
In a modern day corollary to this point, in a March interview, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, ground-breaking feminist, and ride-sharing app Uber board member Arianna Huffington insisted that oft-lambasted Uber doesn’t have “systematic problem” with sexual harassment. This was followed by a recent Uber meeting where former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder’s law firm met with the company about it’s company culture, which has been called “toxic,” particularly to women. At said meeting, TPG Capital founder and like Huffington, an Uber board member, David Bonderman made a joke in poor taste insinuating that women are chattier than men. This is, of course, exactly the kind of sexist behavior with which Huffington noted Uber did not have a problem.
And back to the song…
Oh, you cuss around women and you don’t even know their names…you’re dumb enough to think that’ll make you a big ol’ man!
Of the three Staples sisters that composed the Staple Singers for their most pop-successful 15-year run from 1970–1985, it’s Mavis whose voice is the true standout instrument. On “Respect Yourself,” “Pops” cedes control of the song to Mavis, whose near-sultry low-to-high range shout has a gospel-to-secular affectation that isn’t so much about the church-to-sex blasphemy that this style is so often connected. Rather, there’s a sense of church-to-non-secular social action here. The “rock and roll” sexuality of Ray Charles and Chuck Berry is instead replaced by a “rock and roll” of Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH-meets-Gloria Steinem’s women’s movement. So much of women’s movement politics is tied up in “a woman’s right to choose” being a point of sexualized revolution. This is instead a “right to choose”-as-“call to action” against being treated as a second-class citizen in the workforce. And yes, much like “Pops’” weary, yet wizened voice, Mavis is every bit of the stereotypical African-American Southern mother here, hear chastisement sounding like it’s going to be accompanied with a leather belt or tree switch treatment for the offending man.
Regarding spirituality, self-respect, and Mavis Staples’ necessary influence on modern times, let’s discuss Cailfornia’s African-American Congressional cause celebre’s of late, “strong black woman” Representative Maxine Waters and “hysterical” Senator Kamala Harris. Maxine Waters being lampooned and compared to James Brown by the now fired and shamed from Fox News Bill O’Reilly and Kamala Harris was chastised for aggressively questioning national intelligence chiefs and sitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions regarding their knowledge of Russian influence in the 2016 American Presidential election.
When Senators John McCain and Richard Burr basically reprimanded Harris for her determination in the face of what she was attempting to do insofar as solve an issue of grave national concern, it made a massive statement. Ultimately, we’re at a place wherein we’re not just ignoring a woman, we’re moreso ignoring our inquisitive national purpose and denying our democratic and honest national objectives. If this behavior continues, then it bespeaks to a clear degeneration of America from itself, and a need for us as American people to maybe put away our cell phones and consider our money (or lack thereof) secondary to figuring out how to right ourselves, or if it’s time to contemplate adopting a new system of societal governance.
In regards to where we are as a nation, in a 2008 Pitchfork interview, Mavis Staples noted the following:
“There’s still injustice happening in my world. I sing my song at concerts and I’m so grateful that the people are ready to hear them. Well Lord, I’m still on the case. I’m still doing what Dr. King and Pops want me to do. I’m still on that freedom highway, and I’m going to walk on it until Dr. King’s dream is realized.”
Regarding Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Bill O’Reilly once made the following statements about her:
“I didn’t hear a word [Waters] said. I was looking at the James Brown wig. If we have a picture of James, it’s the same wig…I didn’t say she wasn’t attractive…but, I love James Brown, but it’s the same hair, James Brown — alright, the ‘Godfather of Soul’ — had the same hair.”
“As I have said many times, I respect Congresswoman Maxine Waters for being sincere in her beliefs. I said that again today on Fox & Friends calling her ‘old school.’ Unfortunately, I also made a jest about her hair which was dumb. I apologize.”
If you’re walking ‘round think’n that the world owes you something ’cause you’re here…you goin’ out the world backwards like you did when you first come here!
If you don’t respect yourself, ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot, na na na na…respect yourself…
