final days forum

Bernie Mac and 'Hot Buttered Soul'

We won't be able to replace the two icons of African American culture -- comedian Bernie Mac and singer Issac Hayes -- who died this weekend. Newcomers may arrive on the scene and follow behind them, but they will be the branches of the tall trees these men rooted among us.

Both men were to be featured this November in a new movie, "Soul Men," which is named after the song, "Soul Man," which Hayes wrote with David Porter, according to TVGuide.com.

Bernie Mac, born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, had that gift to dig insightfully into the cracks in human nature and find humor in it. "The Bernie Mac Show" on television, and the film, "Guess Who?" and the "Ocean's" film series display his gift at its best. How Bernie Mac intrepreted parenting is refreshing and authentic in his television series. TV Guide named him #47 among the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time"  in 2004, according to The Internet Movie Database. In "Guess Who?," Bernie Mac is the face of Americans across the country, growing in his understanding of his daughter's choice to pursue an interracial marriage, yet, by the end of the movie, displaying fatherly wisdom to her fiance. In the Ocean series, he was a fitting player that helped give the films their comic strength.

Issac Hayes will always remind me of growing up in East St. Louis. I remember days cleaning up the house while his album, "Hot Buttered Soul" played on the stereo, a melodic accompaniment, a soundtrack for my adolescence in the 1970s. Hayes represents what I miss most now in contemporary music. So many singers then (think Marvin Gaye, Nancy Wilson,  Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield, and Donnie Hathaway, just to start the list!) sang of angst, loss, hope, tenderness, and struggle. Play songs like "Walk on By," the theme from "Shaft," or "Soul Man" and I'm immediately transported to my teen years and home.

Bernie Mac and Issac Hayes, thank you for planting such tall trees for us.

Judy Howard Ellis

Links courtesy of www.idmb.com, www.groovesharklite.com, http://www.ninasimone.com/, http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Donny%20Hathaway.html, http://classic.motown.com/artist.aspx?ob=ros&src=lb&aid=1, http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/curtis-mayfield, http://missnancywilson.com/, http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-News-Blog/Todays-News/Bernie-Mac-Dead/800044883?rssDate=12345678, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Man_(song)

Let the people talk!

Christians often skewer mainstream media for how journalists torture our words and make people of faith look silly when interviewed. This is particularly true when Christians are interviewed on the air. Sometimes Christians come off harsh (sadly, that's not always the journalists' fault) and at other times the words of Christians about God float away like meaningless wisps when Christian thought is overlooked or ridiculed by mainstream media.

We recognize those missed opportunities, so let's not commit the same media missteps with the programming we oversee. When Christian program hosts interview guests on the air, we should give them the courtesy of letting them speak -- in complete sentences, without our interrupting them; and in complete thoughts, so that listeners can hear the full counsel of what God indeed may be sharing through those guests.

Certainly some guests may rattle on, but that problem can be minimized by inviting guests who are media savvy or by coaching guests before they sit in the interviewee's seat. A skillful host also can keep a guest on point. Nevertheless, the main challenge for many Christian hosts is to listen to their guests, to draw them out, not drown them out. Great men and women of God with much to share have humbly allowed  hosts to dominate the conversation under the guise of "guiding" the chat. I've often wondered what those leaders could have said about walking with God, had the interview gone differently.

Words change atmospheres and motivate hearts. They are powerful instruments and that's why Christians bruise when we are mishandled by mainstream media. But we are guilty of the same short-sightedness when we thoughtlessly interview our guests and unwittingly deflate the hopes of the listener who has tuned in, just to hear those guests. 

When Christian hosts invite guests who are filled with words that matter, I hope that in the future, hosts sit back more often and let the guests truly have the floor. It doesn't lessen the role of the host; it demonstrates the host's humility, his wisdom in selecting an engaging and thoughtful guest, and his kindness in realizing someone may desperately need to hear authentic words, fitly spoken.