Management representatives for Thrill Entertainment Group, which represents the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer, told festival organizers that Turner’s emphysema had flared up again during a recent trip to Europe, and he has been advised to cancel all of his performances
scheduled for August, September and October 2007.

“Obviously we’re very disappointed that we won’t be able to enjoy Ike Turner’s performance on Laclede’s Landing this year,” said Dawne Massey, producer of the Big Muddy Blues Festival. “Hopefully he’ll be able to rebound quickly from his illness and we’ll get a chance to see him play St. Louis sometime soon. We were told that this cancellation had nothing to do with anything other than Ike’s health.”

At the same time, I think there is something to be done in this case.

Whereas, Ike Turner is one of the architects of rock & roll, a major innovator and band leader in rhythm and blues and has contributed greatly to the music and culture of St. Louis and the world; and

Whereas, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm played a positive role in the struggle against segregation in St. Louis; and

Whereas, a recognition of his music in no way condones nor diminishes Turner’s checkered past and his brutal record of domestic abuse of his ex-wife Tina Turner; and

Whereas, Turner has expressed regret for his past and Tina Turner has stated she forgives him; and

Whereas, in a spirit of larger reconciliation, the City of St. Louis sympathizes with and supports all victims of domestic violence and rejects attempts, even by Mr. Turner himself, to understate this critical issue or to assign blame to the victim; and

Whereas, the City of St. Louis will stand against unjustified violence and cruelty, wherever it is committed; and

Whereas, the City of St. Louis will stand with the power of great music to transcend barriers of hate and prejudice.

Now, therefore, I, Francis G. Slay, Mayor of the City of St. Louis, do hereby proclaim September 3, 2007, “Ike Turner Music Day” in the City of St. Louis.

1. Why must we defend the person, the rest of the person’s biography, if we want to honor the work? Couldn’t it be possible to respond: You’re right, the biography is indefensible, or at least big parts of it are, but the music is bedrock of who we are?

2. Recalling C. Wright Mills’ distinction between public issues and private troubles, and our tendency to emphasize the latter when it’s the former that requires most of our energy…do you think that focusing on Ike Turner’s particular problems, Turner as a bad, dishonorable man, allows all of us to take a one bad apple approach to the issue of domestic violence rather than looking at the systems of oppression that allow and encourage the denigration of women in the first place? Or, to put it another way, is there ever a time when it’s appropriate to discuss Ike not only as a perpetrator of misogyny but, in imporatant ways, a “victim” of it. As, I think, are all males in our culture?

3. What must/can a person like Turner do to atone, to pay his debt? His debt to us, I mean, to humanity, as opposed to his (I think) much greater debt to Tina? I’m reminded of James Baldwin here (this is approximately word for word): “People pay for the what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it quite simply: By the lives they lead.”

4. Finally, and I guess this is what matters most to me here…In cases where actions are reprehensible, but the art demands honor, what do we do?

As for the activists’ distortion of history, no citation should be necessary. It’s right there in their statements, and I have pointed it out–and, hey, I’m weary of going around and around on this, too–but since you insist:

“We believe there should be zero tolerance for any kind of violence.” That’s plainly misleading in regards to their record on past honorary days. In that context, it’s also plainly hypocritical. You bristle at that charge, but you don’t say it’s not true.

“We would not want to honor someone who has publicly stated they have hit their wife.” That’s the opponents’ version of the public record, but as a rationale for their opposition, it’s a misleading and selective half-history. He has also stated that he apologized to Tina, and Tina has stated she’s forgiven him.

I agree that truth is the central issue. And I’m sorry if my rhetoric has gotten in the way of that, Charles.

The citation for Tina forgiving Ike is the cover story in Essence July 1993. It’s one of the more famous interviews she’s ever given. Check it out.

I’m about done with this discussion, since I no longer feeling it’s heading in a productive direction. I realize that I may be as guilty of contributing to that as anyone, but I no longer have the energy to go around and around on this. But, before I go…

I know that Roy has objected to my use of quotations from Ike Turner. Still, I think that - since Roy’s original argument was that the perceptions surrounding Ike Turner are a direct result of the fictionalized WHAT’S LOVE film - it is most relevant to bring other examples of Ike Turner’s recorded statements into the conversation. I ran across a couple lines in TAKIN’ BACK MY NAME, his 1999 autobiography, which - like many parts of the book - I found chilling:

“The only two people who’ve ever really had justice are a black woman and a white man. Them two can do anything they want to do.” (53)

“In other words, if I beat Tina every day, if I did what they say I did, if I fought her every day and she stayed there for eighteen years and she took it, it’s as much her fault as it is mine. Why did she stay there for eighteen years? If she left at the end of eighteen years, she could have left the second day.

These pimps out here in L.A., if the chick don’t bring in enough money, they take a coat hanger, wind it up and spank her on the butt with it. One time when I was hanging out with them, Tina done something. She ran away and I caught up with [her] and spanked her on the butt with a hanger.” (173-174)

You asked earlier what “truth” had to do with it. That seems a very good question for all of us to consider…

You’ve framed the question in an interesting way, but that’s an either/or fallacy. In this case, the answer is probably both. Given the parties’ actions and statements in the affaire d’ Ike and their silence or ignorance towards others, then, yes, I think their commitment and their tactics are open to question–at the very least in this case.

Likewise, your second paragraph is an either/or fallacy. Both things can be true, and in this case, probably are. It’s obvious that city hall and the activists are contributing to that failure of understanding. I’ve been making that point all along, but I’ll make it again.

I don’t understand your last two questions: As said earlier, no one is surprised by the reaction, so again I can’t understand why you keep implying that anyone is. Secondly, at this moment I’m not too keen on building a coalition with city hall or with activists who distort the public record and, frankly, are rewriting my city’s history in blind and misguided dedication to a cause they can’t even be consistent about at a basic level.

What’s at stake in publicly defending Ike Turner’s cultural contributions to St. Louis and the world? Honesty, truth, fidelity to history.

Any honest person would acknowledge and abhor Ike’s awful statements. But in the public arena the same person has the responsibility to acknowledge much more than that. City hall and the activists have denied or deliberately overlooked basic facts in rationalizing their actions and furthering their cause. And, frankly, they haven’t done so because they weren’t better educated in school.

None of them, yourself included Charles, have even acknowledged another somewhat salient fact: Tina Turner has publicly forgiven Ike. Maybe that absolves the man of nothing, but if people are going to dredge up the ugliest of quotations and past actions to circulate some monstrous image they might at the very least recognize that fact.

Failing to do so goes so much farther to undermine the concern and a legitimate furtherance of it than anything I could write or say.

If it’s the latter, then the primary fault does not lie with the activists you label “pious hypocrites,” nor even with Mayor Slay, for “caving” to their tactics, but with a larger failure in the way that Americans understand our history. Better teaching is the first thing I mentioned, and the thing I most support. But I don’t know that attempting to fully uncover the depth of how race, sex and violence are intertwined throughout our history is going to result in *more* celebrations.

Also, Roy, I think this same question can, and should, be directed back towards us: what is at stake when we, as people who actively believe in nonviolence, publicly defend a man who said that if he “owed [Tina] an apology it’s…for the way I was with women around her, not for all this fighting and crap – man, all this is bullshit.” Or that “each time I hit her it was because of her attitude…I can’t stand that, so I’d slap the shit out of her.”

Can we *really* expect people (especially women) who fight for the end of domestic violence not to be upset at these remarks? Do you think calling them “pious hypocrites” is going to help us build coalition on this issue?

As for ignoring or not commenting on an artist’s deep personal flaws or crimes–who anywhere is suggesting that?

And to return to the point about city hall and the activists’ “bogus history”: Aside from being selective and self-serving, their public statements about Ike Turner’s history have been uninformed at best and deliberately misleading at worst. You’ve expressed skepticism about this claim, Charles, which surprises me, since the evidence is clear and available.

Knowing nothing of the extraordinary kings of Rhythm rceords before ina wass even neraly in the act, let alone what that msuic was going n behind her and the dancers, would simply e too much t KNOW now. If the Jerry lee Lewis movie had chosen to depict him as a violent maniac, THAT factoid would now be out there, perhaps forever to.

Because we’re living in the era of writers and awards “committees” not doing homework.–and being rewarded for it by others who haven’t done their homework either.

(As for he actual iseue here–it always troubles me, where to draw this line. It’s a permanent work in progress. I’ menough of an aesthete at heart to want to honor the music contribution made, toget people to appreiate that more above all, but there’s also, surely and obviously, a point beyond which the personal ethics and perhap politics of the artist can’t be ignored–ethically, factually, or critically.

I also know that there are a lot more well-behaved ethical people, and people with good political principles, than there are people with this level of talent and achievement we’re talking about–and we need to honor that.