32 Responses to “What’s Truth Got to Do with It?”

1. Caryn Says:
   July 27th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

   I’m glad to see that you revised your original statement (which came through on my RSS feed) that the music trumps the crimes of his past. The current statement is one I could agree with. The former statement would horrify me.

2. John Hell Says:
   July 27th, 2007 at 7:00 pm

   I just heard a great interview with Ike in San Francisco on either KPFA or KUSF, I can’t recall. They were asking him about his bad rep. He was saying that the producers of the movie asked him to sign off on the story before the went into production. He read the script, and told them it was full of lies, but he signed it anyway because he and Tina knew thee truth and that’s all that mattered to him. He seems to feel the same way today.

   He also said that a reunion tour with Tina is in the works for 08. Wow! He said they’ve been talking about it for a long time, and the lawyers are just working out the details. He said he knows what substance use led to, but the film grossly exaggerated it. I believe that. He also says that he sells out 10,000 seat rooms all over the world.

3. Mitchell Moore Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 2:41 am

   I’m not sure where in the world these sold out 10,000 seat rooms are, but they sure aren’t in Seattle. I saw him at the EMP several years ago. At a well publicized show - it was at EMP after all - he drew maybe 150 in a room that accommodates several times that number. He came on an hour late, the band was lackluster, his guitar amp was giving him all kinds of trouble so he bumped the piano player out of his seat, he seemed agitated enough that it made me wonder if the cocaine days were behind him, he played a very short set and left the stage. As much as I like the old records and appreciate his place in history, it was as dispiriting an evening of live music as I’ve ever experienced. I would hope for better things for him and the audience at the Big Muddy Blues Festival.

4. Roy Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 2:50 am

   Caryn: I immediately revised that sentence because I feared it would be taken out of context. Guess I was right.

5. Charles Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 3:41 am

   If we want to honor the music, we better be ready to defend the man…

   Fair or unfair, the vast majority of the college students I teach immediately associate the name “Ike Turner” with “drug abusing wife-beater”; in fact, his name is shorthand for that concept, particularly the “wife-beater” part. Any appreciation of his musical accomplishments extends only to his partnership with Tina, and even that recognition is imbued with opinions about his domestic violence and cocaine addiction. His earlier work achieves almost no traction with my students, and when I show the episode of PBS’ “Rock And Roll” documentary where Ike appears, the snickering laughter from my students is audible. Like it or not, those are the facts.

   It seems to me that, before we can ever expect there to be an Ike Turner Day in St. Louis (or anywhere), two things need to happen: 1)his musical innovations and accomplishments must be acknowledged at every possible juncture, and 2)his ignominious legacy of violence must be equally acknowledged and condemned. To ignore or minimize the latter, even in defense of the former, does no service to anybody, and in fact may only serve to alienate the people who drove this backlash.

   I want to make one other comment. I’m slightly unsettled by a slippage I’ve noticed in discussions surrounding this issue. The fact that Ike Turner repeatedly assaulted Tina Turner, a fact which I’ve seen no one deny (although I’m less sold on Ike’s level of remorse than Roy is), is neither excused nor explained by the idea that “if we excluded everyone who’s done bad things, then we wouldn’t honor anybody.” I agree with this idea, but the two statements do *not* have identical implications. “Bad things” do not always, or even usually, equal violent physical and emotional abuse. In a culture where violence towards women (not to mention misogyny in general) remains such a powerfully pressing concern, I again don’t find it useful to obscure the specifics of Ike Turner’s complicated life story behind such a generalization. And, to return to my original point, we *damn* sure better be ready to talk about those issues if we want to achieve any kind of call-and-response with folks who - like my students - link Ike Turner only with violence and drug addiction.

   Speaking of which, I hope we continue to talk about this, as an honest conversation seems to me to be the only way we’ll get to the bottom of this issue and its consequences.

6. Roy Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 1:35 pm

   But Charles, don’t you see the contradiction and the self-fulfilling prophecy here? Ike Turner was turned into a monster and a monstrous joke because of a movie–take out the rape scene, which Tina herself said never happened, and you’d already have a very different cultural understanding of the man–and that stereotype is reinforced and recirculated by this recent round of hypocrisy and distortions. Challenging that has nothing to do with obscuring, ignoring or minimizing anything. Quite the opposite.

   What kind of remorse does Ike feel for his brutal past? That’s not for me, the mayor of St. Louis or anyone else to say.

   You say that we can’t expect an Ike Turner Day in St. Louis (the occasion for which would be the city’s biggest blues festival). But we can expect a Grammy? We can expect a star on the Walk of Fame? We can expect the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Key to Memphis?

   To ask those questions, and to applaud those awards, has precisely zero to do with diminishing anything.

7. Charles Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 10:32 pm

   I won’t deny that there are several truckloads of hypocrisy here, and - as I said - I think the cultural perceptions surrounding Ike Turner require a great deal of enrichment and expansion. Still, as I said, cultural perception is a powerful thing, and the reaction to this is completely unsurprising to me.

   By the way, I don’t think it’s just the rape scene that has made Ike seem like a monster. Tina Turner recounts many instances of physical and mental abuse in her autobiography. And let’s not forget some of Ike’s (other) own words:

   From 1993: “Each time I hit her it was because of her attitude. She was always looking sad, and I can’t stand people looking sad. Instead of telling me what was wrong, she’d ball it all up inside of her, and then she’d look right over me, and I can’t stand that, so I’d slap the shit out of her.” [Asked if he ever choked her.] “Maybe. I don’t want to say I didn’t.”

   From 2001: “Sure, I’ve slapped Tina… There have been times when I punched her to the ground without thinking. But I never beat her.”

   From 2002: “If I owe anybody an apology it’s to Tina and that would be for the way I was with women around her, not for all this fighting and crap – man, all this is bullshit.”

   Whether these quotes render somebody undeserving of honor is an open question. Whether it’s legitimate for statements like these to provoke a virulent, negative reaction is - to me - far less debatable.

8. Roy Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 12:11 am

   No, actually, I don’t think it should be an open question–and neither did the City of Memphis or the Hall of Fame.

   Charles, those quotations are non-sequiturs: They don’t undermine his music or his cultural contributions to St. Louis and the world–for which he more than deserves to be honored.

   And as long as we’re dropping quotes, Charles, you missed a few:

   From 1999: “”I did a lot of wrong things but I don’t think that I’m a bad person and I can’t undo what’s been done, all I can do is say I’m sorry.”

   Also c. 1999: “Man, and you know I’m not saying that I’ve been a good father either, I’ve done a lot of wrong things, right. But you can’t undo things. Everybody’s done wrong. I’m not talking about anybody, I’m talking about Ike right now. I’ve done a lot of wrong things, real right. You know? All I can do is apologize to the people that I may have done wrong.”

   From last week: “”All I can say, and I would only say this to her, is ‘I’m sorry.’ But I can’t undo yesterday. I don’t owe anybody else that.”

   But as I’ve said in print, and as should be obvious to everyone, expressions of regret, even the most supplicating and sincere (Ike’s clearly are not) could not atone for that past. They might make us feel better about honoring his achievements, but they do not determine whether he deserves such honors in the first place.

9. Charles Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 2:26 pm

   I think Ike Turner deserves this honor, too, but I think it’s somewhat disrespectful to suggest that those who have objected to honoring a man with this history of abuse are somehow inherently being foolish or irrational. It *is* an open question, regardless of whether or not it should be, and to act like it isn’t does no one any good, especially Ike’s supporters.

   I frankly don’t think the quotes are non-sequiturs: if all that matters is the music, then can there be anything in the musicians’ biography that would preclude them from honor? What behavior, if any, would tip the scales? What if Ike had killed Tina, for example?

   As a historian, I’m not fond of counterfactuals, but my point remains the same. I’m not expecting anybody to have an easy answer (especially myself), but I don’t ask this question rhetorically. I’ll return to my original point: if we want to honor the music, we *damn* sure better be ready to defend the man.

   By the way, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame example isn’t completely analogous, to me. The Hall of Fame induction - in which he entered in partnership with Tina - is obviously meant to honor his musical contributions, whereas “Ike Turner Day” - or getting the key to Memphis - is (even through implication) a more generalized honor. Very few people would argue that O.J. Simpson deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but how would we feel about an “O.J. Simpson Day” in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Madison or anywhere? More accurately, would we be as surprised if there was a backlash?

10. Roy Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 4:25 pm

    Charles, I just don’t get where you’re coming from. And I apologize in advance if I appear to be losing patience.

    This is the second time you’ve played with words and changed the subject. You write: “can there be anything in the musician’s biography that would preclude them from honor?” The proclamation has nothing whatsoever to do with deciding whether Ike Turner is an honorable man in life, and I trust you know that, so why play with words?

    The proclamation would have honored his appearance, first time I think, at the St. Louis blues festival. Gentle suggestion: You might familiarize yourself with St. Louis’ honorary day proclamations, especially the ones given to past festival performers, how they are written and how they are made, before telling us what they mean. In short, they are written very specifically to address a person’s achievements, not the entirety of their character or their history. And they are regularly given to any and every Tom, Fred and Jane, without background checks, and sometimes given to people’s pets.

    So let’s stop it with the generalized honor stuff.

    Second: You haven’t explained why Ike Turner, the man, needs defense. Or why any musician needs the kind of defense you’re demanding. You’ve asserted it, and suggested that because people view Turner as a monster that then implies we have to defend the man. And that follows how? My response to those who would advocate banning, censoring, rejecting or denying him an honor for his music and his contributions to the culture of the planet we live on is, as has been said ad nauseum, that we can honor and respect him for that music and those contributions, while still recognizing the brutality of what happened 30 years ago and offering no defense of it.

    I don’t understand why you keep saying that we shouldn’t be surprised at the backlash. Who is surprised? No one. I disagree strongly with the backlash, find it hypocritcal, irrational and a disservice to my home town, especially when it’s justified, as in the case of Mayor Francis Slay, with bogus arguments and distortions of history.

    I don’t have time to respond to hypothetical and faulty analogies, but maybe someone else does. Again, I just don’t get where you’re coming from on this.

11. Charles Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 5:47 pm

    Roy,

    I don’t feel I’ve changed the subject at all. I started by saying that attempting to honor someone’s musical contributions is going to require us to be ready to defend the rest of that person’s biography, whether that’s fair or not. That’s also the most recent thing I’ve said. Beyond this, I’ve also expressly stated that I support “Ike Turner Day,” and I’ve acknowledged that there is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy at the heart of this issue, as there often is when dealing with the complicated question of who deserves public honor.

    As to the quote you mention - “Can there be something in a musician’s life which precludes them from honor?” - I think you misunderstood the context in which I used the term “honor.” I didn’t mean to suggest this in the sense of determining whether or not someone is ultimately *honorable*, but rather whether or not they deserve to be *honored* in such a manner. As I said, I’m not suggesting that this is the case with Ike Turner, but it seems to be the controversy’s underlying question, a question I’d very much like to see taken up.

    In your post, Roy, you refer to the people who convinced Mayor Slay to revoke the honor as “pious hypocrites” with a “bogus version of history.” That may or may not be true, but you provide no specific evidence for any of these accusations, which is the primary reason I felt compelled to remind readers that the history that you call “bogus” possesses at least some truth.

    I also notice, in the AP story that David originally posted on this topic, that one of the groups responsible for the revocation was the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic And Sexual Violence. How do you (or I) respond to their concerns? I imagine that calling them “pious hypocrites” will not do the trick.

    Here’s another question, which should trouble all of us. Throughout your writing on this issue, Roy, you chide Slay (and even imply that he’s cowardly) for bowing to the demands of activists. I now ask you this: what if we wholeheartedly *agreed* with the position of (in your words) the “activist groups” whose “knee-jerk reactions” caused this controversy? Would it make any difference in the way we now view the Mayor’s decision? Although we may entirely, emphatically disagree with the cause, criticizing the tactics (which have also affected a great deal of *positive* change in this society) seems like a dangerous position on which to be consistent.

    Finally, I notice that no one has yet addressed the issue that I think might be the most important: the slippage between “bad things” and violent abuse that I mentioned in my first post on this issue.

    I admire your passion, Roy, and - as I’ve said before - I agree with the vast majority of what you’ve said. (I also applaud the way that you vivisect Mayor Slay’s online statement.) However, there are deeper questions here that are both legitimate and troubling to me. I’m sorry if my attempts to articulate my thoughts and questions have been inarticulate or confusing, but I will continue to assert that there is something in the reactions that deserves serious discussion. I hope you agree.

12. Roy Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    Charles,

    Publicly honoring someone for their accomplishments does not require that anyone defend that person’s entire biography. I’ve tried to state the reasons why, here and elsewhere. I’ll state them again, if you insist.

    As for Slay’s cowardice: It’s not merely that he caved in to public pressure, which he plainly did. It’s that he covered his reversal with duplicity. Frankly, it’s kind to call that cowardice. I’ve pointed that out, but I’ll point it out again if you insist.

    Charles, you keep asking that I and others respond to the opponents, as if we haven’t responded to them–over and over again. You might not like my tone or word choice, you might not like my responses at all, but to suggest that I haven’t addressed their arguments is false.

    The activists whose tactics, well, wait, I can’t quite tell if you’re defending them or not….But here goes: Demanding that Ike Turner be banned from festivals or television shows or demanding that he not be honored for his music and making equations (as the very group in question has) between zero tolerance for domestic violence and rescinding an honor for a man’s music because of his past are, to put it politely, poor tactics that do more cultural harm than good.

    As for “slippage,” I have no interest in the “everybody does bad things” argument. If you can find someone who does, feel free to ask them to clarify.

    What troubles, and to be blunt, annoys me most about your reaction, Charles, is that you keep asking, again and again, that I and others answer the critics. I have no interest in hypotheticals. I’ve responded to actual controversy as best I can, you say you agree with the majority of my arguments, and yet you ask that I respond yet again. What gives?

13. Caryn Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    “The proclamation has nothing whatsoever to do with deciding whether Ike Turner is an honorable man in life.”

    Reasonable people with an interest in the situation will understand this. The general public at large will not. An elected official’s concern is with the general public at large. Telling them to familiarize themselves with the text of the proclamation will not cut it. What to do about it? I don’t know.

    And even then, I’m sorry, I still wrestle with this. Not just with Ike, but with others - Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis - heck, my boyfriend has a *really* hard time with “Brown Sugar”.

14. Roy Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 8:42 pm

    Caryn: Again, this is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Might it not be reasonable to think that a proclamation could help change public opinion, help reverse the demonization of Ike Turner?

15. David Cantwell Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    Hey all: This is an enlightening discussion; I hope it continues.

    It’s just occured to me that what annoys me most about this St. Louis situation is that Ike Turner is being >singled out<. Others who have acted in more or less the same heinous ways–Caryn mentions Chuck Berry (a Kennedy Center honoree in 2000) and Jerry Lee Lewis; me, I immediately flash to James Brown (who received his Kenedy Center Honor in 2003) and George Jones–are honored routinely without so much as anyone batting an eye. Why? I’d have to guess that part of is that Ike Turner is a black man who (unlike Berry) has very dark skin and who talks country and who doesn’t have the whole Happy Days nostalgia veil of innocence standing between him and his audience. And who didn’t just hit his wife or girlfriend but who beat TINA TURNER. What do you guys think?

    My confusion, Charles, is that I’m not entirely certain what you want to happen. If you were the Mayor of St. Louis, how do you think you might have handled the situation differently? What’s the outcome, and the rationale for that outcome, you’re looking for?

16. Caryn Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 12:25 am

    I don’t think it’s so much the color of Ike’s skin than his relative obscurity to the public at large. “Most people” only know about Ike in the context of his work with Tina. The others have additional contexts so people actually know the body of work. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it does to me. I doubt that most folks know about Ike’s music and what he added to the culture.

17. David Cantwell Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 12:59 am

    That’s a good point, Caryn. And one not mutually exclusive with my own suggestions. I think race is somewhere in the mix.

18. steve Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:09 am

    I agree with Caryn. Ike’s name may have been first, but Tina is the one everybody remembers.
    I agree with the thrust of what David said about Turner being singled out, and about why (who the victim was). I would point out that JB was blacker, just as country (in speech…not in music), and even more crazoid at times. His legal troubles were much more recent, and while those things were mentioned at his death, it was really the immense musical contributions that most remember at the end of the day.
    And since I’m being agreeable, I would say that Charles is right to wonder at what point you consider a person’s life when commenting on their art. If I understand him correctly.

19. Charles Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 3:27 am

    I really value this discussion, as well.

    Roy, I appreciate your response (as always), and continue to better understand your points, but I want to press you on something which I don’t think you responded to: are the members of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence among the “pious hypocrites” with a “bogus sense of history” who you criticize? If they’re not, then how do we - in whatever sense - address their concerns over the Ike Turner proclamation? I really don’t think, from my experience, that saying that you can separate his music from his abuse is gonna work.

    Steve, I think you understand me perfectly. That’s absolutely what I’m asking.

    I also agree with you completely, Roy, that the Mayor’s duplicity was the most clearly ignoble part of this. You nailed him on it, and you deserve credit. However, I still wonder if you’re not attacking the tactic just a bit by criticizing him for “caving” to the “knee-jerk demands” of activist groups.

    Caryn and David are absolutely right to bring up issues of race, class and region, and I concur totally with Caryn on her sense of Ike’s fame in relation to Tina’s.

    As far as David’s question about what I would have done in Mayor Slay’s situation…I’m really not sure. I don’t plan on running for office any time soon, and this kind of negotiation is one of many reasons why. Sorry to seem glib, but I really am trying to work through these larger questions.

20. Roy Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 4:07 am

    Charles,

    I don’t know every member of the MCADSV, but the organization and many of its members certainly responded with piety and hypocrisy. Ditto for the St. Louis Healthy Marriage Coalition.

    It gives me no pleasure to say that. Both of those groups do great work. So why do I stick by the claim? Because they’ve never said word one about proclamations in the past, even when given to Air Force Week or Army Week–so much for zero tolerance for violence–nor have they ever raised the slightest concern about a bigamist whose very public racism was and–in its legacy–is inhuman and destructive, and who has received 10,000 times the public honors Ike Turner has.

    If you’d like, I’ll name him, but as a historian you’re as aware of that history as the activists are.

21. Charles Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 am

    Now you’re hitting the real issue…

22. Roy Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    Care to explain?

23. Barry Says:
    August 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    We also need to see this Ike Turner situation as an exmaple of piling on pack journalism. Seeng the depiction of him in the Tina movie maybe be the total amount of looking into the subject of a prtety high perceetage of those who in the “amateurism is all” media context may ever have done.

    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.

24. Charles Says:
    August 4th, 2007 at 4:21 pm

    The real issue, to me, is historical memory. The issue is a society and culture that finds some forms and perpetrators of violence (or oppression, etc.) to be perfectly acceptable - and worthy of celebration - while others are demonized.

25. Roy Says:
    August 6th, 2007 at 1:41 am

    Sounds like hypocrisy to me–especially when coming from city hall or from activists supposedly committed to non-violence-so I’m not sure why you were so keen on pressing me. The evidence is obvious and barely needs illustration. To get some perspective just requires basic honesty.

    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.

26. Charles Says:
    August 6th, 2007 at 4:17 am

    Let me ask you this, Roy: does protesting the proposed Ike Turner Day demonstrate a lack of “commitment” to “non-violence,” or does it simply illuminate the absurdity of the previous honorifics that have been bestowed on people whose legacy is far worse than Ike Turner’s?

    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?

27. Roy Says:
    August 6th, 2007 at 2:36 pm

    Charles,

    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.

28. Charles Says:
    August 6th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    Roy: please provide citations for Tina’s public forgiveness of Ike, as well as specific examples of what you claim is the “bogus version of history” furthered by the activists you yet label as nothing more than “pious hypocrites.” While you may be correct on all counts, I don’t know that I can be anywhere near convinced without something more specific. If you’ve offered it before, and I’ve missed it, I apologize.

    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…

29. Roy Says:
    August 7th, 2007 at 1:35 am

    Charles,

    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.

30. David Cantwell Says:
    August 7th, 2007 at 1:03 pm

    I have a few questions on the topic, if anyone still has the energy to pursue this.

    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?

31. Roy Says:
    August 7th, 2007 at 8:28 pm

    You know, I don’t think that last question is easily answered. Not in every case.

    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.

32. Roy Kasten Says:
    August 10th, 2007 at 9:37 pm

    ST. LOUIS – August 10, 2007 - Due to illness, Big Muddy Blues Festival headliner Ike Turner will not be able to appear in St. Louis on September 2, 2007, as scheduled.

    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.”

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