I'm Tired

Our middle child (promised I would NEVER say that) goes to public school. We are very happy with the school and have no plans on taking her out of the school. As of yet, anyway...

February is Black History Month. The wonderful and lovely counselor of aforementioned school was knee deep in the misery of solely planning, choreographing, okay-ing/tweaking and running the "Tribute To Motown" that played the previous year. The program was a HUGE success last year so everyone wanted to have one again this year. So, here she is being nice and doing it. Oh! But did she need some help! Well, here I am, just happened to be going through the hallways of said school at a particular time when she was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands. I see her.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, I'm... blah, blah, blah!"

"Oh Really? Well, I have some experience, blah, blah, blah."

"You do?!!! Can you blah, blah, blah... "

et cetera, et cetera...

So, for the last two weeks I have been up at the school everyday from eight until sometimes five, yes FIVE doing these rehearsals and such. Having the time of my life, getting to know so many kids. So happy to see their faces when they were surprised to see me, yet again. It was great.

My, my, my... you would think that parents would be appreciative... well, for the most part they are. But, y'all have heard of the one bad apple spoils the whole stinkin' show thing, haven't you?

I am writing this in pure frustration for the generations. This is because of the obstacles of differing opinions can make. What were the opinions you may ask? Oh, something small, like, DECENCY!

Would you believe that a pastor's wife, yes, a pastor's wife, bought halter, mini dresses and black fishnet stockings with VERY high heels for six middle school girls to wear during a dance by an artist called "Beyonce" that sings about shaking her derriere and "getting her body"?
Did you know that I was called a racist because I objected to the content of the song? Mmm hmp, I was. By a pastor's wife.

Yes, the song is called Get Me Body and for fun there is an extended version on the CD. It references old school dances and "patting your weave to this" and "posing". All very, very cute dance moves done by the very beautiful and capable of good dance moves girls. Very cute girls. Vivacious, helpful with the Thriller dance I was choreographing for the elementary students, beautiful girls. But they wanted to dress like someone who stands on a street corner or dances on top of a table in an all men's club. This is where the verb "Parenting" comes in, right? Right. Not an easy job, but needed nonetheless.

There were some moves in the dance as well, that had to be snipped. Of course, ALL MY WHITE FAULT. I had a mother in my face with her pointy red finger tipped finger call me a racist.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I did not even see the outfits. Only heard about them. Thank the Good and Precious LORD I was at Sam's buying the cookies, punch and napkin products for the parents' after-the-show needs. Nope. Was not there when they brought them. It was the school's counselor that stopped all of this. But I was blamed for it. I didn't care. I just simply kept saying, calmly of course, "this is an elementary school", "it's inappropriate for school", "there will be parents here that will be AFRAID of this", and as the counselor kept describing the incident and outfits, I could only also keep saying, "are you kidding me???"...

You would not believe it if I told you what was said about me, my family and, well, me again. Even if I told you. I am not even going to post it because it was so cruel and mean. And if I did, you wouldn't believe it.

So, when the cute, hard worked, appropriate show that so many children worked so hard to be a part of was over on Thursday night... I went home and crawled into bed. It was over. Black History Month was over.

I thought about the whole thing. All of it. The songs sung by artists and played on the radio, the dance moves, the videos, the parents that don't screen it or worse (in my opinion) set the example OF listening to it... and I was just so tired. Tired of it all.

And why do I have to be a "racist" because I objected to provocative outfits? "Well, nothing is showing" was the excuse given for the outfit. "I'm a pastor's wife, so I make sure of that, nothing is showing" I was flabbergasted.

The precious, sweet, counselor, stood up to the parents and told them flat out, no. The outfits were unacceptable and not up to school code. I was so proud of her. Especially more so when I found out that one of the mother's that was giving us such a hard time was a close and personal friend of the counselor's.

Needless to say, there will not be a black history month "Tribute To Motown" program next year. The counselor said she would never do it again.

What WAS good:

A precious little girl who was SO not afraid of a microphone doing
R-E-S-P-E-C-T with little girls doing hand motions in the background, my daughter included.

A precious little boy sitting at a piano pretending to be Ray Charles, lip syncing to "Hit The Road Jack" which was not a Motown song we were later told. But cute nonetheless.

The kindergarten class doing a Martin Luther King poem and then singing the "Coke" song... "I'd like to teach the world to sing...." you know...

A beautiful middle school girl girl doing her very animated and VERY exaggerated lip sync version of "And I'm Telling You" by Jennifer Hudson. This was a huge hit determined by the audience's explosive applause when done.
It, too, was not Motown, but a BIG HIT.

Mr. Jacobs, the school's security guard surprising us all and volunteering to sing the Black National Anthem, "Life Every Voice And Sing" Great song, GREAT song! Wonderful rendition, too!

About 50 kids doing parts of the Thriller dance including the break dancing ghouls at the end. You should have seen their eyes when they saw me break dancing during rehearsals. They couldn't believe it! So cute.

A group of three girls doing the best Tina Turner tribute to Proud Mary I have EVER seen.

Four girls doing "Dancing In The Streets"

And four middle school boys doing the "Temptations". This was so funny because they had to be FORCED to do any movements and that was what made the Temptations, you know, THE Temptations! So cute.

A cute and precious portly boy doing the best Johnnie Taylor CLEAN song impersonation we could find.

All in all, the show was a success. We let the girls that were in the Beyonce dance come up with another outfit did another part of the song where nothing inappropriate was being said (it was an extended version so that allowed for areas to be chosen to dance to) and it was cute. Most of the 200 plus parents had no idea that any of this other stuff had even occurred.

The only sad thing was that the mother mentioned did not allow her daughter to participate in the program. And did not make up her mind to do that until the night of the program. Her daughter had worked so hard and was the only one not there. It was very sad, indeed.

So, believe me when I tell you, I'm tired...