Franklin’s family pans ‘offensive’ eulogy
Pastor criticizes mores of fellow black people
Aretha Franklin may have been the Queen of Soul, but at one point during her ninehour funeral last week, those memorializing her seemed to have forgotten just who it was they were supposed to be honouring.
The televised portion of the ceremony included, most notably, a 50-minute eulogy delivered by Atlanta pastor Rev. Jasper Williams, Jr., that Franklin’s family later called “offensive and distasteful.”
Instead of spending his time at the podium at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple talking about Franklin, Williams orated a critique of black Americans. Among his many controversial statements, the pastor blasted the Black Lives Matter movement, declaring, “Until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves, black lives can never matter.”
He then slammed single mothers, saying they cannot “raise a black boy to become a man,” labelling a home without a father an “abortion after birth.”
For the record, Franklin was a single mother — to four boys.
In a statement, Franklin’s nephew Vaughn Franklin said, “We found the comments to be offensive and distasteful. Rev. Jasper Williams spent more than 50 minutes speaking and at no time did he properly eulogize her. My aunt did not ask Rev. Jasper Williams, Jr. to eulogize her before she passed away because dying is a topic that she never discussed with anyone. Our family asked Rev. Jasper Williams, Jr. to perform the eulogy because he eulogized our grandfather (Rev. C.L. Franklin), my aunt (Erma Franklin) and my uncle (Cecil Franklin). However, there were several people that my aunt admired that would have been outstanding individuals to deliver her eulogy including Dr. William J. Barber, Rev. Al Sharpton, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Rev. James Holley and Pastor E.L. Branch.”
He concluded, “We feel that Rev. Jasper Williams, Jr. used this platform to push his negative agenda, which as a family, we do not agree with.”
In response, Williams told the AP, “I understand it. I regret it. But I’m sorry they feel that way.”
But that wasn’t the only controversy at the funeral, which included speeches from Bill Clinton and Clive Davis, and performances from Faith Hill, Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder, to name a few.
It was Ariana Grande, however, who became the talking point of the evening, after social media users noticed H. Ellis III, the bishop presiding over the funeral, was inappropriately touching the singer after her performance, clutching the side of her breast in an embrace.
This was after he joked about her name sounding like “a new something at Taco Bell.”
He later told the Associated Press, “It would never be my intention to touch any woman’s breast . ... I don’t know. I guess I put my arm around her. Maybe I crossed the border, maybe I was too friendly or familiar but again, I apologize.”
And yet, that questionable moment was still relatively overshadowed with Twitter’s trending topic of the night asking if Grande’s dress had been too short and “inappropriate” for a funeral.
A travesty all around.