"Respect" is a black preacher going to a funeral for a purported black legend and calling out the black community in America for creating all the problems for blacks commonly and habitually blamed on structural inequality, implicit bias, white supremacy and the debilitating impacting of white privilege.
[Aretha Franklin's family blasts 'black-on-black crime' eulogy, SFGate.com, 9-4-18]:
As Aretha Franklin's eight-hour funeral drew to a close last week, the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. rose from his seat and picked up the microphone.
Reverend Williams embarrassed blacks with a truthful eulogy for Aretha Franklin
Clad in a black suit, accented by a bright red tie and pocket square, the Atlanta-based pastor began eulogizing the Queen of Soul with an impassioned rendition of the popular hymn, "Father, I Stretch My Hands to thee." A large silver cross swung from his neck.
"This is my subject as I attempt to eulogize Aretha Franklin; my subject is Aretha, the Queen of Soul," Williams said as the song's final notes faded on Friday.
But in the roughly 40 minutes that followed inside Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, Williams would devote more time to voicing criticisms about black parenting and "black-on-black crime" than Franklin's life and legacy. His words prompted swift backlash on social media, many slamming him for being "homophobic," "misogynistic" and disrespecting other black people.
Among those who didn't appreciate Williams's eulogy were Franklin's family members, who called his comments "offensive and distasteful," the Detroit Free Press reported.
"Rev. Jasper Williams spent more than 50 minutes speaking and at no time did he properly eulogize her," Vaughn Franklin, the late singer's nephew, said in a statement on behalf of his family. He told the Associated Press that the eulogy "caught the entire family off guard."
In the statement to the Detroit Free Press, Vaughn Franklin said Williams was asked to perform the eulogy because he had eulogized other family members, including the singer's father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin. But, he added that, "there were several other people that my aunt admired that would have been outstanding individuals to deliver her eulogy."
"We feel that Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. used this platform to push his negative agenda, which as a family, we do not agree with," the statement said.
During his eulogy, Williams drew outcry for his views on single-parent households run by black mothers and the Black Lives Matter movement.
He described raising children in a fatherless home as "abortion after birth."
"Seventy percent of our households are led by our precious, proud, fine black women," he said. "But as proud, beautiful and fine as our black women are, one thing a black woman cannot do. A black woman cannot raise a black boy to be a man. She can't do that."
Franklin was a single mother of four boys.
Kei Williams Not Related to Rev. Jasper tweeted "How do you turn Aretha Franklin's funeral into a dragging of Black women? HOW DARE YOU...."
Rep. Chaz Beasley tweeted "No disrespect to Jasper Williams, but my single mother raised me to be a man pretty well. . . #ArethaFranklinFuneral"
When Williams spoke about the Black Lives Matter movement, he used it to critique black-on-black violence.
"When we kill one hundred of us, nobody says anything," he said. "Nobody does anything."
He added: "Black-on-black crime. We're all doing time. We're locked up in our mind. There's got to be a better way. We must stop this today."
Then, he said if he were asked today 'Do black lives matter,' he would answer, 'No, black lives do not matter."
"Black lives will not matter. Black lives ought not matter," he said as the crowd applauded. "Black lives should not matter. Black lives must not matter. Until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves, black lives can never matter."
Though some supported Williams's stance, his comments were met with immediate reaction at the funeral when singer Stevie Wonder reportedly shouted, "Black lives matter."On Twitter, some described the eulogy as a "disaster" and a "disgrace."
A 'disgrace'?
No, it's called the truth.
White people are absolved from the problems black people create for themselves. We owe blacks nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Reverend Williams spoke the truth and it doesn't matter what blacks think about it, because blacks should have absolutely no impact on any policy governing white lives.
They can't even govern their own community without blaming imaginary white ghosts for haunting every aspect of their lives.