a song to remember

As a white girl that grew up in a middle-class family, I was so far removed from understanding what it meant to be anything but that. I had always understood the sexism in life, the fact that I would be the one that stepped out of a man’s way or that a man wanting to touch the small of my back or arm was just a formality. I had known it, I had seen it, I had known that women’s rights were still very new to this nation, and I was lucky enough to get to go to school. I was lucky enough to even have a chance that even fifty years ago, women didn’t have. I knew all of this and more at a young age as I cried to my dad when I heard about Malala being shot by the Taliban for going to school, “daddy why can’t other girls go to school?”. I was seven. It was then I was exposed to racism. An idea that I couldn’t even fathom.

In grade school, my best friend was an African-American girl named Alisha. I don’t remember ever thinking about the differences between us, I knew we both had curly hair and we both liked to laugh. My exposures are short, I can never understand what my best friend went through. I can’t believe we still live in a time where this happens. A time where being a woman or the color of your skin is your modifier, and for some reason makes you less than.

It is for this reason that I am so glad that the women in the world didn’t just sit by and accept this reality. These women heard the world was trying to hold them down and they shrugged and said, “I will put the world on my shoulders, and I will carry it in heels”. The women are putting Atlas to shame as they shrug their shoulders with the Earth and all its ability to undervalue and estimate every woman here. Now I have so many women in mind that if I could, I would give a standing ovation. This ranges from women in social issues to entertainment. Women who have been paving the way and not letting anything get in their way.

This is a homage to all the women in the world, but even more so an apology that the world hasn’t caught up yet. I know that we will continue to make our marks on the world, and the world will no longer be able to ignore us. This is a homage to the women in music who didn’t stop even when they had every reason to.

My choice for an African-American woman in music is Ella Fitzgerald. Let’s just give it up for the Queen of Jazz, the first African-American woman to win a grammy. ( I had to choose Jazz, as my name is a direct homage to the great music itself, the heritage and the culture alone could fill libraries.) The woman who didn’t let the world dictate her life to her. She had a difficult childhood, but at age 17 she debuted on the Apollo stage to wow the crowd and take home the prize. She was shy, but her singing voice showed everyone what she was capable of. She was growing in popularity, and Marilyn Monroe could see that. Marilyn Monroe called up a nightclub and basically made them fools when they wouldn’t book Ella Fitzgerald. Monroe personally sat in the front row every night to support the young Ella Fitzgerlad and stick it to the nightclub, when they wouldn’t book her because of her skin color. Fitzgerald would describe Monroe, “as a woman ahead of her time”. (This is important because we women need to have each other’s backs.)

Ella Fitzgerald was my grandmother’s favorite artist as well, and because of this, I can still hear my grandmother humming, “My Funny Valentine” even though she passed this past year. I hear her singing, “stay little valentine, stay. Each day is Valentine’s Day.” (That’s right, the same song Dr. Richard Webber in “Grey’s Anatomy” sings to Adele, their wedding song.) I am in shock and awe of the women in my life and in my world. A world that is made better every day that women don’t let themselves be held to vintage standards that no longer are valid. We have so many women to look to, so many to thank. In the words of Lady Ella, “it isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts”.