Dear Madame Eunice Waymon

Dear Madame Eunice Waymon aka Miss Nina Simone,

     Before I question stances you have taken ideologically during the Civil Rights Movement, I would like to acknowledge your musical genius. Hip-Hop music from my childhood onto today has had samples of your music as their background. I remember being a young boy listening to my brother play Lil Wayne - DontGetIt (Misunderstood) from The Carter III. I did not know you were the one singing the introduction to the song, but I felt the emotion you always attempted to evoke.  I felt the sorrow, the pain, and I did not understand its resonance. I did know that song was a part of a bond with my brother, our culture, the culture you embodied so boldly. Once I came to learn the thought behind songs and sampling, I also recognize your songs sampled on New Day from JAY-Z and Kanye's Watch the Throne album, Kanye's Blood on the Leaves, and then JAY-Z's The Story of O.J. Your music is timeless, and the use of your platform to push social issues was instrumental and selfless.
     Now, I would like to ask you how you rationalize radical political ideas like violent revolution, for example. From the documentary about your life, it is unclear whether you possessed the same ideas later in life. Still, I will question you. Today, I feel a conflict between nonviolence and radical violent action. I personally prefer nonviolent action and organizing. By no means do I think one must be non-violent to affect the changes they desire. Nonviolence is much less messy, but I cannot say violence against the "great purveyor of violence," the state and not white people in general, is totally wrong. What point do you have to reach to be willing to go to the South, get a shotgun, and just kill somebody because they are white? How tired do we have to get of oppression to resort to smashing things and burning buildings? I cannot bring myself to think that I could ever commit such an act for the sake of today's fight for social justice, but I do not criticize the rioters from Ferguson from acting  against their oppression with riots. I would be willing to commit myself to activism and advocacy, willing to be exhausted by it. Breaking people down to logistics is simply not how I can view people today. It cannot be broken down to "They've killed our people in cold blood, so we kill theirs." Should we be at that kind of boiling point? If so, haven't we failed?
     The difference in ideological differences battled out before my time may have an effect on my viewpoints and questioning. I am definitely in a different political tumult than the 1960's. I may be projecting my views on past standpoints with the advantage of being in the present. Our current state of resistance should be optimal one for our moment if we have learned anything from the past. I only ask your opinion to judge whether our fight today for black and brown people, people of the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and more is where it should be.