Sending you love, Susan. Just finished “Memoir...”, given to me by my daughter, who loved your writing. I am currently going through immune chemotherapy for lung cancer, which seems to be working. I so appreciated your honesty about your experiences. You gave me much better understanding of my own emotions and coping skills. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you Nina
Susan you are a living miracle
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There is something soulfully therapeutic about wailing an anthem of righteous indignation. Sing yourself well! And so very sorry for your compounding losses.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T (More than just a little bit)
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There is no such thing as Black cancer. The flow of Nina’s putative rage had many would-be debilating tributaries, race being only one! Ergo her fierce genius for being at once massively bloodied and monumentally unbowed is universal balm in any and all Gileads! As such, in partaking of it honor her by doing so with as much unapologetic fierceness as the Soul Of A High Priestess can stand!
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To all who struggle or suffer: peace and love. Let’s stick together.
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Thank you. Lost my wife last year to metastatic breast cancer. Thank you.
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As an outsider due to disability through my teen years, I have always despised prejudice as a lazy, ignorant and angry approach to life - and I hate the humanity that racism destroys in our society. Now, as an adult whose lost my best friend from college, my dearest work colleague and my beloved "mom" friend - I hate and fear what cancer takes away from us all.
My only comment to the rewrite of Nina Simone's anti-racism anthem into an anti-cancer battle cry, is that these two things - racism and cancer - are too big and monstrous to share the same song. They each need their own, otherwise we belittle people's pain, and, worse, we belittle the cathartic pledge to fight against each of these scourges, with all of our might.
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I applaud!!! I love Nina Simone's music and I'm sure she would be proud.
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Although I am all too aware of the many unsolved questions of cancer treatment, I can't help adding to this powerful statement with my anger against a cancer research and cancer treatment "institution" which often seems more interested in profit than cure, in blaming the patient rather than examining the rampant capitalist environment of our sick planet, in taking so long to find cures partly because some interests (big pharma?) are better served by no or slow cure. Thanks for this invigorating surge of powerful angry language to help me express these concerns.
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I can listen to Nina Simone sing for hours. I grew up a white boy rocker listening to Janis Joplin, and thanks to Joplin, I discovered a lot of great singers before her. My thanks to Janis and Nina.
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I read your words as I listened to Simone's. Yours is a masterful reworking of a powerful song. Your English background is surely showing. Thank you.
My only quibble is with the cat--they get cancer too and we lose those friends as well. R.I.P. Spike, who had the same cancer I did at the same time.
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Thanks. I love Nina Simone’s work and this song. I think she would approve of your using it. She experienced other hardships besides racism.
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Writing as a white son of the South and a cancer widower, I feel awkward borrowing Nina Simone’s powerfully angry “show tune.” Consider where we are in 2019, when a congressman defends white nationalism. That show is still being written. Same for cancer from the survivor POV. Raising a child without a mom will forever in my lifetime induce rage, and many more song worthy reactions. My experience is so personal, however; I don’t necessarily relate to the millions of other survivors in a way I imagine descendants of slavery do. Perhaps that happens in the next act.
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Being a caregiver of cancer patient encourage me to be stronger and healthier so I can be there when my mom needed me.
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Very powerful. I do hope that some musicians take this on as a project.
Perhaps the band NED? This description is taken from the band's website (www.nedtheband.com):
"A unique band of six gynecologic oncology surgeons from across the country, N.E.D. is taking healing and the arts to a new level. Created as a cover band to entertain their peers at a medical conference, they saw the potential to reach women in a powerful way – through music. What was started as a novelty meant to entertain, has turned into a powerful awareness movement to give a voice to women effected by gynecologic cancers.
N.E.D. or ‘No Evidence of Disease’, are the words every cancer patient wants to hear. The cornerstone of N.E.D.’s Mission is education and awareness. They have released two albums of original music, that have received critical acclaim. Their songs are designed to empower women, give them hope and to break the silence surrounding gynecologic cancers."
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No, this is not “ cultural appropriation “, plagiarism or bad taste. Guess what : We ALL can get Cancers, no matter our ethnicity, tribal identity, gender or “ class “. Like Death and Taxes, it’s part of the human condition and experience. This is a fine tribute to the Artist, her life, her genius, her Truth.
Thank you and best wishes.
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Music belongs to everyone to experience, respond and improvise around. Just check-out classical, jazz, folk and rap for how they are adapted by other musicians. An artist knows this and that is why s/he shares it. If a song falls in a forest, does it make a sound? As long as the author is identifying the source, and not infringing on royalties, but instead, enjoying it for one’s own benefit I don’t see an issue.
As an individual who is diagnosed and being treated with a rare form of cancer, I appreciate the author’s creativity and passion in trying to obtain healing around the disease and its consequences. Her mash-up of Nina Simone’s lyrics rings true for me.
In fact I will probably add a verse about the environmental pollution and toxins that are causing this epidemic and for which little is being acknowledged and addressed, leaving individuals to be victimized and suffer, and corporate pharmaceutical, medical and health care entities to profit.
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I understand these lyrics. My wife died six months ago after a recurrence that she fought for a year. She endured unimaginable suffering. The last week of in home hospice, my older brother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia which he has fought the past six months. My wife, Caroline, had a career in basic science research in medical biology. The practical answer lies in medical research. We are close, I think, but close is not good enough for those who died and are suffering now. My heart goes out to all who are fighting cancer.
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Perhaps an evaluation of this song’s rage could be better linked to the manifestations of rage over many situations rather than who should have access to that rage? In this case, the personal can be affected by many types of invasion, not related to the person but to the many who experience many similar types of invasion. We all march together not because of a singular identity but because of a similar situation. In this case it matters not the source of the rage to allows us to express the lyrics: it is the commonality of how we feel!
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This is awesome! This raw anger at what cancer does is justified. Reading "When Breath Becomes Air," I got angry when he came out of remission. He had beaten cancer, but it came back after he felt peer-pressured into resuming a full work schedule while he was still recovering. Perhaps cancer's real lesson is to stand up for yourself. Set boundaries. And above all, care for your body, because one life is really all any of us has.
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I would be interested in hearing from Black cancer patients or survivors with opinions about this piece. I wonder if a white author co-opting an expression of justified rage at systemic racism to express an equally justified but very different rage has the potential to cause pain and offense the author likely does want to cause. She seems to have considered this, and found license for her adaptation of Nina Simone’s work in both Simone’s own adaptations and in another author’s analogy of the struggle with cancer to the struggle with racism. From where I sit (middle-aged white woman who at age 15 lost my mother to cancer, but have not had cancer myself), I don’t know if those two thing provide that license. Not that any individual can or should license anyone else’s personal expression of struggle, but the author’s comments suggest she does care about the impact of bringing that expression to a public forum. So I’d like to know the thoughts of others in better positions than me to reflect on that.
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@Susan Lewis I am a middle aged white man and had the exact same thoughts. While I wish the author all the strength, science, and good luck she needs in her battle against cancer, her adaptation of Ms. Simone's song gives off more than a whiff of cultural appropriation.
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Typo EDIT: I meant “likely does *not* want to cause.”
@Susan Lewis
Why always view Nina Simone as Black, and by that notion, transfer that everything she ever wrote about was "black?" Nina Simone is an artist for the generations, whatever their race or ethnicity or gender. We need to stop being so overly sensitive in a way that reduces artists to a specific viewpoint, and embrace the fact that art transcends race, gender, and all the other things that are tearing us apart. Go Nina! Go Susan Gubar! You, Susan, have done nothing less than tap into something very universal about Nina. Good for you!
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Thank you Susan for this. As a four time cancer traveler, I have shed the inhibitions and now sing and dance whenever I feel the need. I am a big fan of Nina Simone and a big fan of protest songs. Thank you.
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