The other day I attended a meeting where people of color talked about problems they face living in the local community. They told stories of their experiences with individual and stystemic racism in the schools, the job market, and the criminal justice system; limited access to public transportation; lack of adequate and affordable housing; and barriers in the health care system.
Having grown up in the South during the Civil Rights Movement and having seen significant progress in race relations during my lifetime, I found it extremely disheartening to hear these stories of racial prejudice, cultural ignorance, and institutional norms that continue to favor whites over people of color. It almost felt like we were living in an unofficial and informal system of apartheid. It was hard to believe that one year ago we were celebrating the inauguration of our first US President of color.
The 1957 play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry seems a lot less dated to me after hearing these stories. When it opened in 1959, it was the first play by a black woman ever produced on Broadway. Its dramatization of an African American family struggling with economic deprivation and aspiration, racial discrimination, cultural pride, and black manhood "sometime between WWII" and the late 1950's seems painfully similar to stories I heard from people of color a few days ago in 2010.
For all the progress I have seen in the last fifty years, it seems there has been just as much persistence of the same old patterns.
The title of Hansberry's play comes from a poem by Langston Hughes published in 1951:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Americans love the redemptive narrative and will prefer the stories of emancipation from slavery, of civil rights victories, and of the achievement of the American dream by such as Barak Obama, but the tragic stories of dreams deferred are just as much a part of our history and culture. We just don't want to hear them.
A Raisin in the Sun is itself a redemptive narrative. We could no doubt never have made the progress we have on racial issues without hope and faith on the part of people of color, but all Americans need to remember that for every triumphant story there are hundreds of tragic ones; for every American success story there are hundreds of unsung stories of American failure.
The play was excellent, as was the movie with Sidney Poitier (sp). Black literature and theater, IMO, has an astounding potential to ease prejudice, fear, and narrow the general gap between white & black culture. Who could not like, (even love), the characters in Raisin In the Sun. I wish I had been more familiar with Ernest Gaines and other excellent black writers much earlier in my life. Sometimes, I remember that literature can matter.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. Yes, I agree, Black literature, theater, and arts have done much to bridge the gap, increase understanding, and advance the cause of African Americans.
ReplyDelete