This semester I’m teaching a course on South African drama that revolves around protest performances during and after apartheid. Initially, the students reacted as students do when material is not what they expect and also foreign (literally and figuratively). South Africa felt incredibly distant to them. Apartheid was something they had heard about on the news once. Morgan Freeman had portrayed Nelson Mandela in a film they never saw. But as the semester has continued they have better grasped the ideas behind the necessity for performance in the time of governmental oppression. They have come to appreciate the very real tragedy and its effects on millions of innocent Black South Africans. They have seemed to gravitate toward performance’s healing power, but also the real danger that lies at the heart of performance, which is its greatest power: It inflicts actual pain on an oppressive government because it galvanizes communities; it creates a common shared experience on occupied space. It has been wonderful to see this progression take place. But as they have developed a more nuanced understanding of another country’s historical atrocities, they have continually discussed it in separation from their own country’s historical atrocities. South Africa’s historical racism and present day struggle to rebuild in the shadow of that systemic racism somehow seems more present to many of them than our own country’s historical racism and present day struggle to rebuild in the shadow of systemic racism. America had moved past racism in their minds. Sure there was still racism, they would say, but it’s not as bad as it was, so what’s the point in discussing it. This week, this past month, however, something has shifted in, at least, some of their minds. I think. I hope. After Eric Garner’s murder was dismissed without indictment of the white NYPD police officer who sarcastically waved to the camera that had seconds earlier filmed him murder Mr. Garner, I struggled with what to say to my students. I debated whether to cancel class in order to join thousands of my fellow New Yorkers in protesting this seemingly never ending attack on our country’s sons and daughters. But instead of cancelling class, I joined about 20 of my fellow New Yorkers in regularly scheduled class sessions this week to discuss their final papers about South African performance and its effect on South African culture. The conversation was somber, sobering. Honestly, I didn’t want to talk about how to write a better essay. But we discussed their ideas. We discussed thesis statements and sources. We discussed the need to look at present day situations in South Africa not as isolated moments of criminality or poverty, but as systemic problems dating back centuries. And in discussing these papers, either prompted by me or by them, the conversation kept circling around to America, to New York, to their city, to Eric Garner. My students seemed this week (and maybe this is completely idealistic, maybe it’s only what I hoped for them and, therefore, pretended actually happened) but they seemed to recognize the real tragedy was not foreign. The real tragedy was no longer distant, and had never been distant. The real tragedy was literally happening outside their front doors. The real tragedy was happening to their neighbors. The real tragedy was that our country currently has a greater wealth gap by race than South Africa during apartheid. The real tragedy is our inability as a country, and as individuals, to have an honest conversation about the atrocities our country has committed for centuries and continues to commit. I was proud to have had that conversation with my students. I was emboldened by their willingness to acknowledge that there are real issues in their country and participate in an important dialogue. I was relieved to be able to halfway articulate some of my own anger if only temporarily. It’s moments like this in which I’m thankful to be an educator. Maybe next week my students will hand in their final paper and avoid watching the news or talking about the news for whatever reason people find to avoid the reality that surrounds them. Maybe they’ll ultimately go back to shrugging their shoulders and thinking the real problems of the world only exist in other parts of the world. Or maybe from time to time they’ll think about what’s wrong with our country and they’ll ask someone else who doesn’t know or doesn’t want to acknowledge it, “Why?” and for a brief second that someone’s line of thinking will be disrupted and the possibility of change will exist. I don’t know if this is true, but there are times for which I am hopeful that there is at least a possibility for real change. I’m not sure if this is one of those times. However, I am sure that it will never come if we refuse to acknowledge what’s happening and understand why it’s happening. #EricGarner #BlackLivesMatter #AllLivesMatter
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 17:31:07 +0000
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