Nicholas Barnard Women Playwrights: From the Mississippi Delta 5/17/02
1. What I think was most shocking to me while reading the play is that not all black men and women supported and/or participitated in the freedom movements. While I realize that it would impossible to participate in everything, I had always assumed that almost all Black men and women were participating in the freedom movements. Looking at my own experiences in the fringes of the gay rights movement, I realize that many people just go about “living their lives” and only a veritable handful of people actually go about creating change, and then there are numerous arguments about what change is needed and how it should be brought about.
One of the women who influenced her most heavily was her mother, who I initially thought was the author, due to the similarities of their names. Her mother's influence was that of dreaming. While a vague concept her mother gave her the gift of being able to see an ideal and being able to work towards that in obtaining it.
I also think that the Miss Candy Quick experience was defiantly an important growing point for her. I think this in many ways was defined for her from her male relatives as being a bottom point in life that she should strive not to fall back too.
2. This is a hard question to answer, as I don't have the best perspective. I think that the struggle of Dr. Holland and others was not in vain. Fifty years ago the thought of having an African American President would have been laughable, but several people very seriously entertained Colin Powell as a viable candidate. There are television networks aimed at black audiences, and there are some images of African American women in the media. So I think we've made some progress.
On the other hand, the sly taking advantage of African American people by corporations and other people very likely still exists. Predatory lending is a profitable industry, and often engaging in near unethical practices. I think that in many ways racism isn't a function of race but a function of statistical systems and history. African Americans from a historical standpoint have had less than their comparable whites. And in a general sense, children tend to end up in similar income brackets and neighborhoods as their parents, only moving up one or two “steps.” So I think while the corporate machinery is fair, as it does not look at race directly per se, it has taken an systematic built in stance where those of African American descent are as a group treated lesser, because of who they are, not because of their skin color.
I also believe that this same line of reasoning can partially explain racial profiling, as there is a perceived higher occurrence of young African American males committing crimes. Not to say that they do commit more crimes, but the belief is that they do. In addition the belief that they do drives enforcement, which causes more African Americans to be caught, even if they are committing crimes at the same rate as the general population.
3. Miss Rosebud. I think in some ways Miss Rosebud exists as a bit of a comic relief, but she also exists as representative of older African American women, and how they have been brought up unequipped to be able to fully function within their societies, and understand what others have told them.
4. In some ways I most identify with the From the Mississippi Delta vignette. I am the first of my brothers and sisters to go directly from high school to college. (This despite the fact that both of my parents hold college degrees, and I have two older siblings, one seven and one ten years older than me.) In some ways I'm a trail blazer for in my family, something that I did not learn in my younger years, as both of my older siblings (and my younger one to an extent) gave my parents hell and loosened them up for me. In addition I'm one the only one who has taken to theatre in any substantial degree. But when it comes to college, my parents and I are blazing new ground together. So together we are blazing new experiences. I'm also stuck in trying to find someone to look up to. While it always used to be my brother or my sister, I'm now stuck thinking if I should look up to people like Amanda Bennett, Ben Bruening, Kevin Moore, Linda Dunlevy, Shelia Ramsey and Marsha Hanna among others. I no longer have the convenience of looking up to one person, but I must now instead look up for myself, and that in many ways is a fundamentally frightening prospect, and I don't always have the strength to look up for myself and be a visionary
What is also striking about this scene is how she uses the burning cross, a symbol of hate, ad something positive in her life, giving her warmth and energy to go out and live life to its fullest. As funny as it is Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and others like them are my biggest motivators at times. When I'm confronted with hate from them, often get angry, but channel that energy in to writing a letter to the editor on the latest gay rights issue, or working on planning some event to get others involved in gay rights, and make our collective voices heard. In essence, I am amazed at how Dr. Holland takes hate and translates in into motivation for herself, but I'm also amazed in how it works within my own life in the same way.