A Generation Removed

My mom and I had a little spat, a mild disagreement . . . a fight. It was over that dreadful play, A Raisin in the Sun.

I hated the play as a kid and I loathe it even more now.  I tried to discuss the recent incarnation of the "made for TV" production on last Sunday’s installment of The National Conversation Radio Show, but I had no takers. That probably worked out for the best.  Mom was listening, and given the chance, I would have popped off, she would have called in and I would have been spanked right over the airwaves.

Can you imagine?

Anyway, my mother wanted to know what I would have said if I would have had the guts to discuss the show absent of callers... Nice. She was loaded for bear! She already knew my position, she just wanted to hear it before she launched. I knew it was a trap but I couldn’t resist.

The play is racist, antiquated, convoluted and depressing. It plays into the worst aspects of the black/white racist culture. It belongs buried in the past because it has no redeeming value today.  All A Raisin in the Sun promotes today is race holding among blacks and guilt among whites. Only if you are willing to accept that the world has changed, will it serve any purpose. It is a reminder of how things used to be.

The problem is that people of my mother's generation, and the young and lazy members of later generations view “A Raisin” as the status quo. Evidence of one or two racists means that the world hasn’t  changed.  “Never forget” has come to mean never forgive, never move on, never take personal responsibility for your own actions.

Sigh.

After a while I stopped arguing with my mom and just listened. She was passionate in her beliefs and forceful in her arguments. Kind of like an old lifelong Packer fan arguing that Bart Starr was a better quarterback than Brett Favre.

Maybe... If you are old enough to have seen them both play.

But I’m not old enough to remember.  So in my book, Brett Favre was the better quarterback.

And guess what?  The play, movie and television version of A Raisin in the Sun, sucks.

Sorry, Mom.

I’m too young to remember, embrace, or hold on to America's racist past... So are a lot of other Americans, they just feel they need to.

Comments

[Uncle Ed]

WOW! Never forgive?

Better send your mom flowers!

[dad29]

Hmmmmnnn.

Are you trying to say that race relations are on a par with the Farve/Starr debate?

And, by the way, you're wrong about Favre/Starr...although both are obviously super-players, recall that Starr was a "system QB," and Favre was not.

Like comparing apples to oranges.