What Fight the Power Means When You’re the Adult in the Room

 

Have you ever wanted to break something?

 

I have a recurring fantasy about smashing wine glasses. It doesn’t have anything to do with potential metaphorical implications – they’re just small, and thin, and, if you’re going to do it, the point is shattering.

 

Not sure why that particular vision has stuck around my head so long, I just know that if I was to ever direct a scene in which metaphorical catharsis turned literal, that’s what the heroine would be doing.

 

Of course, here’s the problem with that – in said scene, you eventually end up with a crunchy carpet of broken glass, and, if the theoretical heroine is anything like me, she’d then feel obligated to sweep up.

 

That’s my main issue with rebellion. I’m all in favor of window smashing and flamethrowing – except I know how much work it takes to get to the point where you own a window, and I’ve seen how long it takes the scars to heal when someone gets burned.

Continue reading “What Fight the Power Means When You’re the Adult in the Room”

The Fire Next Time

The Fire Next Time, from the inimitable James Baldwin, is a book in two parts:

-My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation

-Down At the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind

The first letter is only seven pages, and it is what (in format and content) most directly influences Ta-nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. It’s the kind of communication that seems too well put together to be worth picking apart. Go read it.

Continue reading “The Fire Next Time”

What I Think About When Someone Says “Real America”

My uncle told me his small town in Idaho turned into “Little Beirut” on the 4th – judge for yourself