Category Archives: FAIR

The Numbers

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2013-01-28_14

This week, I learned about The Numbers.

The Numbers is a local lottery game played in many communities.
Sometimes it’s called bolita. Sometimes the lottery. But usually,
just the numbers.

You can play a number straight. This way, you only win if the exact
number comes out.

You can box it. This way, you win if your numbers come out in any
combination (i.e. 781, 718, 871, 781)

Or – you can parlay it. (Sometimes this is called a “pairs bet”.)
This way, you play X81 – anything ending in 81 you win. Or 78X and
anything starting in 78, you win.

The numbers come out at least once a day, sometimes more.

Dream books all say something different. One book may say “You dream
of snakes? Play 683”, another may say “Play 932.”

You can look up your name – or someone else’s – in a Dream Book and it
will give you a number to play.

You can play the number of a body part (some dream books have charts for that).

Some dream books are published each year and have a lucky number for each day.

You can look up your birthday and see what numbers (or days of the
week are lucky for you). (For me – Saturdays are good. So are
January and October.) Some dream books also do horoscopes.

Sometimes the winning number is tied to the horse race. Some say the
stock market. But really, you know you won when the numbers runner
tells you you won.

Some people say you shouldn’t waste your money on the numbers. But
when you can bet a dime and maybe win a few bucks…. why not?

photo credit: vicie rolling

Rosa sat, so Martin could walk…

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“Rosa sat so Martin could walk

Martin walked so Barack could run

Barack ran, he ran and he won

So all our children could fly”

 

I’ve gotten so used to seeing Barack Obama on TV as my president that I don’t always think about what I’m seeing. But when I hear this song, it takes me back to that moment when I found out Barack Obama would be the first African-American president of the United States of America.  So many people fought, struggled and died to bring about that day and this day – a day when I can forget, even for a moment, that my president is a black man.

 

“Rosa sat” – Rosa Parks stood up for her right to be treated as a human being by sitting down on that Montgomery bus.

 

“Martin walked” – The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the visible leader of a movement that walked from Selma to Montgomery, marched on Washington and in many other places in this nation to fight for equal treatment and the right to vote.

 

“Barack ran” – The very idea that this nation – the same country in which a few short years ago I would not have been able to ride a bus from one state to another without worrying; the same country in which integrating Little Rock Central High School required the intervention of the National Guard; the same country in which Medgar Evers was shot in his driveway because of his activism – that this country chose a black man as a presidential candidate is profound. 

 

I remember a conversation I had with one of my teachers at the time.  He asked me who I was for – Barack or Hillary – I told him that I was afraid to root for Barack.  After growing up with stories of black activists getting shot and beaten, I was afraid to watch that happen to someone else.  I was afraid to hope.  My teacher smiled and reminded me that we have to hope for the future, we can’t live in fear.

And then it happened.  Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of these United States of America.  The joy of hope fulfilled shot through me that night; joy that so many people were joyful – could be joyful, wanted to be joyful.  It was magnificent.  

            I think of those people who stayed up late into the night planning marches and demonstrations; those people who put their bodies and lives on the line to walk into fire hoses and growling dogs; family members who were terrorized, beaten or shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or refusing to be less than they were – the election of this black man to our highest public office is not only a testament to the efforts of those who went before, but a vindication of their faith in America.

 

Rosa sat – so Martin could walk

Martin walked – so Barack could run

Barack ran – he ran and he won

So that all our children could fly.

I Want My Ham! A Meditation On Hambone

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2013-01-11_14

I’m assisting on Two Trains Running and have the privilege of
listening to the play every day. One of the characters in the play,
Hambone, has essentially two lines. “I want my ham.” “He gonna give
me my ham.” After listening to those lines for several days, one day
I suddenly heard them. Although he seems simple, Hambone’s story is
one of profound persistence in the face of injustice.

For nearly a decade, this man has tried to claim what he believes is
rightfully his – just payment for his services. Although he is
offered a lower fee (a chicken), he refuses. He will take nothing
less than a ham, no matter how many times he must ask for it. His
request is simple, but his stubborn determination is profound.

Monday, January 21st, is the day set aside to remember the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. During his final trip in Memphis, Dr King
(along with many others) worked with the Sanitation Workers to help
bring their strike to a successful conclusion. They are the ones you
see in photos from the period holding signs that say “I AM a man.”
This was not the first (nor would it be the last) time they had struck
to fight for a living wage. Those men, like Hambone were fighting for
their right to be heard, or as Dr King said the night before he died
“We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to
be people.” It seems such a simple thing, and something that today
most of us are lucky enough to take for granted. But those simple
things are often the most difficult to attain.

At a production meeting last week someone, in reference to using food
on stage, said “We can’t do leftovers.” The phrase stuck with me. It
seemed more profound than the intended meaning of the moment. Hambone
wasn’t settling for leftovers. The strikers in Memphis weren’t
settling for leftovers. And Dr. King certainly wasn’t settling for
leftovers.

What does this mean for me? I’m an artist. I’m black. I’m a woman.
Many people fought and died for my right to ride on a bus and sit
anywhere I please; many people fought and died for my right to so
freely declare myself an artist – without my ancestors struggle for
self-determination (their “ham”), I would not have been free to follow
my heart into theatre. To honor their fight, I believe it’s my duty
to give my all to my craft, to learn as much as I can and to speak
with integrity through my work. I need to fight for my own ham.

We as a people should not settle for leftovers. It may take the
stubborn determination of Hambone, but to get to the Promised Land we
can’t settle for leftovers. I want my ham. He gonna give me my ham.

Mind The Gap

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2013-01-03_11

I’m a New Yorker – I feel like I’ve said that more in this last week
than in any of my previous stints out of town. Even those that lasted
a few years. But in trying to understand Ashland, I keep coming up
against how different it is from what I’ve become accustomed to in
that East Coast metropolis.

Sitting in a clearly popular coffee shop (it can be hard to get a
seat), it has the same sepia glow of an Instagram photo that I’ve
become accustomed to in Brooklyn. But there’s a difference. Looking
around, I see the requisite hipster Macs, iPhones and beards. What’s
missing is the sense of an audience. There’s an unselfconscious air
about cool in Ashland. In New York, it’s studied, calculated,
documented with the target audience always in mind.

New York often gets a bad rep for being mean. It’s not really – most
New Yorkers are simply in a hurry. Everyone is vaguely impatient or
annoyed at any given point of day or night. Someone is always in the
way, walking too slow, or taking up needed space. New Yorkers can be
nice and are often considerate, but it’s always an interruption of the
daily rush.

In Ashland, not so much. Here, I have been on the sidewalk, waiting
for a break in traffic to cross and suddenly I find the traffic has
stopped to wait for me. Or I’m at the register at my local coffee
spot, the barista answers my questions with absolutely no sense of
trying to hurry me up, despite the long line behind me. Or the small
conversations I’ve had with the cashiers each time I’ve been to the
grocery store. Conversations about nothing, really, but the simple
act of talking to people that I may never see again as if they are my
neighbors is extraordinary to me.

It’s all done here with a sense that this is normal, a daily practice.
I’m not taking up someone’s time with a question, they patiently wait
but there’s no exertion of patience, it’s effortless. Friendliness and
patience seem effortless and genuine in Ashland.

I’m from a small town, and growing up I was used to running into
friends from church or school at the mall. Friends’ parents worked at
the bank and the grocery store – so even when I go back to visit, I
may run into them and have a brief chat. But with that – I do know
them, or my mother does, or we know people in common, so there’s a
reason to reach across that divide. But here…people reach out a
welcoming hand as a matter of course. A gap that in New York can seem
as deep as the Mariana Trench is bridged as if were a puddle. Ashland
is bringing a whole new meaning to “Mind the Gap.”