Last night the crowd of around three hundred avid fans was being so patient. Our idol was nearly a half hour late - traffic is a bear around here - but when Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie proudly strode onto the stage of the Calvert High School auditorium, all spike heels, long legs, and colorful garb, we stood and cheered. Young people see her as a feminist icon. Me? I simply think she's one of the best writers of her generation. Ten years ago I read "Half of a Yellow Sun," her novel of Nigeria's Biafran war. I've been hooked ever since.
Courtesy of the Maryland Humanities Council and the Maryland public libraries, Ms. Adichie's debut novel, "Purple Hibiscus," was this year's One Maryland/One Book read. The interview format was led by local pediatrician and author of several novels herself, Nadia Hashimi. Though she tried valiantly to ask questions about the book, the conversation veered all over the place, from religion to politics, from race to feminism, and ultimately to the surreal world under the leadership of Donald Trump.
Adichie can be prickly about certain subjects - maybe that's why we love her so much. She wouldn't speak of her collaboration with Beyoncé. Not sure what that's about. And though two of her non-fiction works have the word "feminist" in their titles, she expressed discomfort at being fetishized as a feminist icon. Though she made it clear that she speaks for herself, she was kind and empathetic to audience members who asked searching questions about how to raise children, especially boys, in the age of Trump. The answer? Allow them to be vulnerable. Adichie believes that the violence we witness daily in our lives is a direct result of repressed anger and NORMAL but unacknowledged feelings in our boys.
Ms. Hashimi, a Muslim American whose family is from Afghanistan, joined in the discussion of the politicization of religion. Not only do people fail to distinguish between culture and religion, making judgments and reaching uninformed conclusions based upon say, a hijab or a turban, but religious practitioners do a disservice to their members when they stray from the message of love. Adichie, at one time a Catholic, spoke of walking out of mass years ago while at Yale, when a priest used the pulpit to promote a local politician.
The evening went by way too quickly. I would have enjoyed listening to these two women chat all night. If I could register one disappointment it is that the local high school missed a golden opportunity to introduce their students to a purveyor of great literature that speaks to them. Why wasn't every high school English teacher on board? Where were the writing students? "Purple Hibiscus" centers around a fifteen-year-old girl, Kambili, who is physically and mentally abused by her father, a young woman who has swallowed her own voice fearful of reprisal for having an opinion. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I rejoiced with her as she slowly emerged from her cocoon under the tutelage of her uninhibited aunt and cousins.
Adichie may deny it all she wants but this novel IS a feminist manifesto and one that every high school student should have been apprised of. Here's hoping that teachers will take advantage of her other appearances around the state for One Maryland/One Read. After all, sitting in class isn't the only way to learn about the world.
My friend Don and I have instituted what we call "movie Mondays," our attempt to see all of the Academy Award nominated films before the Oscar production at the end of the month. This week we finally got to see "Moonlight." Let me say, unequivocally that I found it to be a beautifully shot, quiet film with some outstanding performances, especially Ashton Sanders as the teen, Chiron, struggling with his sexual identity, and Naomi Harris as his mom.
The problem arose in the third part of the film when Chiron is a young adult, now a drug dealer like his mentor Juan (Mahershala Ali), living in Atlanta where his mother is in a drug rehabilitation facility. I turned to Don and said, "I wonder how the writer went from being a drug dealer to being an award winning playwright?" As a librarian, I had to immediately go home and investigate.
Of course what I found out is that neither Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose 2003 theatre piece "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" was written as an entry to graduate school, nor Barry Jenkins, the screen writer and director of the movie, had ever been drug dealers, not remotely close. Yet they have been participating in world-wide interviews speaking about the semi-autobiographical nature of their film collaboration.
I'm confident that they don't intend to mislead audiences but it will happen nevertheless. Both men grew up in the Liberty City section of Miami, Florida, during the crack epidemic of the '80's. Each had mothers who succumbed to addiction. McCraney's mom died. Jenkins' came out on the other side. McCraney is gay, Jenkins is straight. Each attended the same fine arts high school in Miami that set them on the path to higher education and success. McCraney holds a degree from DePaul University and the Yale School of Drama, Jenkins from Florida State.
One of my favorite authors and speakers, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, gave a famous TED Talk about the danger of a single story. http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
Her talk is really about ignorance, ignorance and lack of imagination when it comes to the American world view of Africa's many countries and their diversity. Don argues vehemently that the same ignorance holds true about America's view of African Americans and he hates it when filmmakers play into this single story, ie: The Butler, The Help, Fences, Twelve Years a Slave. Hidden Figures is the recent notable exception.
So the question is, why didn't McCraney and Jenkins write the full story of their wonderful lives? Why didn't they show Chiron going on to college, accepting and loving himself as a gay, Black man in America? Why did they leave audiences to believe that the only way up and out of neighborhoods like Liberty City is through a life dealing drugs? Why the single story when the actual story is so much more compelling and uplifting? Don is writing to McCraney and Jenkins with these questions. I'll let you know if he gets answers.
