gimme a beat

I’ve been hearing that verse in my head lately—perhaps because Janet Jackson just celebrated her 50th birthday and announced that she’s expecting her first child. It also has to do with my irritation around the “most favored” voices, which these days seems to be men of color who can rap. I had the opportunity to see Eclipsed on Wednesday and it was an amazing experience. Lupita wasn’t available but her understudy was fantastic and even before we got to the theater, I was having a good time. I met Patrice years ago when I self-published A Wish After Midnight; she was one of the few teachers who read the book and invited me to speak to her students. When her school got tickets for all the female students to see Eclipsed, Patrice generously offered me an extra ticket. In the school cafeteria I met some of the other teachers along with a couple of Patrice’s friends and we immediately started talking about the trials of teaching, and bell hooks’ critique of #Lemonade, and how to teach girls to be their authentic selves. I was struck—as I often am—by the ease with which women can and often do connect. It doesn’t always happen but when it does, I find myself wondering if men ever bond that way (instantly, honestly). Part of me wished the male students had also been invited, but their absence made the experience richer. The play is about 5 women surviving the civil war that nearly destroyed Liberia. Four of the women are “wives” of a war lord who claimed them for himself, and together they form a household and a kind of family. We never forget that they are regularly raped—“jumped on”–by the C.O.; he never appears on stage, but we know he’s passing by when the women abruptly fall into line and wait to see who will be chosen. Each one returns moments later to ritually wipe between her legs using a cloth kept in a plastic basin in one corner of their shared home. They cook together, sleep side by side, share dreams, bicker and fight over the “spoils of war”—hair extensions and blood-stained clothes—and read the biography of Bill Clinton (a “big man” who also had more than one “wife”). To take back power, Wife #2 joins the army believing her gun will prevent any man from raping her again. The Girl, youngest and most recent addition to the family, follows #2 into war only to find herself rounding up other scared girls who will be handed over to soldiers who rape them with impunity. After witnessing (and believing she caused) the gang rape and death of a young girl who cursed her, The Girl tries to escape but is beaten into submission by #2. When the play ends, we aren’t sure of her fate—can she return to a “normal” life or will she return to the chaos of the killing fields?

I haven’t seen Hamilton and probably won’t unless someone miraculously offers me a free ticket. I admit, I get turned off when one person or text receives a disproportionate amount of attention because it means so many other people and texts aren’t receiving any attention at all. Eclipsed has 6 Tony nominations but the theater wasn’t full for that mid-week matinee, and I don’t see or hear the playwright (or director, or cast members—all Black women) on TV, magazine covers, or the radio every other day. Would people pay more attention if we rapped about rape? What was happening in the lives of Black women while Alexander Hamilton and George Washington were “founding” the nation? Pretty much the same thing that was happening in Liberia not that long ago—the same thing that’s been going on in the Congo for decades. Again and again I come back to that line from the CRC 1977 “Statement”: “the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation is us.”

Gimme a beat.