We lost many loved ones this past month from Kamau Amen Ra to community organizer, prolific writer and longshoreman, Brother Cleophus Williams, to my dear Sister Monica Pree, not to mention Muhammad Ali. My condolences to all.

Black Lives Matter?

July 4 is a time when many of us reflect on Independence Day, a day marked by the blood of African Ancestors of the Middle Passage—the first to die, a black man, Crispus Attucks (March 3, 1770) in what became known as the Boston Massacre[1]  Frederick Douglas’s eloquent query: “What to the American Slave is the 4^th of July?”[2] On the eve of the 240^th Anniversary this freed British colony asks what is freedom to an emancipated population who have to wear signs “Black Lives Matter”? I was surprised to see a sister in a BLM tee-shirt in superior court in Accra.  We were there late June for a murder trial. Two elder black women were killed over land.

Black Lives Matter signage reminds one of the signs, “I Am a Man,” the silent protest in Memphis by striking Sanitation Workers (1968) and subsequent solidarity marches.  The reason why the strike was held was following the death of two sanitation workers, “Echol Cole and Robert Walker died when they were crushed to death with the garbage and nobody noticed – crushed in the back of a garbage truck because during a sever rain storm, they were not allowed by the city to seek shelter from storms. Why because white folks in Memphis at the time didn’t like or want any of the all black sanitation workers to stop in their neighborhoods. Cole and Walker couldn’t fit inside of the truck, so the crawled in the back where the garbage was placed and a broom feel on the lever and crushed them to death with the garbage” (http://thyblackman.com/2013/04/08/thy-federal-government-forgets-i-am-a-man/). The complete statement is: “I am a man. I am a man, not a piece of garbage.”

We have to model what we want to manifest. If Black Lives Matter, then these sacred lives have to matter first to us.

Douglass[3] says to his white audience: “. . . You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina.

“You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty.

“You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse!

“You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country.

“You profess to believe “that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth,” and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

“Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

“But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.

“Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped

“To palter with us in a double sense:
And keep the word of promise to the ear,
But break it to the heart.

“And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape” (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/).

Reread, listen to actor James Earl Jones read Douglass’s prophetic words which James Baldwin echoes in his seminal “The Fire Next Time” (1963) as do Ta-Nehisi Coates[4] (Baldwin’s philosophical protégé), “Between the World and Me” (2015) and actor, Jesse Williams in his recent BET acceptance speech. [5]

Ghana, Land of the Ancestors Part 1

When I landed in Accra, Ghana’s West African capital on Tuesday evening, May 31, I’d been traveling for two days with an unexpected layover in England. We arrived several hours late. Yet my new friends, Wade, Sweetie and Duke, were not deterred in the sweltering heat of the evening. I gave Sweetie and Duke gifts and packages and then they took public transport home to Tema, while Wade and I headed for the mountainous region of Aburi, where I stayed for the first week.  Completely off the grid, Wade’s three story home is solar powered, with a filtered water system. He has planted native flowering and fruit bearing trees throughout and has housing for his employee who maintains the property in his absence. The road into this paradise is prohibitive to anyone without a 4-wheel drive. In this way, Wade hopes to ward off the encroaching move to tame the bush. Everywhere we see felled trees dating 100s of year’s old, fallow land waiting for developers. It’s hot and the shady spots natural canopies provided here and elsewhere throughout the region is one of many short-sided responses to development. However, Ghana is not the only place where trees are slaughtered. Look at the recent felling of trees circling Lake Merritt and the ones covering the land Peralta Community College District sold to developers. The “oak” in Oakland is all that is left of the trees covering the city landscape. Cowboys wear chainsaws on their belts—smiles and notches along their buckles mark incalculable losses.

Escape from the perils of development brought black Americans to Ghana, but the bush is getting a process or perm. With immigration to America the goal for a young Ghanaian population, preservation or conservation is an underfunded ideology, despite Ghana’s philosophical origins in the work of Dr. Osagefu Kwame Nkrumah who said: Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism. Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below the soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups and individuals who operate to Africa’s impoverishment.[6]

In Aburi, which is home to the famed Botanical Gardens as well as many indigenous shrines and the revered dwarf community, I met a more relaxed Ghanaian community. The “rich American” stigma never left; however, the pressure was a lot more subtle than that in the metropolis Accra which bustled like all such cities cross a multiple nation state.

I’d just completed and turned in my final grades at work, just two night earlier, so the travel book I’d purchased was relatively unmarked. I decided to let Wade or Kwame, show me his Ghana. He was one of the many black Americans I met who’d discovered an oasis, their Eden more than 20 years ago and carved out paradise in the midst of global economies intent on stripping such places of its natural resources—goods and people. I was immediately enraptured by the multiplicity of butterflies. They were everywhere—beautiful, colorful, free-spirited.

Butterflies are symbolic of the ancestors— Oya guardian of the cemeteries and transformation. I also thought it interesting that death as spectacle is here, something I had never seen outside New Orleans. Yet, here in Ghana on Fridays and Saturdays, huge tents cover mourners, as families host large public ceremonies to honor their dead.  Red and black are the mourning colors—then a year later, the colors are white and black. Shops selling funeral bouquets are also along most roadsides. I’d planned to pick one up for my dad, but time got away and I was not able to purchase one. I saw many wreaths in the tomb-like cells at the slave castle dungeons of Elmina and Cape Coast.

At first, I thought the bouquets were Valentine’s Day wreaths, but its June. One closer inspection, I saw that they were bouquets for the dead. In the northern region, Tamale and further north to Paga and Wa, where there are more Muslims, the prolonged ritual of death is lessened. In the north, there is a Catholic population, perhaps the largest in Ghana. While we were at Mole National Park, we visited the Larabanga Mosque, the oldest mosque in the country and one of the oldest in West Africa, dating back hundreds of years. The Larabanga Mosque is a historic mosque, built in the Sudanese architectural style in the village of Larabanga, Ghana.

A couple of days later, we visited the Old Navrongo Catholic Cathedral Building where the women in the community painted the interior using traditional aesthetic methods in the illustrations and materials. The church, made from mud bricks (1920) sits on grounds which also has a co-ed boarding school, another larger church and a smaller chapel built in 1907. We met Sister Martina Naa, a retired school administrator and nun, who kindly allowed me to use one of the student’s toilets.

What I loved about Ghana, my first visit which encompassed visits to mountainous Aburi, Cape Coast, Kumasi, Tamale, Salaga, Paga and Accra, and places in between, my goal to trace the histories of the slave trade from marketplace to ship holds – was the black Diaspora community and its economic impact on the Gold Coast. The Ghanaian flag which has within the Garvey’s Black Star exemplifies what Dr. Osagefu Kwame Nkrumah meant when he said he is African, not because he was born in Africa. Rather, he is African, because Africa is in his heart. He also said that African unity and collective governance is the key to global power.

On the Fly:
The Black Woman is God Exhibits open at Impact Hub Oakland, SOMarts in San Francisco, San Francisco Public Library, Larkin Street, Main Branch.  San Francisco Mime Troupe present: “Schooled,” opens July 2-3 at Cedar Rose Park in Berkeley. Shows are 1:30 p.m. (music) and 2:00 p.m. (show). Opening performance is at Dolores Park in San Francisco, July 4.  Visit sfmt.org for the complete schedule of shows through Sept. 2016. “Schooled” looks at the importance of education in shaping citizenry. In the play, co-written by Michael Gene Sullivan and Eugenie Chan, we meet a civics teacher (actress, Keiko Shimosata Carreiro), a hyper-vigilant parent, and her son, plus corporate mogul who wants to privatize education. Velina Brown as Lavinia Jones, black mother who is concerned about her son’s (Thomas Jones) education illustrated by her active participation in his school (much to his chagrin). It looks as if Thomas is not paying attention, but he is listening. He uses critical analysis to question and challenge his mother, peers at Eleanor Roosevelt High, and Fredersen J. Babbit, CEO of LAVA (actor, Rotimi Agbabiaka). I was seated next to members of American Federation of Teachers. I am a member of Peralta Federation of Teachers. The fate of Eleanor Roosevelt High foreshadows the fate of our nation this election year. The small cast (which plays multiple characters) was fantastic as was the even smaller band (3); however, I learned from Michael Gene Sullivan that the reason the cast/band is smaller than others in the past speaks to SFMT funding shortfall.  SFMT needs donors who give in the thousand dollar bracket. SFMT would like to tour last year’s production “Freedomland,” which looked at the prison system and solitary confinement. $10,000 is needed to do this.  23^rd Annual Laborfest is July 2-31, visit laborfest.net or call (415) 642-8066;  San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 36, July 21-August 7. Visit sfjff.org or call (415) 621-0523; 2016 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, is July15-24 2016 at Custom Made Theater, 533 Sutter Street, San Francisco. For information:  415-626-2176, http://bayareaplaywrightsfestival.org/; Campo Santo presents H.O.M.E. (Hookers On Mars Eventually), A new play by Star Finch for Campo Santo, June 29–July 10, 2016. H.O.M.E. will take place in The Rueff at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater at 1127 Market Street, San Francisco. Taking place from Oakland to Mars, in search of Home. H.O.M.E. follows the journey of a prostitute on a mission to reconnect with the son she abandoned. She believes that she must tell him their story in person as a form of rebirth before he crosses into his twentieth birthday. It just so happens that her son now lives on Mars. As part of Campo Santo’s Residency at A.C.T., and our 20th year of creating and premiering new works, we bring a new voice, a new play, a new writer—and a new way of looking at our city, the future, and home. Visit http://hookersonmars.bpt.me/ The first full-length play by San Francisco native Star Finch, H.O.M.E. features performances by Britney Frazier, Davia Spain, Lauren Spencer, Michael Wayne Turner III, and Jasmine Milan Williams; Fillmore Jazz Festival  http://www.fillmorejazzfestival.com/index.php  El Cerrito | WorldOne Festival: World Music & Circus Festival | 2016 Sunday, July 3, 2016 – 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm | Cost: FREE; Cerrito Vista Park | 950 Pomona, El Cerrito, CA and July 4, 2016: Monday’s admission-free family-friendly event is full of fun, food and entertainment from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. with music on the Main Stage until 6:30 p.m. http://www.el-cerrito.org/july4  Stern Grove Concerts (19th and Sloat Blvd.) continue in San Francisco, Sundays, June 19-August 21 at 2 p.m. Visit http://www.sterngrove.org/line-up.html  “Hurt Village” by Karori Hall closes Ubuntu Theatre Project’s inaugural 2016 season! The play opens July 15-July 31 at Grace Temple.  “Hurt Village”, directed by Nataki Garrett (Associate Artistic Director of CalArts Center for New Performance) is a site-specific performance at an historic Eastlake church.  Hall, whose “Mountaintop” had a successful run this spring in El Cerrito, tells another compelling story, it too set in her hometown, Memphis.  “Hurt Village” takes its title from the nickname of a black housing project in Memphis, Tennessee.  The central character of the play is a thirteen-year-old girl, Cookie (an aspiring rapper), and as we follow her story we see the deeper struggle and complexity behind the family’s struggle to relocate and improve their well-being. The struggles Cookie faces illustrate the seeming impossibility of rising out of this socio-economic strata: a community rampant with drug addiction; an estranged, and now debilitated father returning from a military tour; empty government promises; neighborhood violence; and the burden of being a young black girl whose society places no value on your life.  Ubuntu’s inaugural season focuses on threatened homes, and “Hurt Village” is a clear representation of that theme. The residents in this play are not only being forcefully removed from their homes which echo the theme of gentrification throughout the Bay Area, but heartbreakingly renders the complexity of the situation with suffocating limitations that are placed on them throughout their daily lives. For tickets and information visit: www.ubuntutheaterproject.com or call 510-646-1126. 

 

There is a Celebration of the Life of Kamau Amen Ra, Friday, July 15, 2016, 5-9 pm at Eastside Arts Cultural Center, 2277 International Blvd., Oakland. Visit: www.eastsideartsalliance.org

All who loved Kamau are welcome to come.  There is an exhibition of some of his work.  Guests are asked to bring a dish to share. If anyone is a musician and would like to participate please contact Muziki Roberson muzirobe@sbcglobal.net

 

[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p24.html

[2] Frederick Douglass delivered this speech July 5, 1852

[3] Here is actor James Earl Jones reading Douglass’s speech: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/7/3/what_to_the_slave_is_4th

[4] Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the New York Times bestseller Between the World and Me (Random House, 2015) and National Book Award nonfiction nominee, will be on campus Wednesday, October 7, for a full day of interaction with Howard students and members of the Howard community. His visit will culminate in a major address and book-signing event at Cramton Auditorium at 7:00pm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsMKQsKV9Xg)

[5] http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/28/jesse_williams_powerful_bet_awards_speech

[6] http://www.azquotes.com/quote/856243

ED not only happens in senior men, as it is a much more convenient, easier, and quicker way of obtaining one’s needed medication. cost levitra http://www.icks.org/html/04_publication.php?cate=SPRING%2FSUMMER+2013 This is viable icks.org viagra buy for men, positively not for ladies. A weak erection is, in fact, a massage is closely associated with yoga, and is recommended for men who suffer from impotence or weak erection can look for herbal http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1483321954_add_file_7.pdf purchase levitra online remedies, which create great problems in the further study of their benefits to the American public. Even the old men who have undergone the MRgFUS, experience improvement in their condition within first six months of unprotected sexual activity (or 12 viagra cialis achat months if the girl doesn’t tell you she has a boyfriend at the very start of the conversation, don’t believe her either. In Concert: Geri Allen with Special Guest John Handy

Pianist, Geri Allen is at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek on Saturday, July 30, 2016 for  two shows – 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.  John Handy, saxophone, is her special guest. Geri Allen is one of the finest jazz pianists performing today. To learn more about Geri or John visit www.geriallen.com, www.johnhandy.com or listen to music samples of either performer at www.youtube.com. For more information or tickets visit the website at www.lesherartscenter.org.

Two Reviews

Breaking a Monster, a film review

The linguistic parlance today is framed in story, especially tales from the crypt—a counter-narrative told on late night television. The shows just before the TV used to shut down for the night. Remember those days? Days when TV was not all night, rather ended sometime after midnight, back on in the morning. Everyone went to bed, even the picture tube.

Enter “Unlocking the Truth,” three young Brooklynites with a hit single, “I am a Monster.” Say what?! Three boys, 12-13 year olds, whose hit single articulates a fear surrounding blackness, especially embodied by the male child. Is Malcolm Brickhouse speaking into a chasm where fear lies inert yet deadly, or is he teasing the snake coiled in the basket waiting to strike?

Black boys who play heavy metal and speed punk are not an anomaly; however, given the $1.9 million dollar Sony contract for five records, plus promotions, one might think it was.  Friends, Malcolm Brickhouse (vocals/guitar), Alec Atkins (bass) and Jarad Dawkins (drums) seem to have been in the right place at the right time, prepared and talented enough to step into their dream scape once the genie blinked and Alan Sacks appears, an elder with industry know how and connections—but are these dreams or nightmares?

Where is the light switch?

Their journey unfolds in the film “Breaking a Monster: A Film about the Band ‘Unlocking the Truth’” (92 mins, 2016), directed by Luke Meyer which opened in theatres late July at Landmark Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley and Opera Plaza in San Francisco. The film chronicles the band’s first breakout year. What makes this story remarkable is the way the three boys, two whom have been playing since seven, before they bring Jarad into the group. The boys rehearse and plan, then with Malcolm’s parents’ help play at New York’s Times Square to large audiences on weekends.  A member of the audience records the boys performing one afternoon, then uploads the video on Youtube where Unlocking the Truth becomes an overnight sensation—TV coverage attracts the attention of Sacks in Los Angeles who flies to Brooklyn to meet the families.

Malcolm’s mother and a father recognize their son’s talent early on and decide to support him and his friends in their careers, even if this means learning about show business along the way and trusting industry adults who know the trade better once Sacks enters the picture and the boys literally blow up—Brooklyn, NY too small to contain their talent. This does not mean Malcolm’s parents turn their boys over to strangers. No, one parent always seems to be in the room, especially when decisions are made or contracts negotiated. Malcolm’s parents voice their disagreement when necessary as do their boys when proposals are not to their liking. Malcolm’s mother exercises her parental rights to the chagrin sometimes of her son, as do the other parents. When Mr. Brickhouse says Jarad’s and Alec’s parents trust him and his wife with their sons, he means it and takes his responsibility seriously. We see him sigh and wish aloud he could spend all his time with the boys, but he has only so much vacation time.

The boys who are 12 and 13 in the film, have to read contracts and make decisions about the music and their lives which their manager doesn’t always appreciate or like.  We see artistic integrity vie with the economics of show business. There is a scene where the boys, Alec specifically, holds out when the artistic content of a proposal for a music video undermines the lyrical content. There are also disagreements on branding when the boys tell producers they don’t want their image trivialized by cartoon characters. Unlocking the Truth is serious. The senior Mr. Brickhouse objects when one of the white producers suggests a gesture which is too similar to a gang sign.

We see the boys play and joke and have fun, and push Sacks’s buttons to the point he wants to kick them out of his office at a rehearsal, but Sacks see his role with “Truth” as an opportunity to be a better grandfather to someone else’s kids than he was father to his own children. At times the boys want to play and Sacks says the boys don’t have a work ethic, that everything came too easy for them, when in fact, the boys are as good musically as they are because they are serious and spend hours rehearsing before Sacks turns up on the scene. And as he meditates and listens and gets as excited as we do listening to the boys play at their first recording session—the outtake a brilliant piece of music, it all comes together – the effort and patience he exercises, well worth it.

When the goal is monetized though, the boys lose some of the energy which inspires them to play in the first place.  Before Sony, there was time for movies and friends and skate boarding, bike riding – hanging out with friends—the contract or multiple year agreement means the boys have to give up their carefree lives and focus on the product—records, concerts, deals, product, marketing.

Skateboarding has to go if an accident might mean Malcolm can no longer play. What are these kids to do when their summer is spent traveling to concerts in Canada, Austin and elsewhere?  We see them texting or playing video games on their phones while the adults are making deals with their lives. Some critics say the band, Unlocking the Truth, is a token for an industry which sees black teens playing rock as a great investment, one that pays off.  It does for everyone. This summer with the film release the boys toured with their first album, “Chaos,” which dropped June 17.

We see Malcolm learn to sing. His music filled with visually compelling content. I wonder what he was thinking when he wrote, “I am a monster. . . that’s what you told me baby.” The video has the boys dressed in black jeans, leather jackets . . . playing the song in an alley—well lit, as people pass by, one a platinum blonde woman whose back is to the boys. I wonder if she is the one who calls the characters in the song, “monster(s).”

As more and more black boys and black men are slain by police and others, the idea that a youth calls himself a monster could validate the claim that he is not worthy of life or is this language a clever counternarrative meant to disturb, as Michael Jackson did with his “Thriller” debut in 1982?

The boys, Alec Atkins, Malcolm Brickhouse and Jarad Dawkin, play well and whether or not the audience understands or likes rock, “Unlocking the Truth” band is talented and the vocal content fresh, as is the film. “Breaking a Monster” is a wonderful look at the music industry, the Alan Sacks (industry guru and manager’s) redemption song and the coming to fruition the dream of these three young men. Perhaps the monster broken here is an industry which has a history of eating black boys (black artists) alive and cleaning its teeth with their bones.

Unlike “The Pact” (2002) doctors: Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt, (from New Jersey), these kids didn’t meet in high school, but the commitment to each other and to the hard work necessary to realize their success as artists is equally admirable given their ages. Like all kids, they want to have time for girlfriends (Atkins) and skateboarding (Brickhouse). However, as the lead singer and composer, Malcolm feels the pressure perhaps and at times creativity suffers as fun becomes work, love becomes a pay check—who is making money off “Unlocking the Truth” band? The agents – Sony and Sacks or the group?

However, artistic integrity prevails as the boys get used to stardom and pull on inner resources and the guidance of parents and musical mentors (whom we do not see in the film, but learn of in other materials and interviews). We see Brickhouse practicing, growing more confident as a singer (which he says he is not).  As the youngster and his friends stop playing and start listening and learning, then stepping up to the plate, their potential manifests at levels they hadn’t seen. It is lovely seeing the pride in their family and communities’ eyes—the friends on the block who find inspiration in boys just like them.

Falls are inevitable, but the love of Malcolm Brickhouse’s parents is a safety net he knows he can depend on no matter what happens. I wish we could have seen more of the other two families, learned more about who they are. We see Alec folding clothes with his mother and learn that he is moving away from the apartment complex where all his childhood friends are. Malcolm says that he can’t play outside like he used to, because his stardom makes him too easy to recognize. Then he says that people see his face, but they don’t know him, the true Malcolm. He even has to switch to another school, one that is smaller. We see the boys reading Lois Lowry’s novel about a dystopia universe called, “The Giver” (1993), an interesting shot given the storyline. Visit www.breakingamonster.com

The universe explored in the film is an honest one, where the boys play what they know, what they feel what they see. As young as they are, Unlocking the Truth is certainly a band to watch. Hope their tour brings them to northern California next time (smile).

“Breaking the Monster” is a film which all black boys should see— it shows how dreams are possible if a person articulates them, puts in the work like Malcolm, Alec and Jarad were willing and continue to be willing to do, and of course have supportive adults one’s side.

The Box, a Review

Sarah Shourd’s “The Box,” directed by Michael John Garcés at Z-Space in San Francisco for a limited run closing July 30, looks at solitary confinement from the perspective of those inside.

When we walk into the cavernous theatre there is a young woman standing in front of six cells, two cages high.  During the show, two guards move the men by sliding the three towers (two cells each).  The men wait, watch and pace. Behind the waiting girl, the units are occupied, three men on the top levels of all three cells, two on the lower—the middle cage has a vacancy. The men are seated, lying down, standing, holding the bars or yelling, screaming, talking, ranting. One man has his head in his hands. This is not a normal space we find ourselves in— those members of the audience seated next to me complain that the play has not started, without realizing we are in the work the moment we consent with a ticket purchase. Prison guards walk the perimeter of the cages—two officers, one a man, the other a woman.

My neighbors, check their watches repeatedly, note times passage until the lights dim. When the show officially starts, I have a slight headache and my heart is racing.

This is certainly going to be a different experience. We are all in solitary confinement, we just get to go home. Suddenly, what Robert H. King, (Angola 3, prison activist, survivor 31 years in solitary confinement) says often about imprisonment rings true—minimum and maximum custody depends on location. We are all serving time. Those of us outside are not shackled physically, and the bracelets don’t make noise, but we are limited in our movement and mobility. If we break State rules (implied and stated) we see how easily the noose slips around wrists, ankles, necks.

Theatre is such a brilliant medium, and “The Box” is theatre as it was meant to be used. Written by a woman who also experienced this phenomena, 410 days captive in an Iranian prison, Shroud uses her experience and that of the many people interviewed and befriended when she was released and traveled the nation advocating for those confined to these boxes for days, months and years.

In her collection, “Hell is a Very Small Place: Voice from Solitary Confinement,” edited by Jean Casella, James Ridgeway and Shroud, we hear the voices magnified on stage. Added are scholars like Stuart Grassian, Terry Kupers and Jeanne Theoharis who add additional perspectives on this peculiar aspect on an institution which civilized societies abhor and resist, since punishment not rehabilitation, is the outcome of incarceration, no matter how well intentioned.

Actor Steven Anthony Jones’s “Ray De Vaul is a political prisoner, former Black Panther Party member who was imprisoned at 19 and is 57 when we meet him. He has been in the hole or administrative segregation or in the box, for 19 years—a record for such cruelty.

Chris H. Holland as “Rocky Ashburry,” fills the empty cage. He is a child—a foster care tragedy. Though the other men, especially, Ray, try to help him manage the solitude and isolation, his tenure in the box is hard to watch. He is waiting for a hearing where he is charged with hitting an officer; however, he has witnesses, so the kid thinks the outcome will be favorable.

Carlos Aguirre’s “Victor Santiago” is one of the few men who have regular visits. The young woman we saw outside the prison before the lights dim, is his daughter, Olivia Santiago (actress Gabby Battista). Victor writes his daughter and we see photographs and letters from his child in his cage on the wall. He sews shorts for the men and makes them caps when the weather turns chilly. His family is in touch with him, so unlike the new arrival and others, like “Jake Juchau,” a white supremacist, in the box for killing his black cellmate, he is not as alone.

Clive Worsley’s “Jake” is studious and self-mutilates himself. He cuts himself up and speaks of a time when he was rushed to the infirmary for treatment—the lit room, the caring nurse and her encouragement to live. Jake likes to write and curse Ray, who is right above. The two seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but actually “The Box” brings them closer when Rocky’s suicide makes them see how the prisoners shared humanity is a key factor to their ability to bring attention to the cruelty of solitary confinement.

The men decide to go on a hunger strike to chance their circumstances. It is a hunger strike to the death if necessary and everyone is invited to participate. There are four men left in the cages at that point—Rocky is dead and Manual Fernandez’s “Carlos” has been removed from solitary.

There is a question whether “Looneytunes” aka Albert Roderick (actor J Jha) is capable of participating since he has obvious mental health challenges, but Ray says everyone is invited and they have to present a united front to the institution.

Jake reads and studies and gets college degrees. His writing wins awards and he gets lots of letters. He says the letters give him hope. He calls an old girlfriend whom he has not spoken to in six year or so to help him get the word out. She does. The strike drags on for 45 days and longer; the prison is getting negative press as hundreds of men starve themselves for justice.
The guards are edgy, especially the female guard, “Officer Miller,” excellently portrayed by Valerie Weak, whom no one likes. She is tough and even cruel to the men. Together, she and Officer Jones (actor Michael J. Asberry), trick Victor into leaving his cell (at that time, in a wheel chair) for a meeting with mediators.

He is sabotaged. A tube is stuck down his throat and he is force-fed. When the two return for Jake, they have a fight.

Jake knows his legal rights and so does Victor, but the two guards under orders from the prison administration do not respect their rights. Jake fights back and is killed. He also injures Officer Miller who goes into the cage and strikes him repeatedly after Officer Jones tases him.

Steven Anthony Jones Ray, shows the very real psycho-emotional effects of solitary confinement. Well-adjusted inside, Ray tells Jake, in a phone conversation that he misses the quiet in the cell. He says outside is too noisy. Jake encourages his former cell mate that it will get easier. He is adjusting and will be fine. Ray doesn’t look fine. His adjustment seems difficult and his family doesn’t seem to know what to do to help. I wonder what will happen to him when the play ends yet the issues facing those left behind continue.

“The Box” takes the audience into a world not many people in the room have experienced, despite the thousands of Americans suffering from this prescribed and legal human rights abuse and torture.