PBS: Ballroom life and racial sleuthing
So tonight became a date with PBS. First, "America's Ballroom Challenge." Man, what a ton of fun. I watched most of it with Rosemary over the phone, and it was great watching those champion dancers do their thing. Mmmm, sexy dancer slinkiness ... With all the ridiculously chiseled, hot women wearing sequined bikinis and a smile, forget the Playboy Channel -- give me ballroom. Rosemary wants to try some lessons with me if we ever live in the same place again. I guess we could give ballroom dance a shot. I do have salsa and tango experience, alongside my musical theater choreography background ...
Afterward I watched "African American Lives," the latest PBS special with Henry Louis Gates Jr. I had the pleasure of being taught by Gates in two seminars while at Harvard, so it's fun to see him on TV. I miss his nutty attitude, and his in-your-face, down-home scholarly tenacity. He said I should get my doctorate in literature and be a professor. Maybe I'll take his advice someday.
In "African American Lives," Gates traces the family histories of nine prominent black Americans. (By black Americans, we're specifically talking Negroes here -- the descendants of the survivors of the African slave trade in America.) The roster: Oprah Winfrey, music producer extraordinaire Quincy Jones, sociologist Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Chris Tucker, Whoopi Goldberg, former astronaut Mae Jemison, religious leader T.D. Jakes, and Gates himself.
(I remember a few years ago as Gate's student when he was talking about this, and how he found out in his geneology that he is descended from actual Nubians! You hear so much about the Nubians, and he's freakin' one of them!)
The great thing about this show is that it explores a question lingering among African Americans, whether spoken or not: the lack of knowledge about our history, our ancestors, our heritage. African slaves were stripped of all those things, and records of slaves weren't even kept in the Census until the 1830s. And so that hole just sits there. This profound, horrible history of theft, rape and murder, and the slow clinmb of survival ever since.
It's part of how something like "Roots" resonated so deeply. It's a history we share, but many of us don't know it as we should. Much of it is lost to time, and much of it kept silent and hidden. And that goes from people as separate as myself and Oprah. As different as we are, we can look at each other and know that history is there. And how my parents' times are so radically different from mine, and my grandparents' times were so radically different from my parents', and even more so in the generation before. It's still insane to think that my parents lived through getting their full civil rights, which took nearly 400 years of American history to get. This stuff is real. That connection is there. And, watching this special, I know it's there.
This is something I myself have thought about for much of my life. And it's something that became even more apparent when I first began spending time around white kids growing up. I remember being in school, and the teacher would ask about family backgrounds and traditions, and while many of the white kids could tell some interesting stories, I had nothing to say. When it comes down to it, I know nothing about my family. I know very little about my grandparents on either side of the tree, and next to nothing about my great-grandparents. And those who could tell the stories, though they never did, are all dead now.
I would love to find out about my family. And one day I hope I'll get the chance. Then I'll know my own place in this thing called black history.
Afterward I watched "African American Lives," the latest PBS special with Henry Louis Gates Jr. I had the pleasure of being taught by Gates in two seminars while at Harvard, so it's fun to see him on TV. I miss his nutty attitude, and his in-your-face, down-home scholarly tenacity. He said I should get my doctorate in literature and be a professor. Maybe I'll take his advice someday.
In "African American Lives," Gates traces the family histories of nine prominent black Americans. (By black Americans, we're specifically talking Negroes here -- the descendants of the survivors of the African slave trade in America.) The roster: Oprah Winfrey, music producer extraordinaire Quincy Jones, sociologist Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Chris Tucker, Whoopi Goldberg, former astronaut Mae Jemison, religious leader T.D. Jakes, and Gates himself.
(I remember a few years ago as Gate's student when he was talking about this, and how he found out in his geneology that he is descended from actual Nubians! You hear so much about the Nubians, and he's freakin' one of them!)
The great thing about this show is that it explores a question lingering among African Americans, whether spoken or not: the lack of knowledge about our history, our ancestors, our heritage. African slaves were stripped of all those things, and records of slaves weren't even kept in the Census until the 1830s. And so that hole just sits there. This profound, horrible history of theft, rape and murder, and the slow clinmb of survival ever since.
It's part of how something like "Roots" resonated so deeply. It's a history we share, but many of us don't know it as we should. Much of it is lost to time, and much of it kept silent and hidden. And that goes from people as separate as myself and Oprah. As different as we are, we can look at each other and know that history is there. And how my parents' times are so radically different from mine, and my grandparents' times were so radically different from my parents', and even more so in the generation before. It's still insane to think that my parents lived through getting their full civil rights, which took nearly 400 years of American history to get. This stuff is real. That connection is there. And, watching this special, I know it's there.
This is something I myself have thought about for much of my life. And it's something that became even more apparent when I first began spending time around white kids growing up. I remember being in school, and the teacher would ask about family backgrounds and traditions, and while many of the white kids could tell some interesting stories, I had nothing to say. When it comes down to it, I know nothing about my family. I know very little about my grandparents on either side of the tree, and next to nothing about my great-grandparents. And those who could tell the stories, though they never did, are all dead now.
I would love to find out about my family. And one day I hope I'll get the chance. Then I'll know my own place in this thing called black history.