A time in the world: For Sweet Honey in the Rock & Dinosaurs in the Hood

The Poem “For Sweet Honey in the Rock” is a lyrical poem composed for the infamous gospel-acapella group named Sweet Honey in the Rock. Although it was written almost twenty years ago, its message remains relevant today. Sanchez calls for equality among all walks of life, employing the measurement of time to put her impatience with human-kind’s inaction on full display. The lines “Im gonna stay on the battlefield till I die” and “Im gonna treat everybody right till I die” describe a clear message: Sanchez refuses to give up the fight for justice among all people until the day she dies. Her battle field is pen and paper and the many readers and listeners of her work. Sanchez then uses two stanzas which refer to two different time frames. The first; the present. She writes: “it is time to move us all into another century/ time for freedom and racial and sexual justice.” Throughout history, racial and sexual difference has been disowned in American society, Sanchez is telling us that it is finally time to remove society of the bigotry we have held on to for so long. The next stanza then refers to the past. “and they bombed our buildings and killed our babies/ and heir courts changed into confessionals/ but we kept on organizing we kept on teaching believing.” Sanchez is writing about the painful history of the marginalized minority groups in America and the world. There has been so much destruction, but the answer is always continue fighting – to teach and believe. 

Sanchez’s poem resonates today just the same, if not, to an even greater degree in this current American political climate. Over the past five years, racial and general civil unrest has grown with the publicity of injustices against minorities by police and at the election of the controversial current American President Donald Trump. American society has become increasingly unsatisfied and impatient with the inability of our culture to make drastic changes in the way of political and social treatment of minority groups. Sanchez wrote “I say come wrap your hands with deeds and prayer/ you brown ones/ yellow ones/ you black ones/ you gay ones/ you white ones/ you lesbian ones.” Her voice was and still is the voice of the impatient agents of change in our society. During Sanchez’s moment in history, and at this moment in history we’re in now, the time to enter the next century is now.

Sanchez’s poem “For Sweet Honey in the Rock” and Danez Smith’s poem “Dinosaurs in the hood” share a similar underlying theme; A call for changes to be made in society. While Sanchez takes on a more broad enemy of injustice everywhere and across all kinds of people, Smith targets a more specific category of our culture; Hollywood. One of the key indicators for the political positioning of our country can be found in our media and entertainment. “Dinosaurs in the Hood” refers to the notion that few African-American’s are represented well in films- if at all. However, the difference in Smith’s poem is in the detail and honesty with regard to what he wants to see changed. While he wants a movie which represents African-Americans, he doesn’t want a movie which exploits any stereotype or acknowledges the difference in the African American experience in America versus the experience of others. To Smith, true equality will be recognized when a film contains these elements he asks for without him asking or looking for them. As he ends his poem “the little black boy/ on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless/ his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.” Smith wants to see a poem that simply presents the same life and dreams for “the little black boy” as it does for every other boy that we see in movies today. 

Sanchez and Smith share a common goal, but each approaches the solution to inequalities in American society differently. Sanchez makes a direct recant of history and call to action for those who want to share her view for drastic and swift societal change. Smith takes the reader to a specific corner of society, popular culture, and how it reflects the underlying social inequalities or injustices in the real world. Although their approach is quote different, Sanchez and Smith are each incredibly eloquent and effective in conveying their point. There is a special potency to their message in the way that it is presented: as Wholesale changes to every facet of American culture or understanding realty and the necessity for change through a most effective lens.

A Beautiful Ghetto: Frame and Color

There is a deliberate juxtaposition between life and ruin in the first half of Allen’s A Beautiful Ghetto.  The series of photographs embrace the word “ghetto,” yet challenges the definition to stretch beyond the borders forced upon it.  With this play of definitions, Allen evokes a dual meaning of both life in death and death in life.  He doesn’t hide from the abandoned and boarded up buildings that litter the city, yet these seemingly lifeless spaces are often shown to be more than what appears on the surface.   A tree grows inside (12), people walk past (9), life goes on all around it.  In one image there is a close up of a needle, slightly off-kilter and nearly blending in with the white sidewalk, yet still remaining separated from the environment from which it has been placed (15).  It is bounded by its frame, occupying just a mere few inches of the world.  It is this hyper-fixation on such a small space, especially after a series of wide shots, that forces us to question what we would see if we picked our heads up -- how can we look beyond the frame that was handed to us?

A picture has the unique ability to capture and isolate a moment in time.  Yet, with the choice to use a black and white color scheme, some photographs could easily be placed outside of its time: 2015 Baltimore.  Without the escape of color, there is a slight disorientation of time.  The viewer is largely cut off from any anchor, which reinforces the cyclical nature of uprisings and race in America.  In the introduction of the book, there are many references to the past, particularly the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, and it seems that not much has changed in the following decades.  Still, Allen increasingly adds pictures of children, both of those just living in Baltimore and those already amongst the protesters.  With this emphasis on the future generation, Allen suggests hope that the work of today has meaning and the future will be better than what it left behind.

Baltimore Held Back

On page 94 and 95, there are two pictures that the photographer is juxtaposing. The separate pages starkly divide them with a white border, yet the image themselves standout for their similarities. When you look at the two men you cannot help but compare them. Both men are black, both men have a connection to the uprising, and both men have emotion transmitting through their eyes and expressions. The only blatant contrast is the clothes they wear and the sides they are standing on. The man on the left is a civilian, while the man on the right is a police officer.

These two pages stood out to me more so than the others. Perhaps it is because I have seen the ruin, I have seen the violence, I have seen the constant police patrol, and I have seen the riots and their aftermath. Although I am removed from the heart of the city, I have still scene the big picture and mourned for the city I have grown up around. However, these two pictures are personal and upfront. The photographer prompts you to make a comparison. Naturally, you assume that both men live and are from Baltimore. You can easily infer the expression of the man on the left; he has a look of pain and confusion almost. He wants change and for the police to not immediately label him a threat because of his race. But the black police officer’s expression proves more difficult to decipher. Nevertheless, you conclude that he is conflicted. He appears to be attempting to maintain a stoic face, which the police force requires of him, yet his eyes seem to glisten with held back tears. The internal conflict could be from identifying with the uprising, but also having a responsibility to his job. I assume that he took this job with good intentions. Most likely, he wanted to be an officer so that he could protect the innocent in his city and create a sense of safety in the community. Yet, somehow, he finds himself in a situation where his intentions are not being carried out through the police force, for the peoples’ fear stems from terror of a corrupted justice system. 

Having grown up with the influence of both Baltimore and Washington DC, I often compare the two cities. I also wonder how DC was able to rebuild and reduce crime (still to this day), yet Baltimore has remained stagnant or worse off. The cometary of this book does not hold back from critiquing politicians, for “black people were in power in Baltimore” (ix). Focusing on the individual face of one officer reminds us that the issue cannot be pinpointed down to one person; not every individual is culpable. The political elite, no matter the race, are the ones to blame for the corruption that plagues Baltimore as well as many other cities. If we want change in our cities, we need to hold those in charge accountable for wrongdoing.

Dinosaurs in the Hood and Cultural Allusions

            Throughout the semester we have discussed the impact of an author’s utilization of allusions to cultural figures of decades past. In Dinosaurs in the Hood, Danez Smith perfectly exemplifies our discussions. The author draws on a variety of actors and cultural figures in order to add to the effect of the piece. Allusions to actors such as Will Smith, and the Wayans Brothers allow for a clearer picture of his message.

            The allusions to these figures paint the picture of exactly the type of image that the author is protesting. All of these references seem to point to stereotypical portrayals of African Americans. However, the author wishes to see a different narrative in this piece. Rather than the little black boy on the bus meeting his predetermined end that we seem to see all-to-often in today’s media; he wishes to see the chance for the boy’s dreams to be fulfilled. He further utilizes the allusions created in the work by contrasting them with the idea of the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs can only exist in the boy's dreams, but that is exactly what the author hopes to keep alive. I feel that this is accomplished greatly in part to the allusions, and the utilization of those allusions created by the writer throughout the work.

David Allen is Bursting the Bubble

This past weekend, I was away conducting field training with the Greyhound Battalion. We went to Aberdeen Proving Grounds with three other Battalions with rucks packed to sleep in the woods and study tactics for 3 days. The vans only transported us 40 minutes away from Baltimore City, but our area of operations felt like we were completely disconnected from civilization. We were immediately expected to organize ourselves in our given task organization, draw weapons, and initiate movement to our first patrol base where we awaited directions for our first mission. For the remainder of the weekend, cadet’s minds were fixated on the operations we were ordered to conduct. Some students may have entertained thoughts about the amount of homework they had due on Monday or how good chipotle would taste in comparison to the MRE’s they were eating, but their focus was mostly on their immediate task of effectively carrying out ambushes, raids, and attacks. As a result, field training became a temporary world where the only things that matter were relative to the mission. The Baltimore area task force was in a bubble that could not be permeated by conversations about external problems like the impact of drone strikes overseas, the unreported horrors in isolated countries like North Korea, or even problems closer to home like America’s system of mass incarnation or the homes falling apart in McElderry Park, Baltimore.

As cadets stripped of cell phone communications in isolated terrain, we are not expected to think about these issues. Why would we be? The problem is that when these cadets went home on Sunday night to their warm dorm rooms and pantries filled with plethora’s of food, these thoughts still never crossed their minds. Why? Because they entered a new bubble. The bubble of college students who come from wealthy homes in New Jersey, New York, and the surrounding areas.

“A Beautiful Ghetto” indirectly calls out these bubbles that communities like our institution has statically placed around ourselves by presenting readers with authentic snap shots of reality. Our Jesuit institution boasts and brags about the ideals of justice and equality that they stand for, so they make an effort to insert conversations about these ideals in the classrooms. Consequently, students discuss issues like racism and poverty from the comfort of their desk. A desk that costs their parents $60,000 a year. Such classes create an illusion that the students are getting closer to the problems they are discussing, but in reality they are far removed from them. David Allen tries to combat this and ground discussions in reality by putting images of truth in front of his readers.

This book differs from all other texts we have studied this semester because it does not have words on every page that guide the readers comprehension. This book presents life in Baltimore Ghettos in its raw form. As result, the conversation about Baltimore’s issues will be grounded by the faces of actual humans who bear the burden of the issues discussed. These snap shots provide an authentic look into the emotions expressed on people’s faces and the sense of community revealed by their body language.

A Beautiful Ghetto

Preston Ball

Professor Ellis

EN387

10 April 2018

True Beauty

I remember the first time I visited Loyola like it was yesterday. It was not just my first visit to Loyola but also to Baltimore. My visit was just a few months after the death of Freddie Gray had rocked the city, and images and videos of riots had been all over the national news. As a result, I did not have a very positive view of Baltimore, however I was being recruited to play for the golf team at Loyola and I decided to visit anyway. One moment in particular is etched into my head from that first visit. It was a rainy, cloudy night as my Mom and I drove into the city. I looked out the passenger side window as we got on I-83 headed north. As I watched building after building pass by, one stood out. The side of it read, “Drop the gun or pick a room.” I was stunned. I could not imagine what city would erect a jail so close to a major highway and then put writing on it as if the jail were actually a billboard.

What I saw when I visited Loyola was a beautiful area with a beautiful campus, surrounded by quaint and charming homes. It was not anything like the Baltimore I imagined. As I looked through the pages of David Allen’s book “A Beautiful Ghetto” I saw the Baltimore I imagined. It struck me that there is a fundamental difference between the Baltimore that I experience every day and the Baltimore that impoverished people of color face. They face living areas like on page 81, with boarded up windows, bent street signs, with an armored military reconnaissance vehicle parked on the road, not to mention the soldiers, dressed in camouflaged uniforms, surveilling the area. Other pictures, such as the ones of men jumping on and breaking the windshield of a police car also serve to demonstrate the danger and injustice present in those communities.

The Uprising section shows the anger of a community which has been treated unfairly. However, the Ghetto section truly captures the beauty of even the most impoverished parts of Baltimore. On page 32, kids play and swing on an old, metal bar, with the backdrop of a crumbling concrete wall. Those kids, even in spite of their circumstance, still have fun. Similarly, the very first picture in the book, is of children swinging on playground swings. I cannot help but think back to all the fun times I had as a child playing on the playground, swinging on the swings and hanging out with my friends. In that way, I am truly no different than those impoverished children in Allen’s book.

I as reflect on the images in “A Beautiful Ghetto” I have an immense appreciation and admiration for Allen. He took images of a community which the whole country deems ugly and the riots which gave that same community so much negative media coverage, and demonstrated the beauty which everyone had overlooked.