The Crab Chronicles

Revising History to Reflect Wishful Thinking

I remember watching a news story several years ago about the musical Hamilton and feeling really uncomfortable with how it was cast. Black actors portraying aristocrats that socialized with Alexander Hamilton? It just didn't happen.

I am not alone in my feelings on this. As this article points out,

"The performance drew plenty of skeptics. Then-Daily Show host Jon Stewart, in a segment that has aged like asbestos, roundly mocked Miranda and the other poets of color featured in the event, snarking, “You’ve been dissed, disrespected, disenfranchised, but ’dis? Is kind of ridiculous.”

Hamilton went on to break box-office records but it attracted a lot of criticism, too.

Here's a little reminder: In that day and time (the late 18th century) most African Americans were either enslaved. If they were free, they typically worked at very modest jobs like maids or perhaps tradespeople like blacksmiths or seamstresses or farm workers. There was no black aristocracy, except perhaps in New Orleans.

The sort of revisionist history seen in Hamilton or the newer Netflix series Hollywood is really inaccurate and it bothers me on a lot of levels.

Now, I am the child of two parents who liked history and read a lot of history. My father was an avid and voracious reader and a 5 lb. tome about the life of Winston Churchill or George S. Patton was a gift he would delve into immediately after opening.

I was taught to revere history at an early age.

While in the car, we always pulled over to read those historic markers by the side of the road. Dad always took us to Civil War battlefields and any sort of naval vessel the public could tour. We watched movies set in historical time periods. I loved to read biographies of famous women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Clara Barton.

Now that I am a writer, I am diligent about doing my research and trying to portray accurately what life was like in the recent past or the distant past. I did a lot of research for my novel Heart of My Own Heart.

Hamilton and Hollywood are trying to cast more actors of color in key roles and level the playing field in terms of job opportunities. I understand that motivation and I applaud the idea, just not the execution of it. The system has long been biased and it needed to change. I just don't think the way history is being rewritten is a good thing.

Imagine you are a child (not knowing much about American History) and you see Hamilton. It appears as though he had peers who were African American. They seemed to sing hip hop. You will come away thinking that the portrayals in Hamilton are accurate. Perhaps you watch the series Bridgerton, which also has black actors portraying members of the British nobility in the 18th century -- and it's completely inaccurate. How does that feel later on when you learn in school that Hamilton and Bridgerton ignored actual history, and most of your ancestors were likely slaves or laborers or farmers?

Hollywood is an interesting series but it portrays a lot of somewhat graphic sex and no child should be watching it, but if they are, they are getting a similarly inaccurate vision of Hollywood in the late 1940's, early 1950's. It was almost impossible for even very talented non-white actors and actresses to get good roles and the recognition they deserved. That's really unfortunate but it is how things were back then. For instance, Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for her role in Gone With the Wind but couldn't sit in the auditorium with her peers, due to racism.

In Hollywood, the series, a movie is made that features a black actress, written by a black screenwriter, and it breaks box office records and wins a slew of awards. That's a nice fantasy, but it's doubtful that would have been the outcome even if a studio had dared to try that. Also, it's a slap in the face to people who lived through those segregated, racist times.

Here's a disturbing thought. The implication is that if a studio had just cast a beautiful black actress in a lead role and taken a chance, all would have been well. There's no way of knowing that. It's easy to look back and say of industry executives back then You weren't brave enough to buck convention and just go for it -- but hindsight is 20/20. We shouldn't judge people living during a time it's hard for us to fathom. Black people who went against the mainstream were often beaten or lynched. White people who tried to change the status quo were also often targets of the KKK. That's a terrible truth but it's the truth. It didn't happen only in the south, either.

You could make the argument that all of history is inaccurate. It's always written by the winners. History must be portrayed as accurately as possible, however, in my opinion.

I feel strongly that entertainments should not portray history the way we would have liked for it to be. Future generations shouldn't be confused by a well-meaning but highly inaccurate depiction of historical facts and events. We owe it to subsequent generations to show how it really WAS, the good and the bad. To do anything else is dishonorable and just wrong, in my opinion.

One final thought...

Sydney Poitier actually broke the color barrier in the early 1950's, the first person of color starring in movies popular with all audiences. We should study his life and learn and be inspired by it.

Cycling Through

Everyone is talking about the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and it's good to look back on that day, and take stock, but that's not all I want to do here.

I officially sold my house today. The closing was this afternoon. When I reflect on how my life has changed since 2001, I realize that the different phases of my life seem to all go in twenty year cycles. Today marks the beginning of a new cycle, at about 19 years since the last turning point, but close enough.

Twenty years ago I was working as a paralegal at a local company, in their legal department, and I still liked to get on an airplane occasionally and travel. It never occurred to me anyone would want to take my nail file out of my checked bag, or throw away a jar of peanut butter in my backpack, because of terrorism.

I was driving into work and I heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. I figured the pilot must have had a heart attack, or be really drunk, to do something so wacky.

A few hours later I drove home in shock, wondering if the world was coming to an end. My mother had lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and she had told me on the phone, in an icy calm voice, to go to the bank and pull out cash, as much as possible, and to fill up the car with gas, and buy bottled water. Mom believed in being prepared for any emergency. She kept enough canned food in her pantry to live on for a couple of weeks.

It never even occurred to me on that mild fall day in 2001 that the world had changed profoundly, and the next twenty years of my life would be incredibly busy, and completely different from the years that had gone before.

I decided to give up the Husband Hunt and become a mom on my own, after I went to Russia to sing Handel's Messiah in January 2003. A short time later my mom and I decided to share a house so she could help me raise my daughter. We bought our house together in early 2005.

I didn't know when I met the tiny little girl in the orphanage in 2003 that she was 11 years old. I thought she was about 7. I had asked God for a miracle a few months before. I wanted to be a mother, but I couldn't see how it was ever going to happen. Alesia was the answer.

My choir wasn't even scheduled to sing at her orphanage. It was a last-minute thing, after one of our concerts canceled. What would my life be like if I had never gone to that orphanage? I don't want to think about it.

A couple of years later, I adopted my son Michael, from Kazakhstan. He was 10. I had a long layover in Frankfurt when I was bringing him home and Michael and I were both scrutinized meticulously. Michael was "wanded." My laptop was "tested." The Germans are serious about security.

Michael is missing his right hand, due to a frostbite accident when he was five years old. It barely slows him down, though. He now works as a cook in a restaurant, something most people who don't understand limb differences would never foresee.

I never thought I'd try to raise two special needs kids. (Alesia has an auditory processing disorder.) They were just kids. You don't love a child less just because they have issues. All kids have issues, it's just not always obvious what they are until you get to know them. 

We have had so many happy times here in this old house in northeast Atlanta. It's only a few minutes away from the condo where I lived as a singleton for years.

Now my kids are grown and my mom passed away last year. I keep looking around the house and seeing them here, though. I see my kids playing a game on the dining room table, or riding bikes down the street.

I see Mom eating breakfast in the kitchen, and watching TV.

I see my brother coming in on holidays to be with us.

I see my friends visiting, and having long chats with them in the kitchen or the family room.

The events of twenty years ago marked a distinct division in my life. The phase I just finished was what I will probably come to think of as the Caretaking Years. It was a welcome relief after the tumultuous Husband Hunting Years. The last few years, seeing my mom's health go downhill, were really hard, though.

Now that my house is sold, I will be in an apartment for a year or so while I regroup and decide what to do next and where to do it. I have loved living in Atlanta, but if I can find a good job working from home, I might relocate. The Atlanta traffic is a nightmare. We passed a car on fire heading home after the closing. Yikes. The tall buildings, fire, and smoke were eerily reminiscent of that day twenty years ago, but on a much smaller scale, of course.

I hope and pray our country never goes through anything like a 9/11 attack again. I hope and pray our leaders help us avoid that nightmare.

I also hope the next phase of my life, the next twenty years, will be a peaceful and creative time. I am planning two more novels, once life settles down again.

I hope my kids prosper. I hope I might have a grandchild or two to spoil, one day. I will tell my grandchild about 9/11, and about meeting a little girl in an orphanage, and about living in a blue house, in a lovely and peaceful neighborhood, during the Caretaking Years...