Before. But there is going to be some stuff im going to talk about in a little bit more depth than we talked about last class on thursday you guys are going to read the next and im going to give you a pop quiz we will take a see you guys can get a great for it. And you have a pop quiz for tbone and weasel lets start with August Wilson. August wilson was born frederik patel. In 1945 his mothers name was daisy wilson shows a cleaning lady his father was a german baker. Race matters in a specific way race is always something that were discussing what we look at these plays his father was a german baker so he is white. He is european and his mother is a black woman named daisy and she is a cleaning lady i want you to understand we are already talking about a mixed relationship and this is a part of what hes working on how he is negotiating African American exist and its a part of who and what he is as hes working its part of the mission he is undertaking he is the fourth of six children and they live in the hill district of pennsylvania a lot of what wilson is going to talk about deals with the great migration great migration i mentioned that in this class before. The great migration is what happened after reconstruction in the south. When the social status of black people moved from slavery to freed to the reconstruction era to sharecropping. It was this new name i dont get is accurate for me to say slavery but that is essentially what it becomes. It is just a system where the black people used to be the slaves on the plantation, they are in a position where they are renting what used to be the slave cabins. They are renting clothes. They are renting the tools to go work for the same forms on which they were enslaved. They are never able to actually pay for the rental fees for the things they are using. That is one of the motivating factors that caused a number of blacks to move northward at the turn of the century and pursue a better life in the north. I want you to think for a couple minutes about what that does or what that means for black families in the south. More often than not it was the man who would gore north or the eldest son. The purpose was to make money they could send home. That is always the goal. You will find a number of people in pittsburgh, new york, chicago who have come north looking to make a fortune so they can either make enough money so their family can come to the north or so they can send money home so their people could have a way of living. Understand that one of the things wilson is talking about, one of the things that informs it is the great migration. In pittsburgh, because these rural areas are now dealing with an influx of black people, there are racial tensions that get built afterwards. It includes white neighborhoods in which black presences hadnt been before. There hadnt been a growing port black populations that need things to live. They need jobs, food, shelter. It is colder in south pittsburgh than in South Carolina or georgia. They are like how do we live . How do we feed ourselves . These become the primary concerns. Understand that all of those things are what are informing census when we finally get to it. At the age of 15 he dropped out of high school and joined the army in 1962 four three years. I cant give you the real percentages, i would be making stuff up and lying to you. I believe there is a higher percentage of black people in our current military then other races. What are some of the motivating factors for joining the military . What does it give you . Dont a lot of Army Recruiters go to poor black neighborhoods to recruit and push the education opportunity and using that . They wouldnt do it with rich white kids. Have to deal with so the Armed Services was one of the things it with black families away from each other. It wasnt a cruel way, they were offered this opportunity, they said hey heres an opportunity for you to get free three meals a day, place to sleep training education, and you can send a check home to your family. That is one of the opportunities for employment and advancement, that happened during when wilson but when he was 18 years old, hes in the army for three years after he leaves the army in the late 1960s he comes back to the pittsburgh area, and he joins a group of artists, and they join the center avenue poets, which layer leader he will cofounder the black horizon feeder. Which is a Theater Company a black Theater Company in pennsylvania. So, he stays in pittsburgh until i think 1974 1975, then he goes westward, spent a few years in chicago, then he moves in 1978 to minnesota. And he will concentrate on playwriting in minnesota. He joins us either group there, the artistic director for that is lou billowy. It is black owned, black oriented, and black centered Theater Company minnesota. Why is the name in minnesota i cant think of it right now, minneapolis, that was it that would be the place and win in minnesota minneapolis. So its in minneapolis minnesota. And he is working with blue bologna. And August Wilson gets to a point in his life, where what he is writing about is the lives of black people. I want you to think for a couple minutes, of why that is happening. Why is it significant, and is in what way is it significant. That his writing hes writing about the lives of black people. Weve talked about this before about the shift between white artists writing black voices, what does it mean when a white playwright writes a black character. What is their voice sound like, is it authentic, what is the characters purpose. The black characters who are appearing in white movies become a thing. We will jump a little bit to talk about Popular Culture, that is influencing the way August Wilson is thinking about plays, and writing and the presentation of black people. Just gonna jump for a couple seconds. I want to ask for a second about the Popular Culture of the 19 eighties, the 19 eighties one of the things that are informing and im talking about the 19 eighties because, August Wilson will talk about where were gonna talk about fences, but we will talk about the things that were informing the way wilson was thinking about the world. So in the mid in the beginning to 1980 1986 what was a popular images that are influencing what wilson seeing. You have the movies include ete, raiders of the lost ark, everly hills klopp, pretty in pink, breakfast club, some kind of wonderful, Beverly Hills cop are you at all. Familiar with these series of movies, have you heard them before . If you think about things like the breakfast club, pretty in pink, i think john hughes is the person who wrote it, hes making a genre of movies. We talk about what ideology means, and it is those unspoken and sometimes less clear structures that influence the way people think about america away people should behave the way women should behave. What it means to be straight what it means to be a. What it means to be a whole lot of things. Nobody says its at right but, it is unspoken underlying structures. That informs the way we think about race and identity in class and gender. Does that make sense . So if youve got movies like pretty in pink and some kind of wonderful, i think theres a movie with john cusack holding up a boom box, i fidelity maybe have not sure what it is, but you have all of these as the biggest movie sitter coming out in the eighties, and the primary concern of these movies i think this is the im not a simple talk cinematographer a, cant tell you everything but white women, white men falling in love those or what a lot of the stories are about. Overcoming obstacles, rejection. Most of our movies in the eighties, are dealing with white folks falling in love. Think for a couple seconds, about how we people of color, African American people, appear in those films. Give it just a little bit of consideration. We are more often than not, marginal. Or tangential, we are someone else in that story. So we finally make it to August Wilson, we havent instance where we have things that are motivating August Wilson is his desire to move black people from the margins to the center. And say what is true about us. What managed to us, what is happening in our lives. Because when we are on the margins what we have to say, its not may be part of the main story, so becomes caricature where we are saying the funny lines. Prior to this we have george jefferson, who we as a marginal character ins not called the archie bunker show but it was archie bunker. And then we have good times like people showing up in comedy black people lives in culture her in pop culture for very long time with something you left at, not left with but left at, we were the joke we were the comedy think about 80 murphy, i dont know if any of you have ever read his early comedy, but think about what that is rooted on it is different. Black comedians, black people creating black Company Comedy for black people its a different experience. Then black people shown in white structures and being something to be left at. I want you guys to think about how that works. In television you have rosen, married with children, mtv, believe it or not at one point in time, Music Television began with music. Video killed the radio star, i think it was 86 or somewhere around there, i was a high school student, and we all know youre looking at new vacant expressions, thes first song that ever played on mtv, and it was video killed the radio star. I know that was the song. And Michael Jacksons thriller. Think about Michael Jackson 1980s. This is how black people are represented in art. Becomes a thought that people are doing on purpose what happened black artists black songwriters like performers, im not saying that they are embracing black identity but they are becoming critical and critically analyzing black identity even though its a way of exploiting the 1970s film in response to this Civil Rights Movement of 1960s, we have to look at things in relationship to each other. We look at the Civil Rights Movement what happened then we can look at the 19 fifties, again look at emma tills mother and who kept his casket open that was an act of performance. She was like this will not happen behind closed doors anymore. Think about private voice versus public voice, what does it mean when we are forced to keep something in private as opposed to what happens when we make it public think about development and technologies that happen between the 19 fifties in the 19 eighties think about the advancement we made in telephone the advancement we get in recording technologies think about the advancement weve made in film in film and television itself. That should make sense to guys now there are videos every time something happens out there if someone meet you in the Grocery Store parking lot they start acting funny towards you, whats the first thing that happens. What is the first thing that happens, if you are in a public space, and something you think things are gonna go bad. Thats not rhetorical question. You can leave yes. Somebody pulls out a phone and Start Recording it. We have all of these instances right now of things that used to happen without any evidence but now there is evidence theres evidence not only from street cameras but every individual everyone in this room has their own form they have a way of documenting their existence and how these crazy things happen to us. That is what African American existence becomes for a while. We say for the public we see to the public you are treating us in this way, and often time what comes back, these people are saying it cant be that bad. You are exaggerating. Well now, we get to the point where a phone comes to more like, not exaggerating this is whats happening. And so what happened subsequently is this weird justification. But i have to understand the context for that right. That was taken out of context. No it wasnt taken out of context. So we get back to August Wilson, in the 19 eighties the things that we are informing his artistic vision as a writer, and all those pop culture references, he is seeing whats informing his television and movie habits, that is a white peoples thats the white peoples world. Who is writing about us . And if the writing about what are they saying . That is what is driving him as a playwright. Good so lets talk about briefly im going to go through the 1980s. A lot of this, its tough that i was alive for. Perhaps a different relationship i had to this, i was realizing lipid disappeareds morning, youre gonna look a lot of this and what about to say stuff that only ever existed in a history book, but i was in high school, from essentially here on. Right so everything im talking about, are things that i have a memory of, havent having happened while i was in high school. I was a little bit of a memory of this. On october 10th 1980, jimmy carter signed legislation establishing a boston African American historic site, the Oldest Black Church in america. And that happened in the 19 eighties it was on the news. January 20 1981, inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the 14th president of united states. This matters, im not an economics professor, but reagan all max is something you can look up, and look at how it affected the world. One of the things the most important part about that will talk about later, its a tax cut in which we went from i think a 70 tax rate theres a way to say they dont know what it is but, 70 tax rate that gets dropped to 37 and 35 , from the wealthiest people in the country. Over the course of five years. We lose as a country 750 million billion sorry billion over five years, we as a country lose 750 billion dollars in tax revenue. Based on something, based on this bill that was signed by Ronald Reagan. March 30th 1981, someone tried to kill Ronald Reagan. Everybody knew about it i just talk about things it showed up on the news for days. April 12th 1981, watch first launch of the Space Shuttle and keep narrow. General 29th reagans tax cut cost america 750 billion dollars of next five years. September 12th 1981, sandra day oconnor, becomes the first female justice, of the supreme court. These are big stories that we couldnt not see. Im absolutely positive on some level, the stories impacted or were in the awareness of August Wilson. I dont even want to say it necessarily impacted everyone, but as you think about the themes in fences, and we move from the deeply personal to the public, i want you to think about the way the public is becoming aware, because of the way that the public is growing awareness, of the world. Of the nation of the national identity. March section march 2nd 1982, they illuminate busing, was races was racism fixed in 1982 . No i dont think it was. Busing was born as a way i think, it was built as a way to integrate black sunlight it had to do the quality well you know what do we know from that history. A couple of classes ago the one black young woman who had to go to school in mississippi, and the 5000 people who went to mississippi just so she could go to school, that would have been, 1954, 55, 90 50 4 55 all these things are related to each other. Black people being allowed to go to white institutions, being allowed to. And we in this room have to think very specifically about what that means for us. We look at the racial demographics we have to consider always consider what that means to us. We a part of this history. September 20th 1984, the cosby show premieres. Weve talked about that in this room, cosby shows one of the first times we have representation of a black doctor, blackmail doctor, married to a black female lawyer and they have five kids, who are all successful, unprofessional and living life in a way that is not abject poverty, that is not just a joke. That is not in constant pain. Things that concern the cosby family you have to consider what their primary concerns are, we can think about vanessa who is looking for a boyfriend, very smart it became layered, it became what black people are with something new because of the cosby show 1985 bob gilder raises money for relief in ethiopia he does a giant concert 1986 firsttime january 20th 1986, Martin Luther king the holiday is officially recognize for the first time. January 28th 1986, the challenger Space Shuttle explodes. Killing seven astronauts. Its one of those things, i am 50 years old now, and i can remember where was when this happened. I was in high school, this is my senior year of high school. How old are you guys do you have a memory of 2011. Of what happened to the world on september 11th 2001. Do you guys remember that . Do you have images of the tower falling in your head . Just a generational thing, there are several several things that happen in our country in the world, that we as people, we have images fit to us on television. One of those for me was the explosion of the challenger Space Shuttle. We watched it launch, and then moments later we watched explode. We watched seven astronauts disintegrate. We watched it as a nation. In 2001 september 11th we watched airplanes hit the twin towers in new york and we watched in realtime towers fall on fire we watched it happen i find interesting as a group of people you are too young to have a memory of where you were at the time. Then may 25th 1986 hands across america the eighties were special time but you guys should have a reference for hands across america as of last week. Was your reference to that . It is jordan peels. Good. I want you to think of the things have Global Impact so this is the world that is informing August Wilson as he is writing the play fences. One more thing to talk about and then were going to discuss fences as a class. Want to talk about the pittsburgh cycle. Pittsburgh cycle is a series of ten place, that August Wilson undertook to move black identity, black concerns, black lives from the margins to the center. He did on purpose. His goal it wasnt that he was necessarily that he may or may not have held animosity for White America, but white people are not the central concern of his place. Black lives, black identity, black existence gets moved to the center of his plays and his playwriting. So he prepared with, gibney. The first play he wrote was just me. It was set in 1927 but it premiered in 1924 its a wonderful play that deals with five black musicians and one black female singer you guys know who Big Mama Thornton is if youre just hanging out at your house listening you might want to listen to Big Mama Thornton. You might want to listen to our rainy you will get nina samoan but she is kind of crossing over into mainstream. Ma rainy you have to hear her. Youll need to go to the quarter at one point in time and listen to miss dorian. She plays clarinet. You will be able to have an understanding of who mauve rainy was if you speak to mystery. Then we have joe turner has come in gone. That premiered in 1984. Set in 1911. Finally we get to fences, set in 1957, premiered in 1987. We will talk about that in just a second. He also wrote the piano lesson, seven guitars, gem of the ocean, radio golf. I think clyburn park as well he also include that. Lets talk about fences. Hardest wilson is influenced, and in conversation with more artist than just playwrights. I know all these things inform him, and at one point he stops concerning himself with white representation, specifically he begins to seek out black representation and black art. One of the artists that he particularly looked to was let me show you here. I have a question about moraine east black bottom does have to do is sexuality yes, it does have to deal with sexuality. For a while, one of the other characters in the play is an opportunist. A young woman who is an opportunist. Who has built a relationship with ma. The play intimates that it is of a sexual nature. Yes, dealing with that is part of it. [video clip] when i first began to do collages, i had no idea i would develop such simple processes with my work. These are natural things that i saw. [indiscernible] these are the elements. Bring the africanamerican experience or bring the universal to the africanamerican experience. What is significant about bringing the universal to the africanamerican experience . What is significant to you about an attempt to bring the universal to the africanamerican experience . It makes it something everyone can understand. Makes it easy for you to relate to it. Does not matter if you are black, white, whatever. The idea of empathy, how does it impact what you are saying . People feel more empathy, they will help out with more of the issues going on in the community. There are symbols of africanamerican men and women. Empathy, that is what ideology has to do with. If ideologically we can construct, the black experience as something that is hostile, something aggressive, something that is violent, then the treatment of black people becomes justified. By a criminal justice system. But if we can perform the narrative of black nist, in such a way that it becomes universal, then maybe there can be empathy. Maybe then we can get the rest of america to go, you know what this demonizing of black news, that is happening on an ideological level but step away from it, and lets find out, unlike thats just a mother, and thats just a, son when we look at rose, and troy in fences, we are hearing the story of a man woman didnt really concerned themselves with the white world around them they are concerned with their lives and that process of exposing or showing, the deeply personal by showing the specific and personal it is an attempt to make that story universal. Write a husband and wife, its not about this black has been in this wife. Is it though is the story specifically about this black man and this black woman . Or is it about men and women. Do you understand my question . Yes i think its just symbols of american African American relent men and women. I feel it shows more of a proper life of the African American experience. And how the husband African American husband and wife interact with each other. Would you say the fences humanizes the black experience in a direct way i say it do. From the dialogue of the main character, his dialogue towards his children and wife. Let me ask you guys this, yes maam . I think it is about a shared experience of oppression. Something black men and women both go through as well as what is intertwined with the relationship between black men and women inside the home. The way they have their own forms of oppression. Some of the things she was going through with her husband. The way he was treating her. It was very misogynistic. Go get this for me, woman. There was a lot of that. He just expected rose to wait on him and get him whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. What were some specific examples from the play that you might describe as abusive or misogynistic. The fact that he expected rose to wait on him like given whatever he wanted when every wanted it. So rose doing as she was told to go yes. Yes absolutely your hundred percent correct. I think that is a reflection of the state of women in the domestic sphere. This play was set in 1957, we have to think about things like i love lucy, leave it to beaver, good times and the idea of the american dream. What was a womans role in a household in 1957. What was a womans role back then, and even me saying that isnt necessarily true. Because when i say there are broader things that happen in the world, when a huge number of men left the country, to go fight in world war ii, and then came back women went and worked. When all the men left the country to go fight in the war, women went to work. This image that we have of the womans white woman with a rag on her head, that was a symbol i think for women they went to factories, and when they came home they worked. And what did female mean and what the domestic sphere meant, hes been questioned. Women had a different lived experience because of world war ii. And the other thing that happened, after world war ii is the mccarthy era. When you could be in trouble, you could be called if you are called a communist it was the worst thing ever. You would appear before the house of an american activities committee. It was a bogeyman, it was to scare americans into proper behavior. And women had their place. That it was an idea in american culture, that women had their place. Women had their place in their place was in the home. There are things that we would look at and call it early crazy, magazines specifically for white women. About having your mens drink ready when he came home from work, having being dressed nice and having heels and stockings, and having a full face of makeup on. These were in magazines ive seen them they all exists you can go back and look at them and this was a rhetoric that was being taught, and black women were trying to figure out how we fit into the american society. Black womens hair is a part of that story, black womens job is a part of that story, going out and being domestics, caring for white peoples kids, all of that is a part of the story. How black american identity, fits into the fabric of american society. It is all part of the story. I just want a still see remnants of that in my grandmother. The way that she put rollers in her hair every single night. Ive never seen her missing light i bet that is so uncomfortable. Also, we cannot have guests if the house is messy. You have to uphold this image that you are well kept. It is the public versus private. I dont remember my grandmother going to bed without rollers in her hair, i used to think how do you sleep on that . It is not comfortable at all. The idea of presentation what would you say ruths primary concern is in the play . Anybody i have not heard from. Maintaining the family. The most important thing to ruth in this play is maintaining the family. I think also maintaining the image that they are a happy family, kind of. Are they a happy family . I would say it got to the point where they arent. When the baby came about, she still tried to have the family presence. I wouldnt say that is a complete family. You said neglected her duties as a wife. What duties . I guess being there for her husband in whatever capacity she was before. Doing things that she would normally do. Prof. Proctor youre not on your own but it is not the same. Im not sleeping with you anymore. She still would be a mother to the child and care for the children. They still maintain the family. Did she respond . Did she say you have shown me such disrespect that i will no longer share my body with you . That is the only thing i have. Could she have left him . Really . Im just curious. Where would she go . I dont think she had that much money. That is a reality. I dont know if she thought of it as being stuck. In that day people didnt really get divorced. Maybe that wasnt an option. A part in maintaining this perfect family image. Identity. My identity, the thing that tells me who i am is your wife. It is the mother. This is troys second relationship from which he has kids. She is already wife number two. What were her options . What were her options as a black woman in 1957. She had few, if any. I dont want to say it was making the most of a bad situation. I think it is family. Financial situations, like you said she really didnt have much money. Why leave someone that is more financially stable then you will be on your own. I feel like that factors in as well. What does family mean . Think about your own families. Do you have cousins, sisters, brothers . How many family members have maybe crossed the line . I have them. [laughter] [laughter] nobody in your family has pushed the boundaries of what family means . Nobody. I believe you. I have relatives who are in jail. Quick show of hands, how many of you know a man or woman in your family who has cheated . Does cheating mean the relationship is over . [laughter] you figure out how to get to what happens next when you are there. Rose was figuring that out. Fences, lets talk about fences. What exactly is a fence . This is not trying to trick you. It is something that keeps the someone in or out. It is a barrier or boundary. What is troys activity . What is it that troy is trying to do this whole play . Build or finish a fence. Good. At the beginning of the play there is a baseball bat leaning against a tree trunk. Troy has an image in his head of what he was supposed to be. He says i was born at the wrong time. What does that mean . Saying basically black people werent allowed to play baseball professionally and stuff like that. He grew up in an era where he had to forget sports, let me go work to take care of my family. Some of it has to do with what he perceives as a mans responsibility. I care of her line exactly, his dream is i couldve been a great baseball player if i didnt have to do this. He has this perception that the fortunes of a black man have shifted from when he was younger to where he is now. The set is described as a dilapidated front porch. Back porch, im sorry. Why . Why do you think most of this play takes place on the porch . Usually wear a lot of black people grow up. Yes, thats not me being funny, i get it. It has to do with community. I didnt realize porch sitting was an actual thing. It is an actual thing. You sit on the porch and say hey to all your neighbors walking by. If you dont say hey, you uppity. You must be from up north. [laughter] people sit outside, there is a sense of community. The porch is unfinished. Troy has a way of not following through. Troy has a way of not finishing what he started. Troy has a way of not completing the relationship he invested in. He goes off and finds another woman and has another baby. Troy has a way of not being present in his own life. Do you guys have a response to that . When you think of the idea of masculinity, what do you think it represented in the character of troy or his eldest son in the play . Why can troy and this family afford this house . He had a job. He has a job, but his brother gets a disability check. He always has a shame. Troy is ashamed that the only way he can get this house is because of his brothers disability check. There is an investment in his brother not moving out. There is an investment in his brother still beinng there and being disabled. That has to be his reality. He loses his house if his brother moves out or if his brother dies. There is that dependency on that. What else does this play say about troy . What does it say about troys version of masculinity . Is a towards his son, his youngest son. He wants to play sports. Detroit wont let his younger son play sports troy wont let his younger son play sports. I dont really understand the relationship. He knows it is a different time. He still wont let him play sports. Why do you guys think troy wont let cory play sports . So he wont be disappointed. Troy thinks the reason he wasnt able to play sports is because he is black. Really it is because he got old. He doesnt want his son to face the same racism he thought he experienced. He is keeping him from opportunity. Not even allowing him to have the opportunity to be scouted. Your hand was up . Could it be jealousy . I thought it was. I was thinking that, too. The void that is being filled through the lack of discretion in what he is failing to do is beyond him. He cant find a way to come to terms with himself. He gives him strikes and at the end when his son mentions the only way you are able to have this house because of your brother he gets angry and they start fighting. It is a resentment i feel. He takes it out on others. They are able to do what he wished he could have done. It is like he is aware and conscience but he is taking it out. I feel like he was trying to protect him because he didnt want him to fall in the same footsteps as him and get to that point in his life to have to struggle like that. In your opinion troy is protecting him . From what . Troy is protecting cory from what . Failure, i guess. Absolutely possible. Like a father, you have to love your children. Troy coming up had to get a job and struggled. You said something really interesting. Im not saying either of you are wrong, thank you for adding that. When i said what is troy protecting cory from, you said america. The realities of what it means to be black and male in america. That is also a possibility. What they were saying about masculinity, i think black men use what they go through as an excuse for how they act inside the home. Ok. If you are going to write a thesis statement for this class, you might, that is a good place to start. That is what i mean about the complexity of character. The nature of who and what troy is his wildly complex. Everything you have just said fuels what makes up that character. That is what i mean by having a layered character. A character with depth. A character who is a fully rounded person. Do you see how that might be different than the comedic character that showed up in the jeffersons . That is what August Wilson is doing. He is actually allowing black existence to be a complex thing. He is doing an artistic rendering of black existence that is complex, layered, not simple or easy. How do you think White America took the play . It was nominated for oscars and phila Davis Viola Davis won. I dont know how white people read this play, because i am not. Is it for them . One of the realities of theater we have to deal with is this. If we look at the economic reality of blackandwhite people in most urban areas, even here in new orleans, more than 50 of the population is africanamerican, but 85 or higher of the wealth is owned by the white community. That is a reality. I have a Theater Company and i want my Theater Company to be financially successful. That means i am going to charge i will be conservative. Lets say i have to charge 30 for a ticket. The largest portion of the population cant afford that. This weekend, i saw raisin in the sun. It was 25 to get in and see it. There are groups of black people in new orleans that were like, if we are going to support black theater, we are going to pick this one. I saw all that and there was a black audience, but one of the realities is, if i have 250 seats in my audience, i have got to market that to the people who have money. This play, in fact all of August Wilsons plays, are aware of the realities of that. It is putting black lives and black existence on screen. Can you give me an example that is happening right now of a black artist who is centering black identity and black lived experience . There was an artist who got killed over the weekend named nipsey hussle. I was thinking of a movie maker. Jordan peele said something this week, because if you Say Something on twitter they are mad about it. Oh yeah. [laughter] i am going to paraphrase what he said. He essentially said i am not interested in casting white guys in my movie, because i have seen that movie already. Centering the black experience, centering africanamerican identity, is a part of this project. For so long in america, artistic representation, blackness has been marginal or tangential. Now we are going, what we are g, and i dont even know if there is necessarily animosity toward the white world. Animosity toward the dominant culture is not necessarily part of this play. It is there. It is the reality. But the playwright is saying, you dont concern me. I spent 24 hours a day seven days a week thinking about being in white culture. This play is about black people being around lack petalk to me. His best friend. How does that relationship work . Let me back up. Troy has several relationships in this play. He has a relationship with ruth, with cory, and you can use the play to talk about or define those relationships. What is the nature of his relationship with his son . Is he jealous . Maybe. Is he protecting him . Maybe. At some point, he says, i dont have to like you. Liking you its not one of the jobs i signed up for. It is the job of a father to raise his son. To raise his son so he can go into a world that is perhaps hostile and is going to try to kill him. Im going to give you the skills you need to be strong, to survive. That is his role. As a father. But liking him or even loving him, is that the job of the father . In a country in which so many black men had to leave their families, maybe they were leaving we have talked about in this room. About the separation of black men from families. We have talked about what that has to do with the history of slavery, in the context of the great gratian. Migration. This play is also dealing with that. Troy is considered a good guy because he stated, kind of. But he didnt, right . Because he is going to sleep with this other woman. What does fatherhood, what does masculinity all of the people who have to write thesis statements for your final papers should be thinking about these kind of things. What does fatherhood mean . What does manhood mean . Bono and troy . I think that bono has not resentment, but he sees in troy what his father was to him. I guess they have that conversation, they were telling each other about their experiences and in bonos experience, he was going from woman to woman, he couldnt stay put. I think that is what he sees in troy. He has some concern. Tell me about bonos relationship with his wife. He is super devoted to his wife. The playwright gives us a representation of a man who is devoted to his woman. Troy exists bono is a foil, opposite. His existence in this play actually shows us more of the tarnish on troy. I dont think the movie really implies it, but i think he kind of puts himself i think bono kind of puts himself in troys shoes. I am just trying to make connections. I think he kind of sees how troy is how he was with his father and his son, he doesnt want he doesnt have resentment that he vocalizes, but they were just in conversation. He was sharing his experience, so i guess he sees that between troy and his son and how troy and rose are to each other. Bono is a corrective. Remember his friend who would keep calling him up, going what are you doing . You should leave. That is bono. He is literally that friend calling you up going, you are about to mess up. You done messed up. That moment of somebody, the interjection, or the interlocutory i think is the big college word for it. I think the representation of what a man is supposed to be changes with whatever he is directed to. His relationship with bono, he is going to boast about women or all these women that he had, and like they are drinking all the time. That is his idea of being a man when he is with bono. Or freedom. What do you mean by that . Does he get to be free with bono . He gets to tell his story. He actually gets to be kind of a star. He gets to be entertaining and fun. So his relationship is carefree, kind of. It is a double whammy. Why . He can in a sense be carefree, but not too carefree, because bono is not passing judgment on him and he is not going to let him slip. Bono is totally passing judgment. He is, but in context of his head. He is conscious of it. He is a man at the end of the day. He is going to let a man be a man, but he is very conscious of it. I could tell by that conversation they had. But bono moves away from him at the end of the play. Thats what im saying. It is the double whammy. He removes himself. He would just rather not engage. Im going to let you sync on this ship all on your own. Got it. I saw a hand back there. We have got about four minutes left. I just want to close this discussion and i want you to think about things. One, the place we are studying from Langston Hughes to pearl, all of these plays are in conversation with each other. I want you to think about for colored girls who have committed suicide when the rainbow is enough in relation to this play. For colored girls, she is voicing and taking the place or allowing a black womans voice to be heard. These are the private thoughts of a black woman. This is the private world we have always been told not to show to the public. In the same way, August Wilson is, with plays like fences and the entire pittsburgh cycle, moving the private lives of black identity into the center of the artistic mission. I want you to think about what that means in terms of, in context with each other. Absolutely those two, as well as passover, which we watched in class. In what way is the film of the plate passover also still in conversation with this play . In passover, they cant get off that corner. They are stuck. They cant go anywhere. Much like troy, who is stuck and cant go anywhere. Much like the women in for colored girls are stuck and cant go anywhere. What does that say about black existence . What are black artists saying about the nature of black existence . That is why want to leave with you. Please, you will get a pop quiz on this play and on tbone and weasel on thursday. We will talk about tbone and weasel thursday. Thank you. Have a great day