On Saturday, Cade and I ventured to the Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival in Brooklyn. Subway service was completely discombobulated, as it always is on the weekends. We transferred from train to train and finally arrived to find that Fort Greene Park is actually big. Not Central Park big, but big enough. I thought there would be a large sign with "Jhumpa Lahiri's reading here" printed in bold letters, but no such luck.
We did stumble upon a mediocre farmer's market, some kids playing around, and a former foster child who now sells magazines written by and for foster children. My boyfriend, ever enthusiastic to interject, "But I'm half-Jewish!", haggled with the guy over the price of this fine literary publication. The organization of philanthropic peddlers/publishers wants $3, Cade talked him down to $2.
That's my (half-Jewish) boy!
I called the event coordinator and couldn't find out where the festival was. Cade and I wandered around, walked up a hill, and eventually found a bunch of folding metal chairs in a grassy patch. People milled about at tables in the back. We grabbed two front row seats next to an Indian girl significantly younger and plumper than Jhumpa Lahiri, who would later be mistaken for her, since any Indian at the festival must be that Indian writer that event coordinators seemed to have never heard of, right?
The only other non-Pulitzer winning Bengali at the park was under a tent, giving some papers to a woman in a green skirt. Jhumpa! My heart jhumped for jhoy, as I collect autographed good books. I got my two books signed, and chatted with Lahiri. I wish I could say she uttered really inspiring words, as Yusef Komunyakaa did when I met him, but she just thanked me for my praise and told me to go see the film adaptation of
The Namesake. She's seen it twice and said it was beautiful. She was very gracious and shy.
The festival began, and it was overall very amateur. It started with kids from a Brooklyn writing program drumming and then reading their best works. "Best" is always a very subjective word. Some works were cute, most were cringe-worthy. I know it's all about inspiring the kids in the beginning so that someday their writing may not be totally cheesy, but oh the years of waiting! There's a reason I focused on teaching high school English in college - I like kids who have learned to be original AND use the conventions of grammar.
The event was turned over to a master of ceremonies who shall remain unnamed, not just because I have temporarily misplaced the festival program, but because she is an ignoramus who cannot read. She's the person of "
Nama-saki?" fame. Cade and I had to endure other readings before hearing chapter one of
The Namesake. These readings turned out to be very Afro-centric. First, a children's book author/sculptor/African studies guru read his children's book. He turned the reading of a picture book into a very self-indulgent and tedious lesson in the mechanics of his voice. After his presentation - he practically had to be jerked offstage - a poet named Sapphire took the stage. She started off by reading a poem about how she wishes white people's children suffered through everything black people's children do, including sexually transmitted diseases and imprisonment.
I could feel Cade stiffen in anger beside me. Black people do not corner the market on suffering. Every person from every group goes through individual trials, but I realize the odds have been historically (and I include modern day here, as well) stacked against some groups more than others. That is a problem. New York City is the most segregated, stratified place I have ever lived, but it's supposedly the most progressive place I've ever lived. That doesn't jive. Things need to change.
However, it is just as racist for a black person to wish ill on a white person as it is for a white person to wish ill on a black person. It's not reverse racism, because racism isn't supposed to be acceptable or correctly defined when it follows a majority-minority trajectory. Racism is racism is racism. Cade was upset that Sapphire so articulately expressed racial prejudice that goes against what we are trying to teach the children who read their works earlier. White people were portrayed as adversaries and only adversaries.
Sapphire later went on to read poems about hookers and such. She dropped the f-bomb in front of all the kids that read before her and many that had been brought to this "family-friendly" event by their parents. In another poem, she expressed prejudice towards Americans of Middle Eastern descent. In the end, she got a lot of applause. Cade fumed. He and I didn't clap. The master of ceremonies enthusiastically asked Sapphire when her next collection of poems would be out.
We planned to leave after Jhumpa read. The master of ceremonies introduced her book as
The Nama-saki, and then referred to Jhumpa Lahiri as "Jahari." She looked around lost, looking quizzically at the Indian woman next to me. "It's
The Namesake. Namesake!" she and I said. "It's Jhumpa Lahiri." The author left her husband and two small children on a blanket under a tree and walked to the podium. After a quick celebration of the young writers and Fort Greene Park, she read chapter one of
The Namesake. It was very calming, and by far the best writing featured at the festival. When her reading was over, Lahiri walked back to her spot in the grass. The master of ceremonies didn't ask her if she's working on any new projects. I wondered why.
I got up and left, with Cade and anyone else with any sense in tow.
