Disappointed


SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED

When you reach a certain age (over 70) , you may become overly sensitive to violation of decorum. Within the past two days, a friend and I have been slightly disappointed with certain expressions of value.



Case #1, January 14:  Ashe Cultural Arts Center presented "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a community sing-along to honor the people who made enormous sacrifices during the Civil Rights Movement at Ashe Power House Theater.  The event was well-attended.  It was reassuring that many very young children (the youngest was two months old) were present.  Such New Orleans  cultural figures as Sunni Patterson, Sharon Martin,  Tonya Boyd-Cannon, Ben Hunter, Renard Boissiere, Wendi O'Neal (daughter of the Civil Rights/Free Southern Theater icon John O'Neal ), Clark Knighten, Michaela Harrison, and the venerable  Zion Harmonizers group were featured.  So, what's to bitch about?  Nothing more serious than the fact that approximately half of the audience stood in the hall outside the theater to watch the New Orleans Saints lose to the Minnesota Vikings 29-24.  When a football game is equally as valuable as a ceremony of historical remembering, your sense of priority is insulted.  How quickly our hearts become "drunk with the wine of the world" as we participate in an act of spirituality in "the place for which our fathers sighed" in those "days when hope unborn had died."  Old age is a mess.



Case #2, January 16:  Amistad Research Center presented "Conversations in Color: Kalamu ya Salaam and Ishmael Reed," a book launch for New Orleans Griot: The Tom Dent Reader at Dillard University (Georges Auditorium).  At the same time, the DU Brainfood Series presented the actress and author Gabrielle Union  in Lawless Chapel.  It isn't unusual for competing events to occur on a university campus, thereby creating an opportunity for choice.  Dillard University students could make a choice between dissimilar historic events.  If they attended the Brainfood Series, they probably learned something about the role of entertainment in contemporary culture. If they chose to attend the book launch, it was guaranteed that they'd learn something about the importance of the Dent family's place in the history of Dillard University and the history of African American higher education.  So, what's to bitch about? Nothing more significant than the fact that, as far as you could determine, not one DU undergraduate was in the audience for the book launch.  Since you ain't Jesus, you damn sure can't say how many of them were in Lawless Chapel. You gave public voice to your more than slight disappointment that the DU administration and faculty apparently did not stress the importance of an event that cast light on the institution's remarkable history, the importance of learning something from hearing Ishmael Reed and Kalamu ya Salaam (matchless griots in their own right) remember and celebrate Thomas Covington Dent (1932-1998), arguably the most important New Orleans griot of the twentieth century. Old age is a mess.



When you reach a certain age (over 70), you may become overly sensitive to violation of decorum and be tempted to commit ritual murder.



Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            January 16, 2018

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