D says, "Let's talk about our alliance, or our disagreements." Then he catches himself. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say
our, I mean, we not the one's who been fighting. I got no beef with you". I laugh when he says that. We are discussing the Crown Heights riots and the history of Jews and blacks in the united States. Every time my teacher sees us two talking and laughing, he says, "It's great that you two are getting along and bonding, but it's time to be quiet now." Ya, it's funny. But it's also a bit racist.
I wasn't there during the riots of 1991. My family moved to Crown Heights shortly after. Seems like an insane move for that time. The blacks were saying that all the Hasidim were moving out, disappearing. And here my family moves, from a quiet suburb in Massachusetts. I always wondered what would have happened if we would have stayed there. We might be a nice Modern Orthodox family right now.
We read Anna Deaver Smith's play,
Fires in the Mirror. She acts it out here. I like how she interviewed people on both sides of the dispute, and then laid their words side by side, so that instead of seeing how very different they are, you get to see how they are somehow the same.
My teacher told us to bring our "work in progress" to class, and we would discuss it and help each other. The paper is due on Tuesday. I submitted a proposal for the final paper, to which my teacher replied, "Regarding your well-written proposal: Instead of thinking about your
final paper as a research paper that traces the origins of the Crown
Heights Riots in Jewish/Black relations in the U.S., I'd like to
encourage you to foreground Anna Deavere Smith's play and write a more
argumentative paper that engages deeply with the text. Use context where
it matters, but do examine how the text deals with particular aspects
of the relationship you are interested in." I thought about it and came up blank.
When he said "the relationship you are interested in" my mind immediately went to the Jews struggle, as the weak and helpless protagonist, and the black rioters as the antagonistic bullies. I told my professor that I feel too close to the dispute, and that I will undoubtedly side with the Jews. He told me to try to look at it objectively, not as a horrible incident that occurred where two people were killed, rather as two cultures colliding. He suggested I write about hair, and I thought he was nuts.
(Anna Smith interviews reverend Al Sharpton. Reverend Sharpton's hair is in the style of James Brown's hair.)
"James Brown raised me.
Uh ...
I never had a father.
My father left when I was ten .
James Brown took me to the beauty parlor one day
and made my hair like his.
And made me promise
to wear it like that
'til I die.
It's a personal family thing
between me and James Brown.
there's nothing wrong with me doing
that with James.
It's, it's, us.
I mean in the fifties it was a slick.
It was acting like White folks. '.
But today
people don't wear their hair like that.
James and I the only ones out there doing that.
So it's certainlih not
a reaction to Whites.
It's me and James's thing."
~~~~~~
An interview with a Hassidic woman about wigs.
(Early afternoon. Spring. The kitchen of an apartment in
Crown Heights. A very pretty Lubavitcher woman, with clear
eyes and a direct gaze, wearing a wig and a knit sweater,
that looks as though it might be hand knit. A round
wooden table. Coffee mug. Sounds of children playing in
the street are outside. A neighbor, a Lubavitcher woman
with light blond hair who no longer wears the wig, observes
the interview at the table.)
Your hair-
It only has to be
there's different,
uhm,
customs in different
Hasidic groups.
Lubavitch
the system is
it should be two inches
long.
It's-
some groups
have
the custom
to shave their
heads.
There's-
the reason is,
when you go to the mikvah [bath]
you may, maybe,
it's better if it's short
because of what you-
the preparation
that's involved
and that
you have to go under the water.
The hair has a tendency to float
and you have to be completely submerged
including your hair.
So ...
And I got married
when I was a little older,
and I really wanted to be married
and I really wanted to, um . . .
In some ways I was eager to cover my head.
Now if I had grown up in a Lubavitch household
and then had to cut it,
I don't know what that would be like.
I really don't.
But now that I'm wearing the wig,
you see,
with my hair I can keep it very simple
and I can change it all the time.
So with a wig you have to have like five wigs if you want to
do that.
But I, uh,
I feel somehow like it's fake,
I feel like it's not me.
I try to be as much myself as I can,
and it just
bothers me
that I'm kind of fooling the world.
I used to go to work.
People ...
and I would wear a different wig,
and they'd say I like your new haircut
and I'd say it's not mine!
You know,
and it was very hard for me to say it
and
it became very difficult.
I mean, I've gone through a lot with wearing wigs and not
wearing
wigs.
It's been a big issue for me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I stayed after class cuz I didn't want to leave. It's always hard leaving on the last day. We took a group picture. I asked D if I could take a picture with him. We took a pic together, both doing the two fingered 'peace' or 'what up!' symbol. Of course we got photo bombed. I'm gonna miss him. On the first day of class when we all barely knew each other, we were discussing the stereotypes regarding African American's. D said, a co-worker told him that he doesn't look very threatening, but that she is sometimes afraid of other black guys in the street. He replied and said, "If you see me at midnight in a dark ally wearing a hoodie and I come up to you and say, "scuse me, you got the time?" you'd run the other way. We all assured him that we would never do that. He demonstrated with the hoodie and a deep gravelly voice, and we all laughed. He said, now that you know me, don't run screaming.
I stood chatting with two girls in my class about hair, wigs and weaves. I asked about dreadlocks and braids. I mentioned Chris Rock's documentary, "Good Hair" (2009). I remember watching an interview with him on the Tyra Banks show. She says the movie discusses emotional, psychological, political, and chemical issues with their hair. My classmate said, "You get up in the morning and have to style your hair, but me, I get up and I'm good to go. This hairstyle will last me 6 weeks."
To many people, hair is an identity. My hair has it's good days and bad days. I've gone through curly phases, and straightening crazes, and frizziness. I ran out of mousse and decided to go au naturale, and my hair surprised me with it's own natural volume. Whenever I think about wearing a shaitel, I start to feel a little bit claustrophobic. I barely ever wear hats in the winter because I hate things on my head. I feel stifled. I can't imagine shaving my head, I'm happy that Lubavitch doesn't have that custom. I can't even fathom having it "two fingers" short. I spent a long time growing out my hair, and I will miss it when I have to cover it.
I told these girls, for them it's a choice, for us it's a commandment. For them, it's a deep rooted part of their identity. Many black women in professional careers feel the need to relax their hair to appear less African American. I don't think I will understand it. But the one thing we have in common is wigs. While they do it cosmetically, and we do it halachically, we are both covering up a part of ourselves. We are taught that by one covering her hair, she brings down many blessings from heaven.
This class has taught me appreciation for diversity. In the classroom, it doesn't matter that I am Jewish and D is "African American", or J who has Asian features and is from California and speaks with a Spanish accent, or J who is Italian and Jewish, (who has tattoos but claims she was told she could still be buried in a Jewish cemetery). Our features are not what define us. When you look past the labels to the person inside, you find a personality. Humor, and wit, and sensitivity, and timidity, and shyness. You find motherly pride on a 5 year old daughter's graduation from preschool, and a father proud of his little girl who only smiles at his girlfriend (who incidentally is not the kid's mother). You find an older brother who feels the responsibility of having to act a certain way because his siblings look up to him. You find a professor who refuses to tell us where he's from because he doesn't want you to think about him a certain way.
In this classroom, we discard the labels and our differences. We learn to find common ground. We argue respectfully. We expose each other's differences, only to try and look for similarities. To me, the Crown Heights riots will always be a tragedy, an explosion of sorts between two vastly different ethnic groups with so many glaring differences which stood in the way of much needed unity.
D snapped the pic and said, we just ended the riots right there.
