Change in gender roles today is both liberating and depressing. As a woman, i’m happy that today I don’t have to be treated as a second class citizen, and that I can have a daughter who will grow up thinking she can be anything she wants to be. However, what about the men? What happens to their self-esteem when they realize they’re not “necessary” anymore. We’ve been pushing for equality, but now we’re just transitioning into an era of another kind of inequality. Also, what does this mean for people with traditional values? What will be the norm in the next ten, even twenty years?
Hooper: Always some white boy gotta invoke the holy trilogy. Bust this: Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even in a galaxy far, far away. Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!
Banky Edwards: What’s a Nubian?
Hooper: Shut the fuck up! Now… Vader, he’s a spiritual brother, y’know, down with the force and all that good shit. Then this cracker, Skywalker, gets his hands on a light saber and the boy decides he’s gonna run the fuckin’ universe; gets a whole clan of whites together. And they go and bust up Vader’s hood, the Death Star. Now what the fuck do you call that?
Banky Edwards: Intergalactic civil war?
Hooper: Gentrification! They gon’ drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote, unquote, safe for white folks. And Jedi’s the most insulting installment! Because Vader’s beautiful black visage is sullied when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty, old white man! They tryin’ to tell us that deep inside we all wants to be white!
Banky Edwards: Well, isn’t that true?
[Hooper pulls out his gun, shoots Banky]
I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.
I’m ashamed to say that I am nowhere as avid a reader as I was when I was a child. Everyday I feel my vocabulary and my eloquence dwindle into undesired normalcy. Why doesn’t reading give me the pleasure it used to? I suppose i’m too caught up in vanity and this materialistic world now to care about the fantasies that fiction created in my head.
A year and a half ago, one event nearly re-kindled my romance with fiction- Calabash festival. Always heard of it, but never went. I was invited on a whim by my friend StephAnn and thought a little bit of seafoam and good company would do me good. If I knew what I was coming to I would have been even more excited.
I stepped out of the car into excitement. Not the crazy type of excitement that you’d find at a Ninjaman concert or watching a Sylvester Stalone movie, but a..tranquil one? After a day there I felt like I should’ve been born and raised in the magic that was Treasure Beach. Only in my world, Calabash festivel would be every weekend. The readings, the company, the freedom, what more could I want? Inspiration overwhelmed me. I knew once I got home I’d pick up the pen and paper and just allow worlds and emotions to just spill out of me.
I finally went home after the weekend and plopped down on my bed, and then I stopped dreaming. The inspiration evaporated almost as if it never existed.
Much to my dismay, Calabash festival didn’t come back. I wasn’t as lucky as my friends to grow up with Calabash festival. I only have three days of it, forever etched into me. I’m hoping it resumes this year. Hopefully inspiration would linger a little longer.
