Radio Golf
If you haven’t seen Radio Golf, check it out now. It’s the last in playwright August Wilson’s 10-play cycle taking us through the 20th century in black America. I saw it at the Goodman in Chicago. Anyone who has been to a Wilson play knows his characters are multi-dimensional and their dialogue sticks with you.
This play takes place in 1997 and is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. In Radio Golf, the exchange that stuck with me was between the characters Harmond Wilks, the play’s protagonist who is running for mayor of Pittsburg and Sterling Johnson, a longtime resident of the Hill who is looking for work. The two are discussing Wilks’ plan to build an upscale real estate development on the Hill.
The exchange:
Sterling: Yeah I got my own business. They say you fixing to build up around here. That makes sense seeing as how your family is in the real estate business. Say you gonna build a supermarket and put in some apartments on that site on Wylie.
Harmond: We’re going to bring the Hill back. We’re going to rename it Bedford Hills.
Sterling: How you gonna bring it back? It’s dead. It’ll take Jesus Christ to bring it back. What you mean is you gonna put something else in its place. Say that. But don’t talk about bringing the hill back. The Hill District’s dead.
That exchange struck me. It made me think of how reporters sometimes adopt the language of the people in control. We often talk of revitalizing an area or bringing it back. But often times, cultures are lost in the shuffle. Economic power that was once in the hands of the neighborhood via mom and pop groceries is shifted from the working class to conglomerates. The intention is rarely to really bring the community back -- it's good or it's bad.
So I liked it when Sterling called Harmond on the “bringing it back” comment. It’s a lecture he could also have delivered to many journalists.
Of course, the play transcends golf. “It’s saying it’s not too late. “There’s still a need for us to care about community,” Radio Golf director Kenny Leon told the Baltimore Sun's J. Wynn Rousuck.
I’ll add that it’s equally important for us to keep writing about communities in all of their color, grist and grandeur.
This is my last shout before former prez Ray Marcano takes over for a while. Thanks for everyone who’s read and responded.