Perspective
The centerpiece of the play is an incident which occurred on August 19, 1991 when a Hasidic Jew driver lost control of his car and plowed into the sidewalk, killing a 7-year-old son of a Guyana immigrant. The immediate aftermath of this event ignited racial tension, sparked rioting and eventually led to the murder of a completely unrelated member of the same Hasidic sect by a group of black youths. This story is recounted by eyewitnesses on the street at the time, members of the Crown Heights neighborhood not present at the scene, religious spokespersons, social activists and a host of others. The result is a confusing incoherency in which neither “side” agrees much on the actual facts of the case, but present a portrait of bias, prejudice and privilege that all point to an inevitability.
The Inevitable
The characters are all sharing their perspective in retrospect, but the one comment element unifying everything is the awareness of a tightening tension between black and Jewish populations in Crown Heights. Some of the monologues by black characters point to irrefutably anti-Semitic sensibilities while some of the Jewish characters express themselves in ways that can only be termed racist. For the most part, however, the characters do not appear to be explicitly extremist in their prejudices. Nevertheless, both in the personal opinions expressed and the subjective accounts of the history of the community, it is impossible to ignore the reality that Crown Heights was moving toward becoming a powder keg of pent-up racial friction that was just waiting for an event like the car accident to ignite things.
Identity
The very first word of the opening monologue of the play by playwright Ntozake Shange (after an onomatopoetic representation of the sound she made in thought just before speaking) is “Identity.” The monologues which open the first of the play’s three sections do not comment directly upon the events in Crown Heights but instead present an impressionistic rendering of certain themes and topics which provide a foundation upon which the events of August 19 rest. It is not by coincidence that theme of identity is forwarded as singularly important. It is theme running throughout the monologues. In that first section, Rev. Al Sharpton recalls how his own identity was shaped by a visit to a barber with James Brown. The first monologue in the section of the play which addresses the issue of racism writ large is by and about being a consultant to Alex Haley during the writing of Roots. By the time the play gets to representing the actual figures of Crown Heights, it becomes clear that their own identities are inextricably tied to which side of the cultural divide they occupy. To be black in Crown Heights is partially about not being Jewish and being Jewish is partially about not being black. While not a negative in itself, the negativity of this self-identity is intensified by the stronger influence upon the majority by the minority of outright racists and anti-Semites than by voices calling for understanding.
