{"id":163870,"date":"2020-07-06T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=163870"},"modified":"2020-06-30T06:58:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T05:58:34","slug":"a-dream-deferred-healing-through-culture-dialogues-sharing-our-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/07\/a-dream-deferred-healing-through-culture-dialogues-sharing-our-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dream Deferred: Healing through Culture, Dialogues & Sharing Our Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happens to a dream deferred?<\/em><\/p>\n

Does it dry up<\/em>
\nlike a raisin in the sun?<\/em><\/p>\n

Or fester like a sore<\/em>
\nAnd then run?<\/em><\/p>\n

Does it stink like rotten meat?<\/em>
\nOr crust and sugar over<\/em>
\nlike a syrupy sweet?<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe it just sags<\/em>
\nlike a heavy load.<\/em><\/p>\n

Or does it explode?<\/em><\/p>\n

–<\/em>– Langston Hughes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Langston Hughes was 49 when he published that poem, back in the Truman (\u201cTrue-Man\u201d)<\/em> era.\u00a0 He\u2019d seen some ups, and he\u2019d seen a lot of downs; born soon after the War to End All Wars, growing up \u201cNegro\u201d in the Crime-Roaring Twenties, and the soul-deep Depression.\u00a0 He\u2019d seen the Labor Movement crushed by hired corporate guns and goons, and government-of-the-mighty-by-the-mighty saved by the \u201ctraitor to his class\u201d\u2014F.D.R.–who was no traitor to his class! …\u00a0 He\u2019d seen another \u201cWar to End All Wars\u201d and the holocausts of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dachau\u2026and the beginning of a \u201cCold War\u201d that was no Cold War!<\/p>\n

And he\u2019d seen people put their dreams on hold.\u00a0 \u201cNegro\u201d people, American people; and the poor and powerless and disenfranchised all over the world\u2014war-weary, war-devastated, hard-working, peace-craving, hungry, disenchanted, confused by the cascading changes; searching, questioning, truth-seeking light in their leaders\u2014and holding fast to their dreams: the old dreams of peace, equality of opportunity–and equality before the law; fairness!…\u00a0 A New Deal, a Fair Deal; the dream of the promise of technology to eradicate poverty, to expand human horizons to the zenith of our best understanding; the dream of social progress in our families, our communities\u2014and in our shared humanity.<\/p>\n

We are nearly 3 generations removed from the publication of Hughes\u2019 poem.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by madness, as Alan Ginsberg put it.\u00a0 The madness of materialism\u2014owning things<\/u>, possessing things<\/u>, caressing things <\/u>in a world of shrinking resources, \u201cpeak oil,\u201d water shortages, food riots.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen the promise of technology pollute our rivers, our lakes–even the fathomless seas–and the air we and our children breathe.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been confused by the cascading changes, future-shocked by the rate of change\u2014”the unbearable lightness of being,\u201d and we wonder where to stand, and how to hold on to this fiercely spinning globe.<\/p>\n

Yet, we hold fast to the old dreams of honor and even \u201cnoblesse oblige<\/em>\u201d; and we hold fast to the new dreams of democracy, freedom and fair play.\u00a0 We seek the light of truth in our leaders; we petition; we vote\u2014because we hold to our dreams, and we have been told<\/u>, we have been taught<\/u>, we have been trained<\/u>\u2014this is the way.\u00a0 We are peace-craving.\u00a0 We do not want conflict.\u00a0 The average man and woman eschews conflict.<\/p>\n

We petition.\u00a0 We march.\u00a0 We shout, \u201cNot in our name!\u201d \u201cPeace Now!\u201d \u201cBlack Lives Matter!\u201d\u00a0 And the holocaust continues.\u00a0 Millions more wounded, raped, crippled, torn physically, mentally, spiritually.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes it stink like rotten meat?\u00a0 Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?\u00a0 Maybe it just sags like a heavy load …\u00a0 Or does it explode?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And now the waves of resistance surge again.\u00a0 We gather in cities all over this land–to ponder Hughes\u2019 mighty question\u2014to share the burden of our dreams, to challenge our dreams: have they been beacons, or have they misled us?\u00a0 This American Dream that Henry Miller back in 1945 called \u201can air-conditioned nightmare\u201d\u2014where is it taking our world\u2014this shrinking, wounded globe we share with hungry billions\u2014what healing vision can we offer?\u00a0 We space-cadets who traveled first into a moon-lit future in 1969: \u201cOne small step for a man; one giant leap for\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 For whom?\u00a0 For what?\u00a0 Where did we stumble, where did we lose our way?\u00a0 And can we help each other now?\u00a0 Can we put aside the territoriality of ideas, the preciousness of ideology and find the thread out of the maze?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been \u201cconfined,\u201d isolated, \u201clocked-down,\u201d scared witless by a viral intruder, who stalks our parents, grand-parents, murders friends and partners–over an eighth of a million in the \u201cland of the free\u201d\u2014and millions more have lost their livelihoods and the meaning of their lives\u2026and we find we are not so \u201cbrave\u201d as we thought we were, and as we taught our children to sing.\u00a0 We are \u201cstrangers in a strange land,\u201d fearing strangers, neighbors, our families\u2026 \u201cforever friends,\u201d lost in foreverness.<\/p>\n

We watch the \u201cnews\u201d for a way out, but it\u2019s full of political rappers who harp on the same themes and always point in the others\u2019 direction, never acknowledge their role in creating these dead-ends.\u00a0 It\u2019s a period of confusion, antics, street theater–which the mayor of Seattle deigns a \u201csummer of love.\u201d\u00a0 And I recall the first time I heard that phrase in 1967, when I was wide-eyed and hopeful, full of the music, love and sexual wonders, wandering towards San Francisco, with flowers in my hair because of \u201cthe gentle people there.\u201d\u00a0 And I thought of that phrase again a year later when a beautiful, pregnant young actress named Sharon Tate, and her friends and an innocent bystander, were slaughtered because a maniac named \u201cManson\u201d wanted to start a \u201crace war,\u201d because he believed that\u2019s what the Beatles\u2019 were telling him to do in a song called \u201cHelter-Skelter.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have not seen America so divided since the Vietnam War.\u00a0 But in many ways, it is even worse now.\u00a0 \u201cWords of wisdom\u201d and grace that led us like a divine \u201cpillar of fire,\u201d as we wandered in the wilderness, through the \u201cValley of the Shadow of Death,\u201d are no longer credible.\u00a0 First, they came for the extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins; then the nuclear family of father and mother; and then we lost our way, hitch-hiking through the Universe, alone and guideless.<\/p>\n

The great voices are long silent now.\u00a0 John F. Kennedy, who had bid us strive for the greatness of Periclean Athens; to be lambent in our cultural grandeur.\u00a0 Martin Luther King, who had a dream, and a vision, and a voice to encourage, inspire and heal.<\/p>\n

But\u2026, where is healing and inspiration now?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe general thesis which binds the essays together,\u201d Bertrand Russell wrote in the preface to his 1935 \u00a0\u201cIn Praise of Idleness\u201d\u2014the general thesis \u201cis that the world is suffering from intolerance and bigotry, and from the belief that vigorous action is admirable even when misguided<\/u>; whereas what is needed in our very complex modern society is calm consideration, with readiness to call dogmas in question and freedom of mind to do justice to the most diverse points of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was one of the honored mathematicians and one of the best thinkers of the 20th<\/sup> Century\u2014a man who was leading anti-nuclear-bomb demonstrations into his 90s!<\/p>\n

Or, lest I be accused of white-male bias, let\u2019s hear from \u201cthe fairer sex,\u201d too:<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry!\u201d<\/p>\n

That, of course, is the indomitable Susan B. Anthony, who, with shining lights like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Jane Adams led women out of their indentured-servant roles of mom, schoolmarm, housekeeper, textile-mill worker, prostitute for the cowboys.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is it reported that any of the above salient lights ever advocated \u201cburning down the system\u201d if the system didn\u2019t turn over the keys of the kingdom, and give them everything they demanded.<\/p>\n

These are mythic times\u2014and we have been like the explorer Theseus, wandering through the labyrinth, lost in a hall of mirrors in which we have to confront ourselves, our worst fears, our dreams distorted<\/u>\u2014dreams of comfort and ease and endless expansion on other people\u2019s lands, using other people\u2019s resources.<\/p>\n

And now, even as we confront the Minotaur, we ponder the way back.\u00a0 And we remember that the root of the word revolution is volvere<\/em>, \u201cto turn,\u201d with the prefix re<\/em>\u2014”back.\u201d\u00a0 And we wonder how to get back to first, best principles\u2014the best thoughts of our varied spiritual leaders: \u201cLove thy neighbor as thyself\u201d; \u201cDo unto others as you would have them do unto you\u201d \u2026 \u00a0\u201cFollow the golden mean.\u201d\u00a0 And we hold in our hands the secret of the way back: not a rope, or spool of thread as the mythological Theseus believed, but a chain\u2014every single link forged with understanding, courage, creativity and action.<\/p>\n

We have many sharp analysts on the Left and the Right– acute minds, trained in dialectic; writers and thinkers who can present well-honed arguments; people armed with information, facts and figures; and we have humanists who see the bigger picture.\u00a0 We know how corporatism and militarism impact communities, and we can buttress the story with solid information to ameliorate and avoid the crises, to work towards building a new world.\u00a0 But, sometimes, we lose sight of the importance of the artist in conveying the message to the people most affected by these seismic changes; conveying that message in an emotional and unforgettable way: combining the best of what we think and what we feel, so we can experience catharsis<\/em> (as Aristotle recommended)\u2014\u201cpurgation,\u201d to purge ourselves of worn-out prejudices, to get beyond the memes and tropes indoctrinated since childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cSticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,\u201d I sang as a child.<\/p>\n

But, \u201cWhen I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoets,\u201d Shelley told us, \u201care the unacknowledged legislators of the world.\u201d\u00a0 And he meant \u201cpoets\u201d in the sense of those who dare to dream; wordsmiths and painters, musicians and dancers, playwrights\u2014and the man or woman working in wood, in clay, fashioning mind-heart rhythms into palpable essences, memorable, life-altering events: departures from the quotidian that make returning to our former states uncomfortable or impossible.\u00a0 \u201cYou must alter your life,\u201d Rilke tells us at the end of his \u201cApollo Belvedere\u201d poem.\u00a0 Creation is a constant challenge to aspire higher.<\/p>\n

But we have been living through an Age of Brass.\u00a0 The great ferment of the 60\u2019s and early 70\u2019s has tasted like sour wine poured from old bottles, as our artists sat back and financialized their talents.\u00a0 The formulaic, the commercialized established their domains over innovation, the politically and socially questioning and challenging.\u00a0 The Baby Boomers long ago boomed-out, and the generations that followed took the primrose path of co-optation, milked the golden calf long before the calf was ready, and the grants-men came, and the university sinecures were offered to the complaisant and the facile and non-threatening.<\/p>\n

For almost forty years we have wandered in this desert of non-art: art divorced from the life and concerns of \u201caverage\u201d men and women.\u00a0 And because \u201cartists\u201d (artistes!<\/em>\u00a0 Artists manque!<\/em>) have turned their backs on the life and times of the people they should serve, they have, in turn, been shunned by what Sylvia Plath called \u201cthe peanut-crunching crowd,\u201d the pop and popcorn consumers–too tired to think, too numbed to feel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose making haste, haste on decay,\u201d Jeffers wrote, building the tower of his \u201cTor House\u201d in Big Sur-edging Monterey.\u00a0 And, those making haste now, hasten the decay and destruction of their best hopes\u2026because, while they may \u201corganize\u201d and \u201cagitate\u201d\u2014as Susan B. advised, they do not \u201ceducate\u201d \u2026 and all is lost.<\/p>\n

Some 60 years ago, as war-hero \u201cIke\u201d was handing over keys to the Oval Office to his young successor, he warned a Cold War-weary nation about the M-I-C\u2014the Military-Industrial-Complex.\u00a0 Those \u201chidden persuaders\u201d are still lurking.\u00a0 But, I think, if a similar alarm were sounded today, we\u2019d also be warned about the M-E-C-C–the Media-Education-Cultural-Complex.<\/p>\n

How much longer can we be stampeded like lemmings over the cliffs?\u00a0 How much longer can we numb ourselves to corporate crime, political malfeasance, the endless wars, the pollution of mainstream media, the theft of our ballots, the dumbing-down, the bastardization of our arts and culture, racism, sexism and all the various, partisan \u201cisms\u201d that confound clear thinking and muck up what could\/should be a glorious world?<\/p>\n

At the same time, we wonder how to truly honor \u201chistory\u201d\u2014not the \u201chigh crimes and misdemeanors,\u201d but our own ability to learn from past mistakes; to express the best of what and who we are through dance, song, music, theater: speeches like King\u2019s, essays like those of du Boise, plays (and movies) like Lorraine Hansberry\u2019s \u201cA Raisin in the Sun,\u201d novels like Richard Wright\u2019s and James Baldwin\u2019s, poems like Hughes\u2019?<\/p>\n

At the same time, can we recognize our debts to those who preceded us\u2014even those whom we now deem \u201cbeyond redemption?\u201d\u00a0 For they taught us!\u00a0 They taught us what not to do on this small, precious, shrinking planet.\u00a0 They taught us not to destroy the cultures of others, not to conquer and exploit!<\/p>\n

And now we had better heed the best of our lessons; among them, Newton\u2019s 3rd<\/sup> law of motion: for everything an equal and opposite reaction.\u00a0 Do we really want to establish armed encampments on other people\u2019s property?\u00a0 Do we really want to burn down the small-business stores and restaurants of our fellow citizens\u2014Black, White, Yellow, Brown, et. al.\u00a0 Are we so far removed from the \u201cRainbow Coalition\u201d that we shall suffer self-appointed \u201cleaders\u201d to declare: \u201cIf the System does not give us what we want, we will burn in down!\u201d? \u00a0Have we burned the cord behind us\u2026the one to lead us out of the Maze?<\/p>\n

Or can we yet rise above the madness (in both senses) of these times?\u00a0 Can we declare: We are not interested in whitewashing or red-painting the past.\u00a0 We are not interested in the book-burnings of the \u201cNational Socialist\u201d state of Germany (the land of Bach, Beethoven, Rilke, Goethe).\u00a0 We want to understand how fevers generate in the human psyche, transform innocent babies into malicious adults.\u00a0 This is our task now: to understand, and to share the understanding of ourselves and others.<\/p>\n

We shall gather and tell our stories.\u00a0 Let us recognize and lament the \u201ccultural violence\u201d that has desecrated the landscapes of our minds and hearts.\u00a0 We no longer buy the tripe of \u201cart for art\u2019s sake.\u201d\u00a0 Politics is too important to be left to politicians.\u00a0 New technologies can help us bridge the chasms between cultures, reveal our common humanity.\u00a0 We need tear down no ancient monuments.\u00a0 Let us rather build \u201cmonuments of unageing intellect\u201d (as Yeats had it).\u00a0 Let us prophesy a \u201cbrave, new world\u201d with the best of our arts and cultures.\u00a0 Let us recall: One who prophesies [or teaches] speaks unto others \u201cto edify and exhort and comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

We can explore new sounds, new ideas, new visions and new dreams together.\u00a0 We can explode some old myths\u2014and lay the foundation for deeper truths\u2014truths we have wrestled the angel to find: the chiseled truths of intellect, the perdurable truths of the heart.<\/p>\n

We can \u201cexhort\u201d\u2014as Hughes does in his poem.\u00a0 We can \u201cedify\u201d and \u201ccomfort\u201d with the words of the healers and visionaries\u2014ancient and contemporary, from all the world\u2019s religions and traditions.\u00a0 \u201cA false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight,\u201d said one.\u00a0 \u201cBe frugal,\u201d Lao Tzu advised, \u201cso that you can afford to be generous\u2026.\u00a0 Be gentle, so that you can be strong when most needed.\u00a0 Be humble so that you can be a true leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having begun my explorations here with a timely and timeless poem by Langston Hughes, I\u2019d like to conclude with a hopeful, luminous poem by Maya Angelou (please click):<\/p>\n

\n

A Brave and Startling Truth<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr. <\/em>Gary Steven Corseri <\/em>is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.<\/a> He <\/em>is the grandson of Ukrainian-Jewish and Sicilian-Catholic immigrants, has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library, and his dramas have been produced on <\/em>PBS-Atlanta and in universities, high schools and Little Theaters.\u00a0 He has published two novels, one full collection and one prize-winning chapbook of poems.\u00a0 His poems, articles, fiction, dramas have appeared in hundreds of global publications & websites, including: <\/em>Transcend Media Service<\/a>, Countercurrents, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine, Miami Herald and The New York Times.<\/em>\u00a0 He has taught at universities in the U.S. and Japan, and in US prisons and public schools.\u00a0 He has worked as a grape-picker in Australia, a gas-station attendant, and an editor. <\/em>Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What happens to a dream deferred?
\nDoes it dry up
\nlike a raisin in the sun?
\nOr fester like a sore
\nAnd then run?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":84067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[915,642,868],"class_list":["post-163870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-art","tag-literature","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}