Painful Art

Sitting in the theatre, lights shining on the stage stretched out in rectangle between two sets of spectator seating, the stage not elevated, us – the audience – elevated instead. And in a sea of whiteness, almost exclusive whiteness, my feelings were a mix between rage and confusion. 

Last night, We are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrkia, Between the Years 1884 - 1915 , a play, disoriented me, bouncing between silly laughter and the slaughter of thousands in a lattice of humor and disgust not easily reconciled. It was more than the crafting of a complex story; I applaud a complicated journey that does not cater to neat packaging of extremes. But I’d entered the play with thoughts of a genocide- assumptions that no one could talk about a genocide with anything other than gravity. 

The first few minutes were wrought with humor- laughter emerging unexpectedly from myself and the people seated around me. I got comfortable. A purposeful positioning by the director I’m sure. I was lulled. Lulled myself into thinking there could be humor in the decimation of the Herero people of Namibia. 

My fault. 

I wasn’t diligent enough. I didn’t hold onto the horror of it long enough. My brain didn’t ache from the strain of carrying the Herero atrocity at the forefront of my mind.

The play went on, veering into stories of German-ness – whiteness. Soldiers writing home too their loved ones. As if this story of the Herero should be told – could be told- through the love letters of the soldiers that slaughtered them. 

The anger welled like bile in my throat. I clutched my fists and looked around – surreptitious glances at the audience. The people laughing at all the “right” places. The people properly quiet and chaste when the script called for that too. 

There erupted some fiercer emotion for me. Overly sensitive to the depiction of Africa and its many varied inhabitants, I tried to weigh my internal reflex reactions against the possible satire or deeper meaning I might be missing. I struggled to ignore the subtlety (or maybe not so subtle) typing of an angry black man, neurotic white woman.

In fairness – the play finessed the white-lens default on genocide…the idea that every genocide was in some way related to the holocaust. The assumption that anything before the holocaust was simply a rehearsal, anything after, a gross mimicry. As if human suffering is a competition. As if only the “winner” matters.

The thing is, we never got to the Herero. Prominent in the name of the play, they are all but absent from it. Their story is the hook it all hangs on and yet they are only the background – talked about but never talking. Even the conversation about their voicelessness only amplifies their silence. With a little space to sort through my feelings from last night I can consider that maybe that was the point. At least one of the points of the play. Either way, what do I do with that?

The part of the play that resonated with me – whether by my own fabrication or possibly purposeful intent – is the idea that no one can be/can see themselves on the wrong side of history. We don’t want to admit we could be – could have been. No one wants to be a slave owner, a genocidal solider. No one wants to see that kind of darkness and recognize it as their own reflection. And yet we are apt to thrust ourselves into the victim role- the survivor. See our horrors buoyed on the horrors of another.

The idea of who we are and who we could be is brought up again and again and again. Black isn’t the same as African. White doesn’t translate into a German soldier. Pennsylvanian coal miner stories are not universal stories…except when they are. The truth is that we are all pieces of the same story, capable of the same atrocities, of suffering the same cruelties. Maybe not the literal all…not every single person…but enough of us. Enough of us in the world so that we continue to recreate our most brutal histories. Creating genocides even as we argue that we could never do that…I could never do that.

The final blow of We are Here to Present… had me seething with rage that it had gone there. That, without warning or clearly defined trail, the story shifted and transported us to American soil. All of a sudden the Herero man became an American one. The soldiers became police- German law became Jim Crow (and its ancestor laws we have left nameless but enact brutality on present-day brown bodies just the same). All of a sudden the fear wasn’t the Namibian dessert, instead it was the noose.

The scene was frenzied. A terrified black man bound and bullied from all sides, “n!&&er” floating from white lips on deep voices. Feet pounding a rhythm like a hammering heartbeat. This man’s terror both visceral and visible – on display for us to marvel at his inability to escape the mob. Feet pounding, bodies constricting his movement. Feet pounding directing him toward scaffolding and a familiar end. Feet pounding and the noose around his neck.

A noose around his neck.

I wasn’t ready for the noose around his neck. Wasn’t ready for a grown man bent and crying. Wasn’t ready for the veneer of civil discourse ripped so brutally apart.

He yanked off the noose and ran screaming and crying from the stage. The black woman followed.

Silence.

Four people remained on stage. The white actors chuckling in a nervous fashion. Deeply uncomfortable. Laughter born of fear or shame. The lone black man bent to pick up scraps of paper that had fallen and been dropped throughout the play. Single minded of purpose, he didn’t speak, didn’t make eye contact, looked only at each scrap of paper, tidying the space around him with a fierceness that was palpable. 

Picking up pieces…picking up the pieces of a failed attempt to tell a story of an atrocity elsewhere when we are unable to tell the stories of our own atrocities.

The stage emptied one person at a time and we were left with silence. A few moments passed and the applause began. People standing, an offering of their appreciation.

But I didn’t stand. I couldn't clap. 

For me this was not a therapeutic flogging of the horrors done so many in 1915. This was a vivid visceral painful reminder of what horrors are done every day. This was not Namibia this was Sanford, and Oakland, and Cleveland. This was not history this was my today…and I don’t know how to applaud that.

Stranger in the Sand

We left her there. Sitting in the wet sand with strangers. Granted, we were barely more than strangers; we hadn’t come together even if we were there for the same event.

She was stubborn. Sitting on the ground being poked and prodded by the PA who happened to be passing by. The PA stayed there. She stayed and watched over our stranger, the PA waited for the paramedics to arrive. And once they arrived, she stayed and waited while they sent for transport with wheels. A new indignity. They would not carry her on the board they brought with them. She was too heavy.

I was torn. Part of me eager to explore the tide-pools on a stretch of beach I'd never seen… part of me wanting to linger, provide company if not comfort. But she kept shooing us. Sending us to the to the edge of the rocks where the tide was fighting its way back in.

We obeyed- maybe not reluctantly enough. We cast our eyes back in her direction periodically. Checking to see her progress. Was she still on the ground? Had the new transport arrived? Did she look like she needed us?

The tide slapped against the rocks. Funneled itself into the channels cut deep over months or years. Anemone crouched low- impatient ones already open- arms flung wide and basking gloriously in their otherworldly green petals- like negative-tinted sunflowers. The hesitant ones, unlike their kin, remained closed and guarded against the sinking sun, waning but bright.

The water splashed our ankles sporadically, then receded as if scolded. But the sporadic became more routine and so we headed back, our heads still turned to the sand, crouching occasionally to look into pools of water that still teemed with life. Starfish and crabs and fanning plants searched for a foothold to keep them safe in the oncoming currents.

We approached her again. Still seated on the sand, the PA talking to her patiently – if not a little condescendingly, almost as if she were speaking to a child. The same enunciated words and clipped phrases. The same false cheeriness. Still, she didn’t abandon her post- a post that wasn’t even her post- and so who am I to judge?

We lingered again. Trying to be respectful of the medical history being given, allowing a buffer of sand sand and idle chatter while she shared her information, we wandered back to her side when we thought they might be finished. We never crouched down next to her though- I don’t know why.

We asked about her camera. Big and expensive, we knew it was something she’d want safe. And it was safe. Another thing the PA had handled. And we asked about her car. Could we drive it to the hospital, make sure she didn't have to worry about that? She wouldn’t hear of it. Kept fussing in the same way that she fussed at us - insistent - that we continue the nature walk, shooing us as if we were a nuisance.

And I guess we were. Near strangers that were witness to her vulnerability, splayed out on the sand.

The paramedics looked up at us with disdain. I’m almost certain that is my own projection – my own feelings of helplessness with a stranger under duress. He asked which of us had driven with her. 

None of us had. We were veritable strangers. First names only. 40 minutes into a nature walk we’d all driven hours for.

“Would any of you drive her car?” an accusation in my mind. an indictment even though we would have been happy to drive her car. I would have been ecstatic to be less useless.

But she'd been adamant that would couldn't. So, all we could answer- the collective brown us- was that we’d asked and she’d declined. How could you blame her. We were strangers. And whether a lack of trust or the feeling of putting someone out, the result is the same. “I can handle it.” Even if the truth is that you can’t-or that it would be easier if you didn't have to.

I don’t know how she is doing now. No way to help, no duty to fulfill, the tide steady moving in, the paramedics and the PA flanking her on all sides, the collective us inched our way back the way we had come. Stopped periodically. Looked back. Stopped again.

Someone provided periodic updates for a little while. I’m not sure where she got them from. Was she walking slower than the rest of us- or maybe faster- walking back and forth between the distance we’d put between us? Maybe she had better hearing.

“They got her up on her leg and then had her sit back down.”

"It isn't broken but they were fearful of the damage too much weight on it would cause."

I wondered about the tide. Wondered how long they had before the waters claimed that spot she was sitting in. What was the protocol then?

We didn't find out. We found a starfish and crouched to get a better look. We talked about grabbing a bite to eat and began to plan the logistics of that. We were in cars, drying off, chatting idly about the day behind us, the traffic before us.

She was still sitting in the sand I imagine.

And we left her there.