Tag: one

Dear Blue,

Some of you take The Bible or The Quran as your sacred text.  Hamlet is mine.

In the meditations that follow I write about the first seven lines of the play (though mostly the first five) and make the argument Hamlet converts us, you the African students, and me the American teacher, into the black at the back of the glass.  In the reflection that results, we can see what the play tells us: God is the metaphor that won't die.

You might well think it controversial to suggest Shakespeare can help us cross the gap between old white guys like me and young black people like you, especially if you are already offended by how I am bringing god into the picture.  While I fear talking like an old white American, one who has no idea how offensive he might be, I am not working to protect you as a believer.  I even fantasize that our spending time together with Hamlet might enhance rather than undermine your faith.

The catastrophe of distance between people--between individuals and groups, East and West, old and young, black and white, and all the rest--calls for every bridge we can build. But you would be right to suspect this one comes from my side of the rift and read accordingly. Yes, I think the bridge I have in mind can serve any and all of us, even if its foundation is Shakespeare rather than an African writer and even if my argument is for the power of imagination rather than for anything in what you might call scripture. We need something that links us all, one to another, and I see that link, that bridge, as human consciousness embodied in words rather than a specific deity, be that deity Christian, Islamic, Jewish, or some other. Connected to this, or to offense of any kind, is what I said to some of you in class when we were together.  We must be able to disagree, even disagree vehemently, and then eat lunch together.

Still, if what I say is stupid or blasphemous in your mind I seek your forgiveness up front.  Luckily, you are more likely to get bored by this project before you care about it enough to be angry because if this play can be read as a map back from tragedy, including the tragedies located in race and gender and Africa vs. not Africa, it will take some time to explain how and why. And surely you have more important things to do. 

Before you go on to the first mediation or before you click away forever, let me remind you that no one on campus knew less about Africa than I did when we met.  Any little thing I know now about the continent comes from you.  (Well, you and Mr. Dash.)  Thank you for all you taught me and teach me still. Thank you all the more for the generosity, hospitality, and hilarity you showed me.  I was the less deserving.

And you should know that I have used some of your names as a rhetorical device here.   Marubini, Sefa, Nduta, Jimcale, Keabetswe, Ladouce, Fred, Fadekemi, Ayomide, Samkelo, Umar, Numay, Zeinab, Ashna, Temi, Amina, Sean, Melanie, Michelle, Sizo, Tomisin, Eniola, and Jonathan make appearances in what follows.  But it is their names, not their characters I am borrowing, as you will see.  I beg your forgiveness if you mind my taking this liberty. 

Sooner than you, I will become a ghost.  But if, between then and now, you need to question something you read here or think I can be of help to you in some practical way, I hope you will call on me.

With love,

--Mr. Ted

P.S.

Let us say that what follows is for Khesa.