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Do I dare bring up Langston Hughes " A Dream Deferred" outside of Black History Month?
After reading SF Native and Filmmaker, Jacquie Taliaferro's most recent rounds in the Foreclosure Fight
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Jacquie Taliaferro, SF Native & Filmmaker speaks at the Black Human Rights Commission. ( Photo by Lance Burton, Planet Fillmore.)
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To answer the question at the end...can a "Dream Deferred" be resurrected? The answer is yes, "with God!" "With God, All Things Are Possible!
Sincerely,
Jackie Wright
March 1, 2015
A Dream Deferred
2008
What happens to a Dream Deferred? Langston Hughes made his observation which yielded not only his poem but the title of Lorraine Hansberry's Broadway success recently revived with Sean P.Diddy Combs on Broadway and in film, "A Raisin in the Sun."
I have found that "deferred dream" can be haunting; rife with "if, I woulda, coulda, shoulda," "what if," "where would I be now," or "where would we be now."
As I worked on projects such as "Constellation: Stars for Katrina," "Hi,Mom Day," "the Pan African Film Festival," "LaHitz@Cannes," San Francisco Black Film Festival, "the Oakland International Film Festival" and other projects, I heard my business colleague, Jacquie Taliaferro speak of his dream and battle to build a film production facility at the old Navy base at Bayview Hunter's Point.
The more than a decade battle for a multicultural film production facility that would not teach young Bayview Hunter's point children to be "share croppers" but would teach them to own their own companies has yet to be realized. What happens when a righteous dream is deferred? For one thing, time goes on as these pictures show. In one you see Taliaferro holding his son Alex in the Armory on Mission Street staking a claim that the armory would also be great for a film production facility and in the other, Alex, now 15 years old is with his dad at Stanford University on Father's Day listening to Oprah Winfrey on the very day Barrack Obama blasts Black fathers for not caring for their children.
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SF Filmmaker eyeing space for a film facility,
holding his son Alex.
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Father & Son, Jacquie with son Alex giving the Double O sign for Oprah and Obama where Oprah spoke at Standford Graduation June 15, 2008
(click photo for the Oprah for Vice President Story) |
What happens to a "Dream Deferred?" Not only the dreamer, but those who would benefit from the dream are affected. Taliaferro's, (a native son of San Francisco), dream was deferred. Forces at City Hall, the Redevelopment Agency and in the visionless community leaders halted the dream; but something came up in its place. Today, the people of the Mission are shamed by the smut factory that is now in the beleaguered Mission District.
See the articles: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/07/EDGDRNVPL71.DTL&hw=Protest+Pornography+in+Mission+District&sn=001&sc=1000
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/08/BAG37O1B4U12.DTL&hw=Protest+Pornography+in+Mission+District&sn=002&sc=812
In a response to reporter Francisco Da Costa for Indybay.org who wrote, San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) exposed to dangerous elements on Hunters Point, Sunday Nov 25th, 2007;
SF Bayview Editor: Mary Ratcliff referenced Taliaferro's struggle:
"Back when the Shipyard was first officially closed as a Navy base, we were all invited to pick out buildings to lease or lots to build on.
Jacque Taliaferro, a young Black filmmaker who had tried for years to open a good-sized studio primarily for Black filmmakers, chose that building. We backed him up, and the issue got very hot at City Hall. While supporting filmmaking in the city, Redevelopment and other city forces vehemently opposed BLACK filmmaking.
So suddenly the building was snatched out from under Jacque with the excuse that it was needed by SFPD. Very shortly after that, the RAB began to get active and the Navy began to reveal how toxic the Shipyard is. Soon the offer of parcel-by-parcel development evaporated ... and instead we got "Master Developer" Lennar.
The cops have been getting nuked every since. Remember how they complained - briefly - about the fire in 2000, then got shut up real quick."
"A Dream Deferred" can haunt you. As I recently worked with Taliaferro to reorganize his office, I was stunned beyond speech and I felt a piercing in my heart as I picked up a package with Chauncey Bailey's name on it. I can barely go on as I recall the experience of finding the script just a few weeks before the year anniversary of Chauncey's death by murder. I read the letter dated February 4, 1994.
"Dear Mr. Paliaferro (sic), Arif Khatib, president of Skytime Entertainment Inc. and an officer with the National Black Programmers Association, suggested that I write to you about a sit com I have written. Enclosed is a copy of "Hip Hop, Inc." It's about three guys who parlay their rap careers into their own record company." There it was in its original two day priority mail package with a return address for Chauncey in Tracy, CA.
I have yet to read the script. Motivated by the same halting that keeps me from removing Chauncey's name from my email contacts, I just cannot bring myself to read it. I don't know. I guess in a weird kind of way I feel to delete his name would be like reliving the moment of how he was so quickly and thoughtlessly taken away from us. It's looking at "A Dream Deferred" personified.
So there it was proof in hand that "A Dream Deferred" can affect more than just the dreamer. What if the facility had come to fruition? Chauncey's script and so many others would have had their say. Taliaferro's philosophy that Black people should be in control of their images clicked with the philosophy that was drilled in me by my paternal great grandmother "Momma Nora." "Stand up and speak up for yourself, nobody can tell it like you can," she'd preach. "Right is right and right don't wrong nobody." "Speak the truth."
Having worked in and around media for over 20 years, even garnering two Georgia Associated Press Awards in broadcasting while working my way through the University of Georgia as I raised my teenage age sister and elementary age daughter, I am a witness to the fact that there is not a "fair and balanced" portrayal of Black people and other minorities in the media. The lack of balance has its effect. Dr. Jerry Kang of UCLA says TV news perpetuates racism in his article "Trojan Horses of Race." The droning reports of yet another Black man gunned down in Oakland, week by week, year by year, created an atmosphere for Chauncey's murderer to be audacious enough to kill Chauncey thinking that it would not make a difference. It would be yet another Black man shot and killed.
Media Matters. It's important to have everyone at the table as images are sent forth from newspapers, broadcast stations, studios and the internet, because images have power. Media has lost its ability to police itself. My question is "Who is watching the watchdog."
As we tell it like it is, it's important to let our young people know that we have not been sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We have dreamed for ourselves and their future. Sometimes those dreams have encountered overwhelming challenges. In the case of Taliaferro's dream of a production facility, he had a 107-page MBA developed business plan and investors ready to go until the City officials changed the playing field making a rule that would have leases up for review on a yearly basis.
The investors felt that yearly leases evaluated by a political body would be too much of a risk. So the dream is deferred and along with it how many opportunities for young minority actors, singers, writers, producers; not to mention the aging minority actors, writers, producers etc. who still have dreams and visions that Hollywood no longer feels it can make a quick buck off of.
As so many Black businesses have been brought down, (the San Francisco Bayview among those still fighting for their life) and as so many dreams have been deferred, it's time to rally again. Where is the strength of the NAACP, the chambers of commerce, the sororities and fraternities, the cloistered clergy, the cloistered professors and the community? Can a dream deferred be resurrected? Can these dry bones live again? "Lord, you know." It's time to talk to each other. It's time to walk the talk.
Can a dream deferred be resurrected?
A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
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Jacquie Taliaferro Asks You to Post His story & to Call the Players:http://donotbuy671peralta.blogspot.com!
Dreams and Visions Make way for the future
