Two Trains Running and 9/11

Back in September 2001, when Al Qaeda bombed America, the unemployment rate in Black America, was 8.6 percent. Today, 10 years later, on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 bombing, the rate is nearly twice that amount at 16.7 percent. It has been the topic of much chatter lately.

I wrote an essay in 2001 in response to the bombing and all the calls afterwards for war. It appeared in the Progressive Magazine and is called “Stand by the Man: Black America and the Dilemma of Patriotism.” I wrote the essay because I wanted to stress the fact that after the brazen attack on the country, Black Americans, like all Americans would be asked to sacrifice for the country, and go to war. Domestic problems had to wait, and I thought that was very disappointing. It is one of the reasons I opposed the war.

Here is an excerpt:

We would be asked to do what we had always done without any promise of future benefit: to prove our unconditional love and loyalty for America. Drop any grievances or problems we have with our American condition for the time being, or maybe for a generation or so.

Today, that sacrifice continues for Black Americans but on different terms. Black Americans are not being asked to wait (like many others) because we are at war but because the country is broke. There can be no more spending by the government to try to get the economy going and create jobs, and besides, the Republicans argue, more spending won’t work anyway because we know better. Of course, they should probably say, we spent all the money on wars and tax breaks so we do know that the country is broke.

Of course, this is just silly politics. Austerity now is the road to disaster. Banks and corporations are making record profits but the people have to starve, rob to eat, especially Black Americans. It makes no sense.

But while this story of Black America’s woes remains beneath the radar on the tenth anniversary of the bombing of America, also beneath the radar is the reaction of many Black Americans to the unemployment rate and what should happen now. Here is what I am reading more and more: lets’ do our own thing. We have a black President and still can’t get some kind of focus on the severe issues in Black America such as unemployment, poor educational opportunities, and rampant discrimination by financial institutions, so be it, time for a new way – our way.

This is, of course, old stuff: Build your own, hire your own. The pursuit of the American Dream, through traditional means, in other words, has stalled, but we have to eat in the meantime.

August Wilson’s 1992 play “Two Trains Running” explains this dilemma. The play is all about a choice between political pressure to assimilate into the so called mainstream or self help in order to develop your own community and autonomous institutions that will uplift your own. The play is set in 1960’s Pittsburgh. The most important moments in the play are the appearances of a mentally ill painter named Hambone who repeatedly says the same thing over and over throughout the play: “I want my ham.”

Hambone painted a white man’s fence for a ham but was given a chicken. He declined the chicken but continues to demand his “ham.” The symbolism is obvious: Hambone is wasting his time and he is wasting away waiting for his just due just like Black Americans. He should be doing for self.

I am hearing more and more of this these days. It goes back to W.E.B. DuBois’ quest for civic equality v. Booker T. Washington’s famous “drop your buckets” mentality. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. picked up the DuBois’ banner for the most part; Malcolm X and the Black Panthers opted for their own version of Washington’s self help. Integration was victorious; it is and has been the dominant political and economic strategy of Black America for the last 50 years.

But, in light of those unemployment numbers, is it time for Wilson’s other train to began to ride?

In a review of the play in 1992 for the New York Times, critic, Frank Rich wrote that the characters in Wilson’s play did not place their “hopes” in “distance leaders sowing dreams of lofty change.” They have faint “fantasies of justice.”

Black Americans are still waiting for Mr.Obama. But they have to ask themselves: do they really want their ham or something else? They keep being offered chicken.

Brian Gilmore