Fires In The Mirror

“For three days, Black people fought police, attacked Lubavitcher headquarters, and torched businesses while Hasidic patrols responded with their own violence. The conflict reflected long-standing tensions within Crown Heights between Lubavitchers and Blacks, as well as the pain, oppression, and discrimination these groups have historically experienced outside their own communities”

The way that Smith talks about the situation perfectly encapsulates the conflict and the tensions at the center of the Crown Heights incidents. Semantically, she sets black people at odds with the Lubavitcher community; they do not mix, but rather are kept separated by their identities. There is a push-and-pull between the two, as Smith oscillates from explaining what the black community did from how the Lubavitcher community responded. However, it is important to note that both communities are responding with violence. In this way, even though they might appear different, they still respond to the rage of injustice in the same way. She concludes this interrogation of their communal identities with a continued expression of how both communities are the similar: they share a history of trauma via oppression and discrimination. Of course, there are obviously still significant differences in these oppressive histories, yet Smith implies that perhaps these oppressive histories are what lead each community to react with violence towards the other. 

“Identity— / it, is, uh…in a way, it’s um…it’s sort of, it’s uh… / it’s a psychic sense of place / it’s a way of knowing I’m not a rock or that tree? / I’m this other living creature over here? / And it’s a way of knowing that no matter where I put myself / that I am not necessarily / what’s around me”

Shange localizes identity; that is, she places identity within a psychic location. This grounds identity. Instead of identity acting as a kind of ethereal thing, it becomes tangible. However, it is only tangible in terms of what it is not. Inthis way, identity is both tangible and not, just as it is both a location and not due to its existence within the psyche of the individual. It is important that Shange categorizes identity through its absence; she is only able to identify identity through her own juxtaposition to the things that surround her. In this way, identity becomes a categorization not of what is, but of what is not—a categorization of negatives. This sets up identity as indicative of the differences that we embody—from each other, from inanimate objects—in place of the similarities. Of course, in modern society, differences often create tension. Therefore, Shange implies that a part of the tension that perpetuates throughout our society might be due to the way in which we have constructed identity itself. 

“And I just sort of stood there looking kind of dumb / and then he went and pushed it, / and we laughed that he probably thought: / And people say Jewish people are really smart and they don’t know / how to turn off their radios”

The anonymous Lubavitcher woman depicts the complete lack of understanding evident between the black and Jewish communities of Crown Heights. Even though these people live in close proximity to one another, they render each other as Other through this lack of understanding. However, there is also no attempt to bridge this gap in identity. Instead of explaining her family’s inability to turn off the radio on Sabbath, this woman uses it as an entertaining anecdote. There is humor in this disconnect. However, it is then easy to see how this disconnect in cultural understanding—indeed, this disconnect in the understanding of Others’ identities—translates into anger. Here, the woman plays off this misperception; however, misperception also seems to be at the root of the tensions between the black and Lubavitcher communities, at least as far as is uncovered by Smith. By rendering another’s identity as other, misperception can easily be conflated in terms of someone’s response. Although the anecdote might seem amusing at the time, it belies the tensions rooted in misunderstanding and misperception between the two communities.

“I went to this Black—Black— / private Black grade school / where / I was extraordinary. / Everybody there was extraordinary. / You were told you were extraordinary. / It was very clear / that I could not go to see 101 Dalmatians at the Capital Theatre / because it was segregated”

Wolfe explains the difference between his experiences within his own community and within the larger American society in general. In this way, his identity shifts depending upon his location and the surrounding community. Within the black community, he is viewed as extraordinary in terms of his intelligence. However, that identity does not translate into larger American society as a result of racism and discriminatory segregation. In this way, there is a disconnect felt between the personal and the communal identity. Outside of the black community, he is seen first as black, as evidenced by his emphasis on the private black grade school that he attended. This identity limits his experiences as a result of segregation.

“When I grew up and I look in the mirror and I saw I was Black. / When I look at my parents, / That’s how I knew I was Black”

The anonymous girl perfectly connects the conversations regarding identity and mirrors of the two previous sections with the Hair’s section emphasis on appearance as it relates to identity. She sees her blackness as a reflection, both in the image reflected in the mirror and in her parents’ faces looking back at her. In this way, identity itself is constructed as a reflection, both of the self but also of society. Personal identity is intrinsically tied to social norms and ideas, as well as the knowledge about identity that stems from this reflection. To know oneself—as black, for example—requires an understanding of society as well. Therefore, it seems as though Smith is implying that knowing one’s own identity can only emerge through a knowledge of social tenets. Social identity, therein, informs personal identity, not the other way around. 

“It’s a personal thing between me and James Brown. / And just like / in other communities / people do their cultural thing / with who they wanna look like, / uh, / there’s nothing wrong with me doing / that with James. / It’s, it’s, us. / I mean in the fifties it was a slick. / It was acting like White folks. / But today / people don’t wanna wear their hair like that. / James and I the only ones out there doing that. / So it’s certainlih not / a reaction to Whites”

Reverend Sharpton speaks to his appearance as being a source of personal as opposed to communal identity. He argues that although people may see it as a kind of social commentary, that is not his intent. Rather, his hair is his own, representing the bond between himself and a man he considered to be like a father figure. He asserts that his hair is not a reaction to whiteness, but rather a source of personal preference. However, the very idea that Sharpton must defend his appearance demonstrates how closely appearance is linked to identity. It also demonstrates the conflation between appearance and personal identity with social commentary. Even though Sharpton argues that this is not his intent, the linkage between social commentary and personal identity still exists, despite his protestations. In this way, it seems as though every personal act and choice becomes political, although this could also be a result of his celebrity. 

“So with a wig you have to have like five wigs if you want to do that. / But I, uh, / I feel somehow like it’s fake, / I feel like it’s not me. / I try to be as much myself as I can, / and it just / bothers me / that I’m kind of fooling the world”

Despite wearing a wig for many years, Siegal has found that this community tradition bothers her. By wearing someone else’s hair, Siegal does not feel like herself; she feels fake. In this way, her community informs her appearance to the detriment of her personal identity. In contrast to Sharpton’s assertion that his personal appearance is not reflective of his communal identity, Siegal feels as though her appearance—based on the norms and identity of her community—is not reflective of her personal identity. The audience sees the contrast between these two opinions of appearance and their reflective impact upon identity. 

“I don’t think / it would have been possible to convince me that things would have so absolutely / shifted that / someone could have evoked / the specter of lynching / on national television / and that specter of lynching would be used to violate our history. / And I still feel that / we have to point out the racism involved / in the razing of a Black man / and a Black woman” 

Davis is referring to Clarence Thomas’s assertion that white liberals fabricated Anita Hill’s claims of sexual harassment in order to oppose Bush’s appointment of him to the Supreme Court. She finds it unconscionable that Thomas would use the language evocative of the historical trauma of the black community for political gain. She does not believe that the use of this language gives credence to the oppression faced by the black community for hundreds of years in America. Rather, it belittles this history, allowing it to be used for something as paltry as personal gain. This method of appropriating a kind of communal language of identity for personal profit plays into the racism systemic within America, as it does not interrogate these histories of oppression but rather aligns them solely with a person, not with the community. 

“You have to be def, / … Def is dope, def is live / when you say something’s dope / it means it is the epitome of the experience / and you have to be def by your very presence / because you have to make people happy. / And we are living in a society where people are not happy with their everyday lives”

Matthews speaks about the importance of words, especially in terms of rapping. In Matthews’s definition of the word “dope,” she finds it to be indicative of the penultimate expression of experience. In this way, Matthews finds rap—that is, lyrical, dope rap—to be the ultimate expression of experience, much in the same way that Smith is trying to use language in order to capture the experience of the Crown Heights incident. However, Matthews believes that by capturing this experience, you can make people happy, even if they are not happy with their own experiences. In this way, even though words can be indicative of experience, they can transcend the experience in order to encompass some sort of universal truth; that is, in their perfect encapsulation of experience, they can allow people who share that experience to be happy, even if that experience is not a happy one. In this way, Matthews believes that words are able to transcend the bounds of mere reflection of society and have an effect upon that individual.

“A cutaway of a slave ship / that was so real that they had to bring in these high school kids, / and once these high school kids played the enslaved Africans greased / down in simulated vomit / and feces / they couldn’t come back” 

Jeffries’s examination of Roots’ casting demonstrates the deeply entrenched nature of racism within America. There is something deeply troubling about using high school students to play the part of slaves, especially in the greasing down of them with feces and vomit, however simulated. There is denigration in this depiction that Smith and Jeffries capture, especially considering how much the producers profited off of this depiction. Jeffries maintains that this kind of profiting off historical trauma reiterates systems of oppression, rendering the experiences of these high school students to be similar to those of the slaves (although, for obvious reasons, not the same). Jeffries speaks about the slave ship as being so real that the students could not come back, just as the slaves themselves could not come back. Although these experiences are obviously quite different, they also imply the reverberation of historical oppression. Such trauma does not go away, but rather is reproduced in various ways within society.

“But Blacks, it’s like a little child kicking up against Arnold / Swarzenegger / when they, / when they have anything to say about the dominant culture / nobody listens! Nobody reacts! / To get a headline, / to get on the evening news, / you have to attack a Jew. / Otherwise you’re ignored. / And it’s a shame. / We all play into it”

Pogrebin admits to her privilege in terms of having a voice concerning systems of oppression. As someone of Jewish descent, she argues that Jews experience preferential treatment within the media in regard to bias and discrimination, especially in comparison to the black community. Implicit within her argument, therefore, is the idea that some of the tension that led to the Crown Heights incidents are results of this inequity in terms of having a voice. Pogrebin argues that the black community does not have a voice when it comes to arguing against systems of oppression; however, she also acknowledges society’s complicity in this inequality: everyone plays into this systemic oppression; everyone is culpable because no one is listening. In this way, she implies that everyone is also culpable for the events that transpire as a result of this inequity, such as the Crown Heights incidents. 

“Not only were we sold on the auction block / like cattle, / not permitted to marry. / See these are the crimes / of slavery that nobody wants to talk about. / But the most significant crime— / because we could have recovered from all of that— / but the fact that they cut off all knowledge from us, / told us that we were animals, / told us that we were subhuman, / took from us our names, / gave us names like / Smith / and Jones / and today we wear those names / with dignity / and pride, / yet these were the names given to us in one of the greatest crimes / ever committed on the face of the earth”

Minister Mohammed outlines the greatest crime committed against the collective black community: that of the cutting off of knowledge concerning identity. In order to punctuate his argument, he uses Smith’s own last name as evidence of the continuing oppression faced by the black community. The black community still faces a crisis of identity, Mohammed maintains, because they are using the same names that the slave masters gave to them. He says that these names cannot be worn with pride because they were used as labels of property; as such, there is no connection between these names and the identity of the individual. Rather, these names reproduce the same systems of oppression that allowed for these crimes to occur, instead of trying to overthrow racism.

“‘Because he was blonde and blue-eyed he had been / chosen as the designated survivor of his town. / That is the Jewish councils had instructed him to do anything / to stay alive and tell the story….Among those whom Isaac packed into the gas chambers that day / dispassionately as if shoving a few more items into an overstuffed / closet / were his wife / and / two children’”

Pogrebin’s second interview consists of her reading a section from a book she wrote about her uncle, who was a Holocaust survivor. By using this excerpt of Pogrebin’s own writing as a kind of metadrama (a play within a play—in this case, a story within a play), Smith plays with the idea of reflections especially concerning conceptions of identity. On stage, Smith would be playing Pogrebin in the interview as she reads from a narrative about her uncle. In this way, both Smith and Pogrebin are reflecting the trauma faced by other individuals in their retelling of the events. However, this metadrama also collapses the distance between the experiences of this trauma, as Smith comes to embody Pogrebin’s embodiment of her uncle’s trauma. In this way, the words allow for a collapse both of psychic experience and of identity as well. However, this story of Isaac is also important because it demonstrates the importance placed on appearance in terms of identity. In this story, Isaac was associated with a different communal identity which then affected his personal identity—that of the sole survivor; however, this personal identity was also a reflection of his true communal identity, as it was an identity that was more or less forced upon him by his community. In this way, Pogrebin demonstrates the slippage between the personal and the communal in terms of identity through Isaac’s narrative. 

“We probably have seventy different kind of bias, prejudice, racism, and / discrimination, / but it’s not in our mind-set to be clear about it, / so I think that we have / sort of lousy language / on the subject / and that / is a reflection / of our unwillingness / to deal with it honestly / and to sort it out. / I think we have very, very bad language” 

Sherman speaks to the importance of words in terms of discussing systems of oppression. However, instead of the arguments Matthews, for example, who says that words can be used to encapsulate and sometimes transcend experience, Sherman argues that the words Americans use to describe bias and discrimination cause more problems that they solve. Much like how the Eskimos have seventy different words for snow, Sherman argues that discrimination is so prevalent within American society that we also have seventy different words for it; racism in America is like snow in the arctic: always present and always taking different forms. Sherman believes that racism’s prevalence is also due in part to our inability to honestly talk about it—that is, our unwillingness to use these words in order to discuss it. So instead of using the correct words, we try to come up with different words in order to obfuscate the truth. In this way, words act as an integral part of understanding and coming to grips with the truth, thereby demonstrating their importance in terms of fighting systems of oppression. 

“Whatever information [the Mayor] got out of the Black community was / that / the driver had run a red light / and also, / and that the ambulance, / the Hasidic ambulance, / refused to take care of the Black child that was dying and / rather took care of their own. / Nenh? / And this is what was fed amongst the Black community. / And it was false, / it was totally false / and it was done maliciously / only with the intent to get the riots, / to start up the resulting riots” 

Rabbi Spielman suggests that words can be used in order to obstruct the truth. He implies that words cannot always be taken at face value, but rather that the intent behind the words must be interrogated in order to determine their truth. In this way, words are not synonymous with truth, even if they may be synonymous with experience. This brings into question the relative truth associated with experience. He is essentially arguing that there is true experience and untrue or false experience, the line between which he believes words can obfuscate. The end result of this obfuscation of truth, then, is violence. He believes that the violence was not a result of the experience, past and present, of the black community, but rather it was an extension of false words and untruth. 

“The Jewish ambulance— / was concerned about the people in the van / while some boy lay dead, / a black boy lay dead on the street. / The people showed their anger, / (Increase in volume) / they burned and whatever else, / upturned / police cars / and looted, / and as a result, / I think in retaliation, murdered one of the Hasidics. / But that was just the match that lit the powder keg. / It’s gonna happen again and again. / There’s a Mexican standoff right now / But it’s gonna happen again”

Reverend Sam suggests the inevitability of the violence that resulted from the Crown Heights accident. In contrast to Spielman, who suggests that words and mistruth were at the root of the violence, Sam suggests that the violence was a direct result of the traumatic experiences of the black community. He correlates anger to this experience of oppression, implying that violence is the end result of such anger and injustice. Not only does he say that it was bound to happen in Crown Heights, but Sam does not believe that the situation has been resolved. Rather, in cases of systemic oppression, the violence lingers below the surface because the anger never goes away. The experience of oppression has not changed; therefore, the violence will continue.

“‘Oh, yo / it’s a Jew man. / He broke the stop light, they never get arrested.’ / At first we was laughin’, man, we was like / you see they do anything / and get away with it, / and then / we saw that he was out of control, / and den / we started regrettin’ laughin’, / because then / we saw where he was goin’”

Anonymous Young Man #1 encapsulates the perception of the Lubavitcher community by the Black community in Crown Heights. The black community perceives the Lubavitcher community to be above the law in direct opposition to their own community, which exists at the mercy of the law. #1 further plays with the idea of perception as he discusses the unfolding of the incident, whereupon bystanders go from laughing casually to understanding the gravity of the situation. In this way, experience is intrinsically tied to perception, as the experience of a situation changes dramatically with a change in the perception of the situation at hand. That is, the bystanders thought it was just business as usual until they perceived the threat to the boy’s life—and by extension, to their community. With this change in perception, their experience of the situation becomes much more serious, and they begin to regret the flippancy of their previous disregard of the situation. The words themselves bear witness to how drastically a situation and its experience can shift: the lines become shorter as the car approaches the boy and the situation shifts towards inevitability. 

“Hey, wait a minute, they got eyes and ears everywhere. / What color is the Israeli flag? And what color are the police cars? / That man was drunk, / I open up his car door, / I was like when— / I was like, he’d been drinkin’ / I know our words don’t have no meanin’, / as Black people in Crown Heights. / You realize, man, / ain’t no justice, / ain’t never been no justice, / ain’t never gonna be no justice”

Anonymous Young Man #1 explains the importance of words, especially in regard to the law. #1 believes that the words of the black community have no meaning; that is, much like previous interviewees—including Letty Pogrebin—the black community has no valid social voice. They might be able to say the words, but their words either hold no weight or no one listens when they speak. Without an engaged audience, the words therefore are absent of meaning. Essentially, they are empty air, as useless as the pursuit of justice for the black community. #1 conflates the issues of justice and the importance of words. In his mind, because the black community’s words have no weight, there will never be any justice for black victims such as Gavin Cato. This logic would imply, then, that once the black community has a voice—that is, it’s words have meaning and are listened to—there may be a chance to achieve justice. 

“I began feeling like / I had to do it / after he told me that, / ‘the blood of the Black man’ / were on my hands, / you know. / Richard Green sure know how to use certain words” 

Rice speaks to the importance of words, specifically how powerful they can be if used within the right context. Usually, words are powerful when associated with a person who understands their malleability; that is, a person must understand how to use words in order to harness their power. Rice speaks of how he was guilted into action via Green’s use of words, specifically how Green made him feel as though he was responsible for other members of his community through words. In this way, communal identity is created and a communal sense of responsibility established through words. Therefore, communication can be seen as integral to the establishment and continuity of a communal identity.

“That’s how it is in Crown Heights. / I been livin’ in Crown Heights mosta my life. / I know for a fact that that youth, that sixteen-year-old, / didn’t kill that Jew. / That’s between me and my Creator”

With this statement by Anonymous Young Man #2, the audience sees the slippery nature of words. At first, his assertion that he knows for a fact that Lemrick Nelson did not kill Rosenbaum reads like the rest of his statement. However, with the addition of the last line, his previous interview reads more like a confession to killing Rosenbaum than an assertion that Nelson is innocent. However, the last line is again open to interpretation, as it could signal a kind of confession on #2’s part, but it could also suggest that he knows who did stab Rosenbaum. Of course, it could even mean none of these things, as the last sentence of #2’s interview, the true meaning of this final statement is open to interpretation. Herein lies the problem associated with placing importance upon words. If one does not understand the context within which they arise, one can come to many different conclusions regarding their nature. The words are then left up to the perceptions of the audience, again demonstrating Smith’s conflation between words—or perhaps experience—and their perception. 

“We wanted to show the world / one, this man ran / and was allowed to run, and two, we wanted to be able to legally go / around him, / to sue the people he was working for so that we can bring them into / court and establish why and what happened / And it came out in the paper the other day / that the driver in the other car didn’t even have a driver’s license. / so we’re dealing with a complete outrage here, / we’re dealing with a double standard, / we’re dealing with uh, uh a, a / situation where / Blacks do not have equal protection under the law / and the media is used to castigate us / that merely asked for justice / rather than castigate those that would hit a kid / and walk away like he just stepped on a roach”

Sharpton explains that the fact that Lifsh ran was mainly left out of the mainstream media. However, he also indicts the people who allowed him to run after he killed a child. Regardless of the man’s intent or whether or not he had been drinking, Lifsh was, at the very least, guilty of vehicular manslaughter and then was aided in leaving the country for Israel. Sharpton explains that he wants to understand how it was that this man was helped in fleeing the scene of a crime. More specifically, Sharpton also wants to understand why it is that the media is questioning their attempts to get at this information instead of questioning why Lifsh was allowed to leave the country. Sharpton explains the double standard here, placing importance upon the words that are printed or said in the media. In this case, he is questioning why there is an absence of words associated with Lifsh’s culpability as opposed to the many words that castigate the black community for seeking justice. 

“Those young people had rage out there, / that didn’t matter who was in control of that— / that rage had to get out / and that rage has been building up. / When all those guys have come and gone, / that rage is still out here. / I can show you that rage every day / right up and down this avenues. / We see, sometimes in one month, we see three bodies / in one month. That’s rage, / and that’s something that nobody has control of…. I pray on both sides of the fence, / and I tell the people in the Jewish community the same thing, / ‘This is not something that force will hold”

Green depicts the reality of the struggle faced by young black men in Crown Heights. He implies that the Crown Heights incidents are a result of the pent-up rage felt by many of the youth, who see acts of rage as viable means to an end. In Green’s opinion, rage and violence seem to be synonymous with one another: both ultimately end up with bodies on the ground. Green says that no one has control over this rage, just as no one can control the violence that it brings. Because no one can control the rage and the violence, these two aspects of social unrest can be seen as being inevitable. In this way, Green argues for the same inevitability in the erupting of tensions in Crown Heights that Reverend Sam previously acknowledged, demonstrating that this belief is widespread. 

“Did you know that the Blacks who came here to riot were not my / neighbors? / I don’t love my neighbors. / I don’t know my Black neighbors. / There’s one lady on President Street— / Claire— / I adore her. / she’s my girlfriend’s next-door neighbor. / I’ve had a manicure / done in her house and we sit and kibbutz / and stuff / but I don’t know them. / I told you we don’t mingle socially / because of the difference / of food / and religion / and what have you here. / But / people in this community / want exactly / what I want out of life. / They want to live / in nice homes”

Malamud speaks about her neighbors, some of whom she mentions are black. However, there is a distinct disconnect felt between Malamud and her black neighbors, whom she admits she neither knows nor loves. Despite this disconnect, she assumes that she and they are the same, or at the very least that they want the same things. In this way, she constructs her black neighbors as Other while still placing her own values, identity, and perceptions upon them. She is certain that the people who were rioting could not have been her neighbors, as this would go against her own assumptions regarding them. She is so disconnected from the Black community that she cannot possibly fathom the rage that other interviewees demonstrate as being integral to the Black experience, especially within the Crown Heights neighborhood. In this way, perhaps Malamud understands even less about the black community than she perceives she does, even though she admits to not knowing them at all.