Viewpoint:
From Pink Ghetto to Blue Collar
By Linda Hertz
After many years of working in careers traditionally filled by women, I set out to find employment tailored to fulfill my own needs. Tired of secretarial duties, I started seeking employment in the predominantly male blue collar workforce.
Not having the basic workshop courses in school was a handicap. I was so unskilled I had to start out in a so-called "sweat shop" to get the basic technical and mechanical knowledge I lacked. The pay was very low and the management tried to get every last ounce of work from each worker. For a while I was Review:
able to grin and bear it just to get the knowledge I needed as fast as possible and then move on.
The difficulty I found at first was that the majority of the men kept their know-how to themselves. They probably resented working for such low pay in the first place, so they didn't want to bother teaching anyone else. Also, in their position they may have felt that keeping their knowledge to themselves was their only form of job security. Still, a few were willing to share and teach me.
So I sweated it out, growing to hate management in their white shirts and dark ties. I loved work,
The "Eyes" Don't Have It at Karamu
By Ann Bender
•
I only recently discovered the writings of Zora Neal Hurston, whose 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God was the basis for playwright Mari Evans' musical/drama Eyes. That Ms. Hurston's writings were ahead of her time is obvious, undoubtedly one of the reasons her works have remained in obscurity so long. The theme of Eyes is an old one-a young woman, Janie, searches for love and happiness. What is unique is the focus upon Janie's search for herself and what will make her happy. Even though the theme is interrupted too often for the sake of entertainment, the message remains clear-you don't find happiness pleasing someone else, only by pleasing yourself which happens to please someone else.
Every female character in Eyes is powerful and individually represents stereotypic thoughts affecting the character formation of not only Black-American women, but all American women. One example is Grannie, who sings "Love Is a Trap," then forces her young granddaughter, Janie, to marry an almost comical elderly man for security. Looking for romance, Janie is swept off her feet by Jody, a younger, stronger, ambitious and jealous man who then manages to "keep her in her place" for twenty years. She finally demands independence, to the openly expressed delight of the audience. After her second husband's demise, Janie finally has the opportunity to choose what she wants to experience, singing "A Woman (alone) Isn't a Pitiful Thing" (again to the delight of the women in the audience), then falling in love with a man younger than she, a practiced lover with an accompanying reputation. They respectfully, lovingly work through difficulties of developing what is suposed to be a meaningful relationship for them both. This is where Karamu's interpretation creates serious problems, almost the undoing of Eyes altogether.
While the first two men in Janie's life suppressed her, Karamu's director/choreographer, Mike Malone, continues that suppression throughout her third relationship, giving the play an ending of unrequited love rather than a woman's statement of personal growth and self-acceptance.
This play could become a major theatrical success and provide real insight to. its audience. As it is, however, the potential power is lost by the director's use of inappropriate, almost deliberate, bad timing, undermining its message. The audience was led to laughter more than once during serious moments, leaving the leading character with the difficult and unforgiveable task of trying, alone on stage, to regain the audience's appropriate focus. While the music is fun and well-written, the choreogrophy is made up of tedious, overly dramatic plantation-work movements, and steps such as those in the very white Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (for a 20th Century southern black musical?)
Aside from these difficulties, 1 commend The
Karamu Company for providing much higher quality entertainment than the Hanna Theatre's production of One Mo' Time earlier this year. Because of this, it may be appropriate for both the general public and
the Karamu staff to give its performers proper respect by not allowing disruptive seating of late arrivals during crucial opening scenes.
Eyes is worth seeing, for its insightful lines and lyrics, in spite of the flaws in direction and choreography. More than for its entertainment, Eyes serves as a light introduction to Mari Evans and the powerful, newly available writings of Zora Neal Hurston.
though, from the electrical wiring to the subassembly of gears and clutches, to seeing it finally fall into place in the assembled machine. Having shown my fellow workers I was willing and able to hold up my end of the job, I was accepted as part of a group of friends.
Several of my male friends left the shop and found better jobs in other shops. I finally followed in their footsteps after they persisted in calling me and insisting that I apply at various companies. At one point two of the guys, Mike and Jimmy, actually took me along with them on their job interviews. Finally Mike and I found a job in a company, National Acme, where the working conditions were better. It even had a union.
1 started working at National Acme approximately three years ago in the Tool and Die Division. I was trained in the thread grinding department by men who would bend over backward to train me. They were all very skilled, with anywhere from 20 to 40 and more years of experience. I was in awe of their knowledge. We were all well paid and movement up the ladder was done by seniority, which may be the reason the technical information flowed so freely. My being the rookie on the list did not jeopardize anyone else.
As time went on I felt good about my job. I really liked to go to work. I was proud of what I did and always tried to do quality work, even to the point of being too meticulous. I figured that I too could work for this company for many years like my fellow workers. But those days were numbered.
The company hired a new president who made a guaranteed 3-year wage of $340,000 plus stock options, in spite of the company's financial difficulties. He brought along his close associates from previous companies or country clubs. He then cut expenses by laying off people who had worked for the company for as long as twenty years or more. National Acme, whose motto is "My heart is in Cleveland," became one of the many companies to close its old "inefficient" plants in the north and move to the south or west to build new plants. Maybe it moved hoping to incur tax breaks, to hire cheap, inexperienced labor, or to run away from the unions. Some call it smart thinking, but I wonder why the plants here weren't updated with new technology instead of lining the pockets of board members and stockholders. 1 wonder how long companies can continue to believe that they can keep profits up by keeping wages down and not maintaining their plants.
1 believe in the motto, "If it's worth doing, then it's worth doing well". But those in power who speak of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality, by short term gain and not by long term goals.
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