ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT TAKES ME HOME
"And I am still thirsty."
Originally Posted by Leslie Streeter March 8
And it is with that quiet, powerful declaration that Langerado officially got to me. I've spent the last two days watching the jam-minded of every generation, from toddlers to gray-haired men in wheelchairs, dancing in the same muddy fields, bopping their heads to the same beats, waiting in line for the same vegan curry. And it made me feel good, in a reflective, pretentious journalist sort of way,
But about an hour ago, I felt myself sway to songs whose lyrics I forgot I knew, from more than a decade ago, when I was an impressionable college kid who thought I knew everything, yet yearned for the things I'd yet to learn. And I remember how the songs of Arrested Development spoke to me at a time when wearing your African-American hair natural was a radical statement and the phrase "Afro-centric" could start a fight and inspire accusations of racism and anti-Americanism.
And amid the gangster rap that spoke of the anger of the inner city and a generation considered a threat, AD's Speech channeled that anger into a call for pride in our ancestral selves and the need not to turn on each other, both as a people of African heritage and as a nation. People laughed at songs like "Tennessee" and "Mr. Wendell" for being soft, wimpy, out of touch, but there's more than a touch of the revolutionary in reminding a people to be thirsty for their history and their pride.
So I'm grooving in this field in 2008, surrounded not only by young white kids with dreadlocks but older black dudes wearing them also, but tiny blond girls in pigtails and sistas with 'fros like me, and we're all chanting that line. We are still thirsty. Now we're collectively thirsty for peace, and clean air and water.
But we're all still thirsty, and even though things are a long way from perfect, we've reached a time, 16 years after "Tennessee" and those songs were released, where there are 'fros and dreads everywhere, where people of every heritage are interested in Africa and in cultures that are not necessarily theirs.
It's not a perfect place to be. But it's encouraging. I know there are some people just dancing and mouthing words, but I have to believe that a lot of the people there meant it. And this makes a sista happy. Originally Posted by Leslie Streeter March 8
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT TAKES ME HOME
"And I am still thirsty."
Originally Posted by Leslie Streeter March 8
And it is with that quiet, powerful declaration that Langerado officially got to me. I've spent the last two days watching the jam-minded of every generation, from toddlers to gray-haired men in wheelchairs, dancing in the same muddy fields, bopping their heads to the same beats, waiting in line for the same vegan curry. And it made me feel good, in a reflective, pretentious journalist sort of way,
But about an hour ago, I felt myself sway to songs whose lyrics I forgot I knew, from more than a decade ago, when I was an impressionable college kid who thought I knew everything, yet yearned for the things I'd yet to learn. And I remember how the songs of Arrested Development spoke to me at a time when wearing your African-American hair natural was a radical statement and the phrase "Afro-centric" could start a fight and inspire accusations of racism and anti-Americanism.
And amid the gangster rap that spoke of the anger of the inner city and a generation considered a threat, AD's Speech channeled that anger into a call for pride in our ancestral selves and the need not to turn on each other, both as a people of African heritage and as a nation. People laughed at songs like "Tennessee" and "Mr. Wendell" for being soft, wimpy, out of touch, but there's more than a touch of the revolutionary in reminding a people to be thirsty for their history and their pride.
So I'm grooving in this field in 2008, surrounded not only by young white kids with dreadlocks but older black dudes wearing them also, but tiny blond girls in pigtails and sistas with 'fros like me, and we're all chanting that line. We are still thirsty. Now we're collectively thirsty for peace, and clean air and water.
But we're all still thirsty, and even though things are a long way from perfect, we've reached a time, 16 years after "Tennessee" and those songs were released, where there are 'fros and dreads everywhere, where people of every heritage are interested in Africa and in cultures that are not necessarily theirs.
It's not a perfect place to be. But it's encouraging. I know there are some people just dancing and mouthing words, but I have to believe that a lot of the people there meant it. And this makes a sista happy. Originally Posted by Leslie Streeter March 8
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