The Human Race Concerns Me

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

“The Human Race Concerns Me” — Lorraine Hansberry, Playwright of A Raisin in the Sun (1959)

On March 11, 1959, A Raisin in the Sun premiered on Broadway. Truth about everyday black life exploded on stage, for the first time. As the play came to an end, truth moved the audience. The audience was “willing to applaud, it seemed, for eternity.” Now it is March 11, 2024 and another work grown out of the Black experience has moved a nation by truth. I am talking about American Fiction.

There is a sixty-five year arch in time between A Raisin in the Sun and American Fiction. The span of a lifetime, my lifetime.

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Like A Raisin in the Sun ushered in an era wherein race segregation would die out, perhaps American Fiction will unveil a new future for our children and grandchild, an era hostile to caricatures and stereotypes. American Fiction is the story of a modern English professor, black in sense of self, who lives a non-conforming life as a novelist. Monk Ellison is good but not popular. And so Monk must decide whether to conform to caricatures and stereotypes as a writer, or not.

To conform or not conform, that is the question.

Similarly, Walter Younger in A Raisin in the Sun wants to be wealthy while his black family members are risk adverse when it comes to the $10,000 insurance check from Dad’s passing. Working class Walter wants something more for his family but is he willing to risk it all on a liquor store during a time of ghetto segregation on the South Side of Chicago.

Another black man desirous of escaping racial boxes.

Both A Raisin in the Sun and American Fiction offer affirmative heroes. Monk and Walter refuse to give up in the end. Sooner or later, every man must make a moral decision. Race segregation and caricatures are equal prisoners for Walter and Monk. The ghetto Walter knew becomes the stereotype Monk knows at the faculty lounge and on the book circuit. For this reason, I suggest both A Raisin in the Sun and American Fiction will be remembered as “landmark lessons in being Black.”

I would come out of retirement if my intuition comes true.

What am I getting at here?

American Fiction was the height of gifted insight into the human condition. If James Baldwin were alive today, he would have remarked “Never before had so much of the truth of black people’s lives been seen onstage.” Baldwin said those words once before, 65 years ago after viewing A Raisin in the Sun.

There was a poetic feeling to American Fiction. Monk lived in a ghetto of caricatures but he knows who he is and what he wants. Monk is atypical in his racial sense of self. He is not wired to go along to get along. And his desire for something more brings Monk into conflict with those closest to him, his family. Like Walter who hungered for the American Dreams beyond segregation, Monk hungers for meaning beyond caricatures.

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Why did Lorraine Hansberry write A Raisin in the Sun in 1959? She saw a play that upset her. The play offered the public one-dimensional portrayals of black people. No one is one-dimensional, let alone all black people. The artist in Hansberry could not let the cardboard depictions of people she knew remain unchallenged. I know the feeling well. When was the last time you saw a play about a black family in a southern suburb in the 1970s? When was the last time you saw a movie about the African Methodist Episcopal church in the 1970s? When was the last time you saw either a play or a movie about pioneer black layers?

I am bored with cliches — Lorrain Hansberry

There are no cliches in the soul of Monk, just masterful trolling which Hansberry would have applauded.

American Fiction works as great art. The viewer is treated to multiple levels of black people. Such a joy to see an intellectual on the big screen who writes life, not dogma and slogan words. So stirring to see the faculty lounge and classroom. The panoramic power of the summer place in the family for generations. Intelligent people living examined lives.

Kudos to Cord Jefferson for writing a transcendent moment in race.

Hansberry believed “We must come out of the ghettos of America.” Monk knows true freedom lies beyond caricatures and stereotypes. The more I write this essay, the more I see Lorraine Hansberry and Cord Jefferson and Walter Younger and Monk Ellison as part of a whole. And the whole would be the universal human condition, how great art is relatable beyond categories and boxes. It is about basic human rights to be seen for whom one is.

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Conclusion: There is human dignity in Walter Younger and Monk Ellison. Walter and Monk expand our understanding of the human condition. Will March 10, 2024 when American Fiction won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay be remembered in 65 years hence like we remember the Broadway premier of A Raisin in the Sun 65 years ago tonight? Let us hope so.