The Boston Globe - 07.09.2019

4
SEPTEMBER 7, 2019

“It wasn’t so much a matter of
choosing France — it was a matter of
getting out of America,” Baldwin told
The Paris Review in 1984. “I didn’t
know what was going to happen to me
in France but I knew what was going
to happen to me in New York. If I had
stayed there, I would have gone un-
der.”
But there is no escaping racism. It
comes with you in the carry-on bag
called your skin.
And as I stood outside of a fancy
shopping district where security
stands at the entrances, being at-
tacked by a white woman wearing a
suit in broad daylight, I knew I did not
have the right to be right. I was taught
to defend myself.
I am American. I am black. And I
am in France. I do not have the fame
or black excellence of James Baldwin
and Josephine Baker. Sometimes the
love of black culture is so high, a few
of our famous can sample freedom so
long as power systems stay intact.
But I’m an everyday black Ameri-
can woman visiting from Boston,
where Crispus Attucks, a fugitive from
slavery, was the first casualty of the
American Revolution. I was born in
Virginia, where the first enslaved Afri-

uOSTERHELDT
Continued from Page 1

cans in America were sold 400 years

ago.

I knew I could not fight this lady.

Eric Garner was choked to death five

years ago on a New York street as he

said, “I can’t breathe.”

Last month, Daniel Pantaleo — the

NYPD officer who choked Garner —

was finally fired.

The chokehold was illegal. The kill-

ing was on video. Pantaleo didn’t go to

jail. Five years after Garner’s death,

he lost his job and pension. A Go-

FundMe for him already has raised

over $160,000.

And folk call that justice. No, I

could not hit her back.

All I could think about is how I

might die or be detained if I defended

myself from this woman shouting in

my face and attacking me. I took a

deep breath and shoved the door back

in her direction, giving me just

enough room to be, well, free.

Except I wasn’t free. I couldn’t even

look back. I had to just keep pushing

forward, toward my friend, toward

safety.

And that’s when I felt the sting of

her violence on my arm, very red but

only slightly swollen.

The next day, pain pierced my el-

bowasIboardedaplanebacktothe

states. I dropped my phone and

smashed it.

I was not mad about my arm or my

iPhone. I was hurt because I had not

fought back.

The day after that, Nikole Hannah-

Jones and The New York Times re-

leased The 1619 Project, an initiative

observing the 400th anniversary of

the beginning of American slavery by

examining the consequences of slav-

ery and the contributions of black

Americans.

We became black Americans in

1619, our roots stripped from us, a

new culture born.

Our people, black American peo-

ple, were seen as subhuman. White-

ness could not exist without our black-

ness. And richness rested upon our

oppression.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was

less than 55 years ago. And we’re still

fighting for equity, for black lives to

matter.

“This belief, that black people were

not merely enslaved but were a slave

race, became the root of the endemic

racism that we still cannot purge from

this nation to this day,” Hannah-Jones

writes.

And the thing about this nation is

America is a world leader. Our influ-

ence is everywhere. If we cannot cor-

rect racism, if our country continues

to uphold systemic oppression and

anti-blackness, how can we expect to

move about the world and not have

run-ins with crazy cab ladies?

I am a black American at all times.

But being a black and brown Parisian

isn’t easy, either.

The Paris banlieues riots against

brutality and inequality were in 2005.

Protestors want liberation, too. Rac-

ism and classism live everywhere.

While walking through a lovely Pa-

risian boutique the day before the at-

tack, a salesman asked me, “Made-

moiselle, are you finding happiness

here?”

What a beautiful question, I

thought. We should all stop and ask

ourselves that throughout the day.

And the thing is, I was happy. I felt,

for the first time in a very long while,

light.

Even as I held my elbow on the

plane back to America, I clung to that

buoyancy. I could still smell the fresh

baked bread and that delectable taste

of molten chocolate. I couldn’t wait to

sing “Bonsoir” to my friends.

I closed my eyes and held onto im-

ages of Monet’s “Water Lilies” and

thoughts of Baldwin and Richard

Wright talking black creativity over

cocktails back in the day.

Yes, I found happiness in France.

And I smiled when my feet touched

the cobbly sidewalks of Boston again,

too. I’m back in Massachusetts, where

Belinda Sutton successfully petitioned

the courts for her promised pension

when her master died. Reparations.

There’s a lot of ways to fight back the

system that seeks to singe our spirit.

In America, in France, all around

the world, I know this truth to be self-

evident:

Despite all people being created

equal, it is not our lived experience.

From sea to shining sea, black is

black, and we deserve joy and we de-

serve to be free.

Jeneé Osterheldt can be reached at

[email protected]. Follow

her on Twitter @sincerelyjenee.

is thereal worldwe’re living in) charts
the storied jazz label’s 80-year rise to
the “gold standard of recorded impro-
visational music,” from its boogie-woo-
gie beginnings through its heights in
bebop, hard-bop, and free jazz, and on
into its “proudly hip-hop-inflected
present.” Jazz heads will have their
hair blown back by the film’s trove of
archival studio footage (“much of it
marvelous”) and artist interviews. It’s
awaiting your idle moments at the
Brattlethrough Sept. 12.
EYES & EARS:It’s a synaesthetic soi-
ree of sorts at the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum onSundayafter-
noon, when the Boston-based Phoenix
orchestra (led by artistic director Mat-
thew Szymanski) performs a special
program of “Music for the Eye,” featur-
ing image-inspired works by compos-
ers ranging from Richard Wagner to
Julia Wolfe (as well as some Charles
Ives, some Debussy, some Roberto Si-
erra, and the world premiere of a mu-
seum-commissioned work by Jona-
than Bailey Holland).
DON’T LEAVE ME THIS WAY:For a
slightly more Technicolor multisenso-
ry experience — which may include
crying, because this is going to be
emotional — consider taking the last
dance with “The Donkey Show”
which, after 10 years of squeezing into
its tiniest shorts and tightest, most
high-waisted pants, will extinguish its
disco inferno for good onSaturday
nightwithonefinalshowattheART’s
faerie-friendly outpost, Oberon. As
much as we love the nightlife, that’s
the way of the world — and besides,
it’s time to wake up from that mid-
summer night’s dream, already. It’s
September!
BIG PICTURES:Globe art critic Mur-
ray Whyte suggests a swing through
the MFA to take in “Mural: Jackson
Pollock | Katharina Grosse,” a pairing
of the largest-ever painting created by
the canonically dubbed daddy of Ab-
stract Expressionism with “Untitled,” a
similarly massive (if decibels louder)
work commissioned by the MFA from
the adventurous German painter
Katharina Grosse. Whether the two
paintings are in conversation or two
competing monologues remains in

uWEEKENDER
Continued from Page 1

question, but Whyte is certainly pick-

ing up on a dynamic at play: “ ‘Unti-

tled’ can’t be avoided,” he writes, “to be

in the space at all is to negotiate your

path relative to its footprint. ‘Mural,’ by

contrast, feels polite and deferential,

available at your convenience.” (So

who’s the daddy now, Jackson?) It’s up

through Feb. 23.

ROT STARS:If the MFA’s Hyman

Bloom show didn’t give you your fill of

weirdly pretty death and decay, make

your once-every-now-and-again visit

to the Harvard Museum of Natural

History, where the museum’s trea-

sured collection of glass botanicals has

been pruned down to a stunning little

collection of “Fruits in Decay,” which

gathers 20 or so of the collection’s figu-

ratively sorrier specimens. “By focus-

ing on decay, creepiness becomes, in a

sense, the point,” writes Mark Feeney

of the show. “It’s this very emphasis on

perishability that lends the variously

unhealthy pears, peaches, apricots,

plums, and strawberries on display ar-

resting, even moving, in a way that

hothouse-perfect counterparts cannot

be.” Bestby March 1.

ROOM WITH A VIEW:Speaking of

hothouses, if you make it out west this

weekend, stop by the Emily Dickinson

Museum (because it cannot stop for

you) to spend some quiet time in her

freshly restored conservatory, where

once the Belle of Amherst “tended to

heliotropes, jasmine, and other plants

from around the world,” and where

now hangs the room’s first site-specific

installation, “In Suspension” (through

Sept. 9). As Globe contributor Nora

McGreevy notes, the work, created by

artists Tereza Swanda, Ingrid Pichler,

and Fletcher Boote, “includes painted

rectangles of color, vinyl Plexiglass

sheets on windows, and recorded vo-

cals by Boote that resonate in the small

space.”

P. BREAK:And lastly from the out-

side world this week, you can catch

comic Christina Pazsitzky, a.k.a Chris-

tina P. — whom Globe comedy contrib-

utor Nick A. Zaino III describes as “the

more scatologically inclined half of the

husband-and-wife team behind the

popular podcast ‘Your Mom’s House’

with fellow comedian Tom Segura” —

as she brings her “Ride or Die” tour to

the Wilbur for an early evening set on

Saturdaynight. Be warned: Your dad

jokes are no match for her mom jokes.

OR STAY IN:Your marriage might be

fine (it’s probably fine; I’m sure it’s

fine), but that doesn’t mean you can’t

get all tied up in other people’s prob-

lems, which is why you might consider

joining the people who will spend their

Sundaynight tuned into Showtime for

the 8:30 p.m. repeat of the premiere of

“Couples Therapy,” starring “world-

class therapist” Dr. Orna Guralnik.

Boy, am I glad that’s not us, you’ll say

to yourself, because he’s still at “game

night.”

And if you are officially In On Satur-

day Night, why not take that to its logi-

cal conclusion with a trusty Lifetime

melodrama? This Saturday’s special

(“Two, two, two Lifetime tropes in

one,” writes Gilbert) is “Identity Theft

of a Cheerleader,” which I am telling

you right now lookscompletely amaz-

ing. Lifetime.Saturday. 8 p.m. Be

there.

And lastly, there’s a new album

from the Highwomen — i.e. the coun-

try supergroup of Brandi Carlile,

Amanda Shires, Maren Morris, and

Natalie Hemby, or as Globe music con-

tributor Stuart Munro puts it, four

women “making music that’s too coun-

try for country radio.”

And that, summer-weary Weekend-

ers, is all I’ve got in the pile this week.

Have fun out there, and however you

spend your weekend, make it one

you’ll miss come Monday.

See you next time!

Want the Globe’s top picks for what

to see and do each weekend e-mailed to

you? Sign up for the Weekender news-

letter at bostonglobe.com/weekender.

Michael Andor Brodeur can be reached

at [email protected]. Follow him

on Twitter @MBrodeur.

insights into the immediate aftermath
of the Sons of Jacob coup, including
Lydia’s arrest and introduction into
Gilead’s hierarchical structure.
Through Daisy’s eyes, we observe
Gilead from the vantage of a woman
in a free country, her experiences with
protests, resistance fighters, and her
dawning awareness of the plight of
immigrants and refugees: “I’d looked
at them but I hadn’t really seen them.
I hadn’t considered what it was like to
leave a place you knew, and lose every-
thing, and travel into the unknown.
How hollow and dark that must feel,
except for maybe the little glimmer of
hope that had allowed you to take
such a chance.”
And, in Cambridge, Agnes is a liv-
ing, breathing, chilling reminder of
the depth and breadth of knowledge
that can disappear within a genera-
tion. She’s doesn’t know what a library
is, or a map, or Latin. In Agnes, the in-
doctrination of the Republic of Gilead

uATWOOD
Continued from Page 1

appears to be fully encapsulated, its

puritanical roots thrown into sharp

relief: “... best friends led to whisper-

ing and plotting and keeping secrets,

and plotting and secrets led to disobe-

dience to God, and disobedience led to

rebellion, and girls who were rebel-

lious became women who were rebel-

lious, and a rebellious woman was

even worse than a rebellious man be-

cause rebellious men became traitors

but rebellious women became adulter-

esses.”

Through “The Testaments,” we

gain access to Bloodlines Genealogical

Archives that the Aunts maintain, a

role that gives them enormous power.

And we meet the Pearl Girls who, be-

fore becoming Aunts, evangelize

abroad: “... other religions had mis-

sionaries,” Lydia tells us, “so why not

ours? And other missionaries had pro-

duced converts, so why not ours? And

other missionaries had gathered infor-

mation used in espionage, so why not

ours?”

“I got pretty interested in double

agents, and people in resistance

movements of various kinds,” says At-

wood. (Indeed, the acknowledgments

of “The Testaments” include thanks

“to the several Second World War re-

sistance members from France, Po-

land, and the Netherlands whom I

have known over the years.”) “A book

came out after I finished this one

which is very pertinent, ‘The Spy and

the Traitor.’ One of them was a USSR

intelligence officer who was actually

working for the British, and the other

one was an American intelligence offi-

cer who was actually working for the

Russians. The second one was doing it

for the money, the first one was doing

it because he no longer agreed with

the regime. And they’re both possi-

ble.”

The evocative details of “The Testa-

ments” stem from real life: A progres-

sive school in Toronto is named for

American-Canadian artist Florence

Wyle; the Aunts share refreshments at

the Schlafly Café; a band of freedom

fighters take their name from the

Spanish Civil War’s Abraham Lincoln

Brigade; and a schooner, the Nellie J.

Banks, used to smuggle people along

the Underground Femaleroad from

Gilead into Canada, shares the name

of an early-20th-century rum-runner.

Incorporating those references is

enjoyable, notes Atwood, but they

have to be the right fit. “The Nellie J.

Banks was fun because you get into its

history,” she says. “But it also signals

that the entire coast of Maine has al-

ways been a fertile ground for smug-

glers of all kinds, both to and fro. Ban-

gor was a way station on the Under-

ground Railroad, and some of the

smuggling of people into Canada out

of slavery was done by ships. So that

was appropriate.”

Atwood is a breath of no-nonsense,

compassionate, finger-on-the-pulse

fresh air, whether she’s discussing her

work or the world at large. Days prior

to our chat, she had read about the

preparations that Boston is making

due to rising sea levels. “Because of its

flatness and its landfill it’s going to be

particularly susceptible,” says Atwood.

“Boston is on the frontlines of the cli-

mate crisis.”

And dystopias aside, throughout

our conversation, Atwood exudes a

spirited, practical optimism.

“It’s true to say,” she acknowledges,

“that the decisions that we make now

are going to have much more of an im-

pact than the decisions made, say, 500

years ago. Those were pretty local. The

ones we are making now have to be

seen in a global context because now

everything is global. The climate crisis

is a global crisis: Everything is con-

nected to the ground and the sea. Kill

the ocean, you stop breathing: That’s

the short form. Too many fires and

floods, and there isn’t going to be any

agriculture.”

Then Atwood pauses for a beat,

stressing a tangible call to action:

“Smarten up, people!”

Daneet Steffens is a journalist and

book critic. Follow her on Twitter

@daneetsteffens.

No matter where you are, there is no escaping racism

AllIcouldthinkabout

ishowImightdieor

bedetainedifI

defendedmyselffrom

thiswomanshouting

inmyfaceand

attackingme.

Picking up ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ 15 years later

From (big) art appreciation to ‘Couples Therapy’

COURTESY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON (LEFT); CINDY ORD/GETTY IMAGES (ABOVE)

Visitors at the exhibition “Mural: Jackson Pollock | Katharina Grosse” at the Museum of Fine Arts; an August bachelorette party at “The Donkey

Show”; and Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby of the Highwomen.

MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF

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