A Rosaniqua by Any Other Name
I remember a white actor telling me a joke back in grad school that went like this. There is a little black girl at a department store walking down a particular aisle saying, "that's my name, that's my name, that's my name." The moment is then abruptly cut short by the girl's mother that shouts out, "Clinique, you better come on here, I don't have all day for you to be playin' around this store."
Culture has played a role in teh name of children since the beginning of time. No one thinks it is unusual if an Indian-American parent names their child Sonal. Who would blink an eye if a Austrian-American parent decided to name their child Brigitta? But everyone thinks it is so odd that a black American would name their child Cordasia (pronounced Core-DAY-Zha). I have been thinking about writing a sketch about for a while now too. Not that it is so funny that black people name their kids funny names but the fact that white people's names are stupid and funny too. Come on, if you think naming your child Dakota, Dulles, Abigail, etc. sounds cool than you might as well name your child Laischa (pronounced Lay-ISH-Sha).
The thing that is really fucked up is that Dakota, Brigitta, Abigail, and even Sonal (well, maybe not Sonal) will still have a leg up over Cordasia, Laischa and Ebony in the the work place, more specifically the job hunt.
Ain't that America?
Do you know Luther Goins there in Chicago? He's a playwright, and wrote a brilliant play I produced at Live Bait called "Love Child" about black teen mothers. (Luther is also African-American.) The baby-mamas named their kids stuff like Nike, Facsimile, Tyrone Martin Luther King Drive Johnson, and -- you guessed it -- Clinique. Anyway, it was a huge hit with black and white audiences, and after closing at LBT it ran for months and months at Chicago Theater Co. on the South Side. Had hilarious moments and serious, heartfelt stuff in it, too.
ReplyDelete(P.S. You mentioned marketing Straight & Nappy on the South Side, and Luther would be a great resource to talk to about that. He works at Actors Equity, or lemme know if you want his email.)
Anyway, I think the white trash equivalent would be my cousins in Missouri, who all in this huge family HAVE to name their kids something that starts with the letter C. They're now in the third generation of this, ahem, tradition and resorting to shit like Cami, Chassie and Cinnamon. Feel free to ridicule their cracker asses.
Sorry for the long-ass comment!
--LL Cool P