This is the second of a two-part interview with Keita Whitten. Click here to read  Part One.

SE spoke openly about terms like “transference” and “counter-transference,” reminding us this is ALWAYS occurring. Yes, professional protocol and ethical practices of standards are important to guide our professional relationships. The truth is --when you embrace the science of epigenetics--elements and their environments are not static and they are constantly shifting, exchanging information--even in a sterile room. And, rather than ignoring this, what I now know is that every interaction with a person, an environment or an animal involves a certain amount of transference and countertransference of information through adaptation--in this case the nervous system. In reality our nervous systems are constantly responding and adapting to environmental cues, internally and externally, all the time. In contrast, traditional psychology and allopathic medicine teaches that we--the practitioners-are the experts, and that, to guard against biases, we must remain objective--distant from the other, “the client” and that  environments are to be controlled/ manipulated in order to have untainted outcomes.

I know I am veering off subject, but I think is an important divergence. I would go a step further to say, transference and countertransference are how we understand how things work or don’t work. We, people, animals, are constantly evaluating and adapting to the world around us. SE taught us how we do this through our nervous systems each day, each moment. You can’t shut it off. And when we try to, we are missing vital sensory information. For example, we all talk about cognitive dissonance, right? There are lots of explanations about what it is and why it happens, right? Let’s’ agree for a moment with the basic understanding-- it’s a mental discomfort resulting from a clash of values or beliefs. Here’s the thing: What if I said there is also sensory dissonance? No, scratch that. I propose cognitive dissonance is actually a result of sensory discomfort--a stress response to a threat in the external environment. And it shows up as cognitive dissonance when we have overridden our sensory information.

When I have worked with clients who experience explosive anger, I now call it "sensory dissonance." What that means is that they are receiving cues both internally and externally, but trying to override this with reason. Ultimately,  whatever they are trying to override with reason--fear, despair or the feelings of betrayal-- will manifest as sideways behaviors and cognitive dissonance. Working through an SE lens, I help people to identify sensory cues both inside and outside of themselves--cues that are often become overridden and lead up to these sideways expressions such as explosive anger and rage.  Here's another way to look at this: By the time one is raging, it’s usually because the person has already overridden the sensory inputs--including the role of transferences and countertransferences. Today, somatic psychology is a lens through which I observe everything, everyone--including myself.

Coming back to your question, SE and Yoga were ways that helped me frame an embodied holistic approach with the science to back up how it worked. Teaching yoga taught me the importance of mindfulness, the ability to slow down and to practice awareness of our embodied consciousness. With SE, I now had the science to demonstrate these connections between embodied consciousness with stress responses and how to support the body’s own healing process. Early on in my practice, I  learned this level of practice would ultimately uncover an adversities and traumatic experiences. In the ACEs study with Kaiser Health and the CDC, they found that, out of 17,000 participants (white and upper middle class with access to private health care), about 70% had like  adverse experience scores before the age of seven.

Dr. Nadine Burke, now the first appointed Surgeon General for the state of California, educates about the vital health implications of toxic stress and the wear-and-tear on the immune system, when we do not address trauma and ACEs from a biological, embodied approach.  

This data made me pause and think for a moment. I then started to realize that the way we diagnose people is all wrong--the DSM5 is wrong! And, we (therapist, counselors, psychiatrists, all of us) are continuing to prescribe pills, diagnoses and apply psychology like all Western allopathic medicine--WE TREAT SYMPTOMS, not root causes.

For example, one of my clients taught me a different way to understand bipolor disorder. Assessment took months to uncover contributing external factors like the fact she was exposed to longterm neglect before the age of seven, manipulation like gaslighting,  and rape and other sexual abuse--and therefore the needed treatment was not pharmaceutical (in some cases medication may be required initially to calm/stabilize a “wacked” nervous system), but required a holistic approach based an understanding of ACEs and  mind-body-soul synergy to support the creation of balance/homeostats. Over time this client began to discover the need for changes in her lifestylem including proper rest, diet changes, and letting go of toxic relationships. With these changes, our sessions, and additional support from homeopathy, she was able to lower her lithium dosage, and her symptoms--including manic flares--began to minimize, which were possible due to her new understanding of the "pain body." The difference was this: These behaviors were there, but less intense, so that she was able to build the capacity to recognize the buildup before the flare-up, allowing   the pain body to chillaxe  and begin to heal its soul wounds.  

Then I realized, another profound aspect of the ACEs study: What about ALE (Adult Lived Experiences)? If the ACEs study surveyed a majority white population, then what would be true for people of color, women, and women of color? What would external stress factors such as poverty, racism, and oppression-- including substance abuse and domestic violence play in the role mental /physical health and dis-ease? While genetics does not determine health and emotional well-being, epigenetics does!
 
You  asked about my new THRIVE initiative for 2019. Based on this new understanding, I knew then I could not see all clients because I no longer wanted to do "bandaid work." I wanted to help heal soul wounds. I instantly became aware I had to change how I practiced, including who I saw. And this why today I only work with trauma. Back to the original ACEs population study: With all the recent research about health disparities for communities of color, including women, I realized I wanted to serve the most vulnerable populations--that is, girls and women of color.

CW:  I am seeing more and more healers who are not taking insurance. Can you talk about that?

KW: Why don't I take insurance? The simple answer is, SE a, like acupuncture, reiki or homeopathy does not provide enough “empirical” evidence to support how it works for insurance companies to pay for our services. Insurance companies need justification to pay for services. With this justification comes the demand for qualitative, evidence-based practices using levers of variables to determine outcomes. Clinicians have to provide a diagnosis during your first visit, then write up goals and objectives that support the diagnoses, and the come up with arbitrary phrases like, "Client/subject will manage emotional outburst by 50%, by learning how to express their feelings."

We clinicians spend numerous hours trying to add it all  up to justify services, and  many make it up, and we all know it's BS--but it’s the only way one can get paid. There are insurance discrepancies in terms of what gets paid out, based on what is called "pay-out tiers," which are different with every company.  For example, one company might pay you $99 while another might pay you only $65--for the exact same service. And confidentiality? There is no confidentiality with insurance companies.  Your information belongs to them to use to qualify or disqualify you.

When I was taking insurance, I received a notice stating  I was over-using a diagnostic code based on the demographics of my colleagues who practiced in the area! Can you guess what it was? The code for trauma. This was  a real eye-opener! Apparently my colleagues in the field really do not have an informed lens on ACEs and trauma. To be fair, it's probably more of a billing issue, but this means I can't record what I see and suspect, because I will not be paid, and I will not be paid for using a model like SE, because it’s not  sanctioned by Big Pharma and the medical communities.
 
When I feel doubt about what I do, I like to recalled the words of one of my clinical supervisors, “You may not have chosen to work with trauma, but trauma has defiantly called you!"  Looking back on my life, I would agree. Each experience has been very informative. And because of my story, I feel I am able to relate to people’s pain, which disarms the power imbalance very quickly.

Nadine Burke says that when people ask her how she can you work with trauma,  she gets excited and replies, “because its fundamental hopeful work.” I would agree, and this is especially so working with women of color.  I’d like to end with a reference to the works of Anne Wilson Schaef’s book, Meditations For Women Who Do Too Much.  Her daily affirmations are a reminder of the vitality of why I do what I do. I  know intergenerational healing will take two generations. I will not live to see it, but through the work I do I have hope my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will experience healing through collective and conscious community parenting. I am still unpacking fifty-three years of experiences,

Ashe

Redefining Therapy website

Keita Whitten…  one of the most amazing women I have ever met, and it’s my privilege to interview her today! Keita is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Masters in Social Work, specializing in trauma. She is launching an initiative in her practice to focus on women and girls with trauma/PTSD history, especially women of color.
 
What is so radical and so powerful about Keita is that, in an age of hyper-specialization where every malady must be micro-coded for the insurance companies and superficial resolution, she is conscientiously doing the opposite—slowing down and widening the concept of diagnosis to look at all aspects of the mind-body-spirit connection, as well as the socio-politico-economic-environmental contexts that are impacting her clients.

CG: So… Keita… I love the description of THRIVE, your new healing initiative with women and girls. But before we get to that, can you fill us in on your journey toward finding your niche in the world of counseling and healing.  It’s been a journey with some seeming dead-ends and detours, and I think that these are an important part of your perspective today.
 
KW: Yes, and you’re right the journey of how I have come to build “Thrive” is a personal journey which is also reflected in how I approach my art and my writing. The reasons I shifted from a traditional therapy practice to a practice that involves healing includes a very personal journey of unpacking and healing my own soul wounds.
 
The idea of focusing on women and girls started in the late 80s, after I suddenly found myself violently divorced after just 3 years of marriage. I was living in the bohemian artist community of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York.  Looking back I now realized I had severed these ties, because I had bought into the belief I had to grow up- “Adulting” is the term my second son (now a Man) uses to describe putting his own art on the back burner to “be a responsible productive adult.” I cringe every time I hear him use this word. It’s a word I still struggle with to justify why I do not embrace my own art.

I can recall the immensity of the financial stress, we were shouldering as new parents. We were not making it on his electrician’s apprentice salary. And I remember feeling personally responsible for our financial situation. After all, I was a stay-at-home mom. I remember thinking I could be like the frontier wife from The Little House on the Prairie. She did everything by hand. She took care of their home, never complained, while he built their home, hunted worked at the mill. They were partnering, a team. I so desperately wanted them to be us—a team. In addition to the night feedings, cloth diapers, homemade baby food, all domestic duties- involving a 3-story walkup each day (with an infant and stroller), carrying laundry to the laundromat, going to the grocery store, getting up at 5 AM to prepare his breakfast, packing his lunch (with little notes of appreciation and encouragements tucked inside), planning and preparing dinner, and then cleaning up afterwards! I began searching for ways to bring in extra income to help alleviate my husband’s erratic mood swings. I discovered I could take in other people’s children – so they could go to “work”—to help provide extra income for my family.  Deep inside I wanted to pursue my art too, but it was a luxury “we” just could not afford.

Adulting meant I had to continue to prove I could take care of myself without being a burden. I keep searching for options. Around this time, I began attending Boricua College. One of our required classes was called “colloquium.” Looking back, I now realize this class was designed for student success and retention. I enjoyed colloquium. It was the only place I could connect with other adults and check in about our experiences in school and lives outside of school. A couple of times after class my instructor would pull me aside, asking me about comments I had made about my home life, and husband. One day after class she handed me a Domestic Violence Wheel. I had no idea what it was. This was the first time I had ever heard anything about domestic violence. I didn’t even know there were names for the things I was experiencing.  I just thought the sudden violent moods swings, the yelling, the drunken episodes, and disappearing acts were all part of normal everyday married life. I can recall thinking I had to hide this wheel at home and read it when he was not around.
 
I want to fast forward for a moment. In my field of somatic trauma phycology, we identify 4 responses to threat, AKA “adverse and/or traumatic experiences.” Most only know about “Fight or Flight.” There is also Freeze and Fawn.  Today I will focus on Fawn because I view Fawn as an opposite response to Fight with gender specific implications. For example, in traditional forms of psychotherapy Fawn responses are often people who are misdiagnosed as codependent or victim. Characteristics include Appease / Submit / Resignation /Befriend. Fawn people adjectives include pleasing others, scared to say what they really think/feel, talking about others instead of self, are Angels of Mercy, overcaring, suckers, easily exploited by others, hugely concerned with what others think of them, a yes person. A collage of mine describes Fawn this way: It [Fawn] has also been referred to as the Stockholm syndrome, and historically more females respond in this way than males, who tend to have the physicality to fight or flee more easily. It takes self-blame and shame out of the equation, for example, when the victim is befriending and going along with the abuser/ perpetrator and not understanding later why they acquiesced in the situation and didn’t respond with  fighting or fleeing.

Looking back to my experiences today I realize how sad it was to know back then I had no realization, no connection to what I was feeling inside me—or around me—and how living this way was guiding my actions, my decisions about life and related behaviors. I was simply in survival mode. It wasn’t until about 20 years later, living in Maine, training with the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute (when we as students were required to unpack our own lives), I started to understand my lived adverse experiences with trauma and abuse were also shaped by the intersect of gender, race and heteronormativity. The holding pattern of Fawn reminds me of the macro shift out of the Goddess era in response to rising concerns regarding “male fragility”. This shift fueled by misogyny gave birth to patriarchy as a means to secure male leadership and dominance. As a society we continue to pay the high price of this legacy.

So how did you get from "super mom/abused woman" to the amazing healer that you are today?
 
I arrived in Maine in 1995 with a five-year-old, broke, pregnant with my second child, homeless- fleeing another abusive relationship. I decided to try college again for the third time.  I just had to get it right. There were two children depending on me. And I despised the shame of public housing and welfare. I had an opportunity to go to school under the Parents as Scholars Program (PAS). [PAS was a Maine initiative in response to the 1996 Personal Responsibility Act (under the Clinton Administration) championed by a Republican Olympia Snowe (go figure!) to create educational opportunities for TANF (welfare) eligible recipients.] Even with transferable credits, it took me six semesters—not including summer school—years to finish. I was excited about my BSW—yes! No more welfare! However, my first professional social work job was a child protection agent. (Yep—we even had badges) This lasted only eighteen months before I realized I could not stomach the work.  Colleagues who managed to survive for decades did so using anti-depressants or drinking,  or they suffered from a superiority complex. I knew I wasn’t actually helping “these” mothers or their broken families (who also came from broken families). Instead, what I did see in them were bits and pieces of me. So decided I needed to go back to school to get a better degree.

Needless to say, grad school was disappointing. I found myself taking expectational notice of the language used to teach “human behavior” and psychology, which ultimately blamed and pathologized people—especially women—for their current circumstances. These were the same words (language) used in macro and micro economic classes to describe poverty and who poor people were. I remember having a visceral reaction to a male instructor who glorified himself for his work with “welfare (black- single women) families” back in New York City, as if he was the great White Hope for these poor black families. The more I would try to question  these perspectives as points of concerns, the more hopeless, frustrated, and sickened I began to feel about wanting to “now” become a therapist. And forget about trauma—trauma was not even in the syllabus. I didn’t even know about trauma until my therapist diagnosed me with PTSD—whoa! Looking back, I guess it was naiveté on my part to expect a school of social work to be exempt from the willingness to explore the significance of race, gender, class, and white privilege as crucial underpinnings informing identity politics, juxtaposed against the backdrop of continuous and laborious debates concerning the rights of “the deserving” vs the “undeserving” poor. Having had multiple experiences of being that “population” on the other side of the table, I decided I could not participate in good conscience being yet another “good intentioned” practitioner. I vowed if I made it out of my MSW program, I would not practice therapy.

The reason I am an LCSW today is because of Yoga. After my graduate school experience, I took up adjunct work and Kripalu yoga. And surprisingly I found both very healing. One day in yoga class I literally sprang off my mat and announced to my instructor I wanted to teach, and next thing you know, the resources I needed to attend found me and there I was at Kripalu undergoing my teacher training. When I began to teach yoga I started witnessing emotional shifts occurring within my students on the mat. Some would begin to weep, others would burst out in laughter. I wanted to understand not only what was going on but how could I use “it” to help other people.
 
This led me to rethink my LCSW. However, 3+ years had passed since graduation, and trying to find a clinical track to be supervised proved to be more difficult than I imagined. I was bummed but determined. I had to work my way back into the field starting with BSW entry positions. Finally, I landed a grant position with Community Counseling Center who agreed to supervise my LCSW. This was the same time I heard about the work of Dr. Gabor Maté When The Body Says No and Peter Lavine’s Walking the Tiger: Healing Trauma and brought these two books into my interview stating how I intended to explore these concepts as a therapist in training. My supervisor at the time chuckled, you may not have chosen to work with trauma, but trauma has definitely called you! Little did we both know at the time, she would be spot on. About six months later I found myself registered in the first session SEP training session.

 You see, what I really believe is, it was divine interference through yoga coupled with my graduate school experience and Somatic Experiencing Trauma trainings that called me back to work with people to support their trauma healing journey.

CG: When you were talking about your work, you named Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot and her influence on your thinking. Who is she and what was it about her work that inspired you?
 
KW: Oh yes, one of the requirements of my master’s program was to create a research project. Knowing me, I couldn’t just do a simple quantitative study—no! LOL— I had to explore things, probe and search for deeper understandings. Besides I hated statistics and SPS! I needed something tangible, relatable and alive. When I heard we could conduct a qualitative study, this peeked my interest. My core instructor however was mired in the postpositivist approach to research and told me something to this effect, “qualitative research is merely a quasi- form of research conducted in the field that is not reliable due to the fact that the environment containments the findings unless its conducted in a controlled environment…” I then proceeded to the department dean who tried to reframe what “He meant”. I paused and then announced I would consider a quantitative study if I could explore the implications of psychoimmunology as a lens for clinical intervention in social work. She stood speechless for a second, rolled her eyes and proceeded to tell me that it would be too hard for me, and besides I would have to be a medical student to do that type of analyses. I pouted. I felt like the cat who just lost its prey (huh, looking back on this I can now see how this would have begun a preliminary exploration into what we now call ACEs—“Adverse Childhood Experiences.” No longer feeling enthusiastic about research, I dropped the course until the following semester.

Little did I know there were new instructors recently hired who heard about my research ideas and wanted to support my qualitative endeavors. This is when I was introduced to feminist and womanist ideologies and participatory action research and deconstructing methodologies, which lead me to a qualitative style of research called Portraiture by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot.  Her method is a social science inquiry that is able to blend art, environment and science, “capturing the complexity, dynamics, and subtlety of human experience and organizational life.”  Of course, that made sense to me—I am an artist, right? Needless to say, I created an elaborate explorative thesis that took more than two semesters to complete, documenting the results of a multicultural program called Dialogues in Diversity at the University of Southern Maine by attempting to combine all approaches. Oy vey!

All this to say, what I took away from this experiment is the fact that Portraiture provides an in-depth layering of how to approach any subject and debunks the idea that environments are sterile. In fact, the researcher is a major part of an environment too, who views and makes meaning of the world based on her own schema, which can and does influence the outcome.  Portraiture taught me to always view things from the eagle’s eye down, the from-the-ground-up view of an ant, and the surrounding context one one’s environment including culture, his-story, art, religion, sociostatus, and geographical location, including climate. And now with my SE training I also include the internal environment of the nervous system. This is what I mean when I say I take a holistic view of trauma and ACES.
 
End of  Part 1
Click here for Part 2

Redefining Therapy website

I wrote The Princess of Pain as an act of solidarity for a friend of mine who had a condition which, back then, was called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. It’s now referred to as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). This is a chronic illness characterized by severe burning pain, usually in the extremities, and extreme sensitivity to touch. Nobody really understands CRPS, and there is no cure. My friend told me that so many members of her support group had committed suicide, she had to stop attending. She told me how some victims of CRPS went so far as to have their limbs amputated in an effort to stop the burning, but even with the limb gone, the pain would persist. She was no longer able to tolerate painkillers like Ibuprofen, because chronic use of them had damaged her liver. Confined to a wheelchair because the pain had impaired her mobility, my friend was living a constricted life of extreme suffering, with no prospect of relief.

Struggling with my own chronic illness, myalgic encephalomyelitis (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME/CFS.), I wanted to be a supportive companion. My burdens seemed light in comparison with hers.
 
But here’s the thing:  Processing trauma is just that—a process. Even though I knew better, I still found myself compulsively suggesting things that might “fix” my friend: changes in diet, nutritional supplements, different forms of meditation, counseling focused on unearthing hidden memories, a spiritual reframing of the experience…  as if my friend, in her agony, was not sufficiently motivated to have explored everything on the planet that held out even the remotest hope of relief. As if I, with my recent and superficial understanding of her condition, was somehow more of an expert than she! But still, every time I saw her, I would be overwhelmed by a desire to offer unsolicited advice.

What was going on? I hated it when people did that to me, and, believe me, with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome you hear it all. Everybody is an expert. They are especially big on the psychiatric theories about the disease. Crazy and lazy. Control freak. Narcissist. Malingerer. Diseases that are poorly understood provide ripe fodder for the ableists of the world.

So I knew that what I was doing was oppressive to my friend. What I was really communicating with all these brilliant suggestions, was that I could not accept her truth. I really could not accept her. I was letting her know that I thought she wasn’t trying hard enough, that she was giving up too soon, that she was trusting unreliable authorities. I was telling her that she needed to… to what? What was it I thought she needed to do? In fact, she had done and was doing exactly what she needed to do. She was accepting every minute of every day a grossly unfair, undeserved, unrelentingly cruel and vicious life sentence of literal, physical torture.
 
I was the one in need of fixing. I wrote The Princess of Pain as an apology and as an amends to her, to acknowledge her strength and courage and to acknowledge the work I still needed to do.

The Princess of Pain is about the fundamental conundrum of trauma: “It has to be accepted; it cannot be accepted.”
 
The answer for “How do I do this?” is not a simple one. Everyone’s journey with trauma is different. Maybe we cover much of the same ground, but we all cover it differently, in our own way and in our own time, and we cover parts of it over and over again. “How do we come to terms with trauma?” Daily and never.

The Princess of Pain has her confrontations with the Powers That Be in her cosmos. They may distract her, or soothe her, or misunderstand her, or frustrate her, or torment her, but they never provide her with the answers she wants. That’s the truth about trauma. 
 
The Princess of Pain is my fairy tale to end all fairy tales. Life is filled with injustice and meaningless suffering. They are not manifestations of some mysterious will of God, where all things work together for good and we are just too limited to see the Big Picture. They are not the result of some manifestation of karma from an unremembered criminal past life. They are not the result of some prenatal contract that our soul has made in order to learn the great lessons and glean the beneficent gifts of experiencing overwhelming pain and horror.

I don’t know that I have ever made my peace with the trauma in my life, but I consider it a huge victory to have abandoned many of the seductive ideologies that used to give me a fake sense of control over random events in my life at the expense of authentic empathy. I have acquired a deeper appreciation for the courage it takes to resist the strategies of denial and the callousness of cynicism, to take on a quest to accept the unacceptable.

            ___________________________________________________

Much gratitude to Sudie Rakusin, for her exquisite illustrations, and to Mary Meriam and Headmistress Press for publishing The Princess of Pain.

Click here to order.

CW: Today I am interviewing Dr. Janice Liddell, author, playwright, and retired professor and Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Coordinator of Faculty Development at Atlanta Metropolitan College. She also served on faculty at Clark Atlanta University for nearly 35 years, as a professor of English, department  chairperson and director of faculty development. So...  Janice, you and I met online about fifteen years ago, I believe… on an international chatlist of women playwrights.  And I remember you wrote a play titled Who Will Sing for Lena?  This is a one-woman play that gives voice to Lena Baker, a black woman who killed her abusive white employer in self-defense. Using the actual actual trial transcripts, you wrote a play that would enable audiences to understand her background and her motivation. That play has had a strong track record… and even a film?

JL: Yes, Carolyn we met on the ICWP chatlist and, as I recall, we left the chat about the same time for some similar small “p” political reasons related to our respective identities as minorities on the list. I guess it would be in bad taste to go into any more detail. (lol)
 
CG: Well, not to keep readers in suspense, we were frustrated in our respective efforts to confront racism and homophobia. And, in fairness, it was fifteen years ago.
 
JL: And yes, I had written Who Will Sing for Lena? around that time and since then, it has done fairly well in various places. But the film was a totally different project; it was, of course, related to Lena Mae Baker, but not at all related to my play. Believe it or not, the two are very different perspectives, even of Ms Baker. But as I have always said, Lena helped me to write my play and I told it the way she told it to me.

CG: I just want to tag onto that last comment. YES! Working with historical figures, and especially those in what I call “unquiet graves,” I have had that experience of a presence outside of myself standing by my side and nudging me to tell her story. Practicing theatre as a sacred art… full of miracles. So I just want to say that this recent play of yours, The Talk, is absolutely brilliant, and I would like to see every community in this country mount a production of it. It’s packed with so much… history, politics… but the characters are believable, the dialogue is spot-on, and I had chills over and over reading it…  Beautiful craftsmanship, deep humanity…  just an amazing piece of theatre… but also a tool, a social justice project, a  powerful, powerful way to bring communities together. I was so deeply moved by it.
 
JL: Wow, coming from you as a brilliantly successful playwright yourself, that is quite an endorsement. I am glad it affected you because, truth be told, it affected me even as I wrote it. But I’m sure you know that experience—of being carried away by the work as though you are channeling it. That’s a bit how it was for me.
 
CG: So…  “the Talk”…  First off, before we get into talking about the play specifically, can you tell us to what “the talk” refers?

CG: In The Talk, you have four generations of an African American family, on a Saturday morning… and there is a lot of conflict, because the two youngest members of the family, a brother and sister, want to attend a Black Lives Matter march and their parents don’t want them to go.  Can you talk a little bit about that conflict. They even make their son take off his Black Lives Matter tee shirt.
 
JL: This is a highly successful Black middle-class family and in their eyes, as in the eyes of many “highly successful Black middle-class families,” their success has resulted from them pulling themselves “up by their bootstraps.” They would likely never admit they went to university on an Affirmative Action program (as did I), for example. Additionally, they desire to separate themselves from the more “common” element of Black folks—separate themselves in every way they can. In fact, they tend to look down on the experiences of Black folks who, in their middle-class eyes, are financial, intellectual, educational, etc. failures in life. These parents have tried to shelter their children from these “failures” and serve as models for the successful route of Black people from poverty to wealth; from the ghetto to the suburbs. However, their middle-class Black children are highly influenced by the world outside of their “burbs.” Quincy Jr. is in college with youngsters from all walks of life; Miranda is so attached to her tablet and research on it that there is nothing that gets by her. The children and their parents are in totally different “realities”—and at this point, never the twain shall meet.
 

CG: But the whole power dynamic shifts when the grandparents and great grandmother show up for the brunch.  We see such a panoply of African American history in this family. It’s just wonderful.  Four generations… up from poverty to affluence… but the lynching remains a constant.  Can you talk a little about your process in writing this? Where you got the idea? Early drafts that needed changing? Is any of this autobiographical?

The play is a tad autobiographical in that my Mom is 94 years old and has dementia. My Mom’s parents were sharecroppers, and Daddy and one of my uncles served for a short time as Pullman Porters travelling from Ohio to Canada. One of Dad’s cousins was a career Pullman Porter and we were awed by the few stories we heard about their work on the train. Also, Dad and Mom’s families both migrated to Ohio from Mississippi, but not at all under this kind of duress in the play. So, some parts of the play come from stories I’ve heard or read and much from the tapestry of the Black experience and some just from my imagination.
 
CG: So you have a production coming up in January in Brooklyn… MLK Day, right?  What’s going on with that? 

JL: I am so fortunate to have had my play chosen for a coveted slot in the NYC Frank Silvera Writers Workshop. Of course, true to form, I didn’t do much to get it there; I have my dramaturg and now director, Byron Saunders, to thank for that. He is good for me. He pushes me to do more with my plays beside just finishing them and exerting that proverbial sigh of relief that they’re done. In fact, we have spoken about publishing a collection of all my plays… We’ll see how that goes. Initially The Talk was selected as the first play of the monthly Workshop series (I think there are only five in the series), but I had already made international travel plans for that date. We couldn’t find any other date for 2018 that would fit, so they came up with January 14. Of course, I found this selection very fortuitous when we realized it was MLK Day. To commemorate Dr. King’s birthday with a focus on the progress and process of Black protest movements seems so appropriate. God works in mysterious ways. I certainly hope we can fill the Billy Holliday Theatre (Brooklyn) for that one-day free performance/reading. Of course, I’ll be travelling to NYC as playwright to participate in this exciting spectacle. I can’t wait!!
 
CG: I would like to see this play done in every community… Maybe see about getting some touring productions that are funded to go to different cities.  What are your plans for marketing the work, and do you have any plans to film it? 

CG: Can you tell us about your other plays?  In the past, African American playwrights have had a difficult time getting mainstream productions, unless they were August Wilson and it was Black History Month…  Have things changed? How? Do you feel it is more difficult being an African American female playwright?
 
JL: Well, I have about six completed plays, including one for children, so I guess you can say I actually have “a body” of work. All of my plays are located on the New Play Exchange (shout out for NPX!). So anyone can review them and contact me if they are interested in seeing a full script. Putting them on NPX might be called my one passive stab at marketing (lol). Regarding being an African American playwright, I can’t speak for African American playwrights generally, but of the ones I know up close and personally, it’s rough out here. What I and my playwright friends lament about is that there are so few theatres interested in Black plays or plays written about the Black experience. And the ones that exist seem to want recognizable names or plays that have already proven their value. There are a few stars—August Wilson, of course, and a few others like Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori Parks, the recently deceased Ntozoke Shange and a precious few others. So, I do think it is difficult being an African American playwright, especially an African American woman playwright primarily because our experiences are just not considered universal enough to give theatres confidence that their audiences will turn out for them.

My experience as a playwright is further complicated by two factors: one is that I am 70 years old. I wrote my first play when I was 50--Hairpeace –and it earned a spot at Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre’s New Plays for the New South Theatre Competition and Workshop. I loved the writing experience, the workshopping and hearing my words on a stage; I had found a new love! But I’m a senior citizen and nobody knows my name. Further, the second factor connects directly to that one--I didn’t come through an MFA program or some other training ground that connects one to the powers that be in the field. I learned the art and craft of writing plays from reading plays and teaching plays. I was an educator—an English professor, chair of an English Department, a university administrator and wrote plays in my “free-time” so as far as the theatre community is concerned, I guess I haven’t earned my stripes in the field; maybe I don’t even exist. Actually, it took me a decade and three or four plays before I could call my own self a playwright, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the perceptions within the theatre community. I believe my work is good and at this point, I guess I’ve been satisfied with that comfort. When my work is produced, I actually feel I have hit a huge bonus. However, thanks to Byron and now you, I must admit, I’m pretty excited about The Talk and its future.

CG: To get a review copy of The Talk, email Dr. Liddell. She is in the process of publishing it, but can send a PDF copy until such time—hopefully by January. She says, of course, she's waiting now for that World Premier. Producers, go for it! It's going to be The Talk of the town!

This week there are lots of folks weighing in on the hearings about the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court… political pundits, women’s rights advocates, lawyers, and so on. So I thought I would throw in my two cents as a professional actor. Because it was quite a performance.
 
So, one of the first principles of acting is “Don’t play the problem. Play the adjustment to the problem.”  In other words, don’t worry about impressing the audience with what your character is feeling. Focus instead on solving the character’s problem. That’s what makes a performance believable, because that is what people do in real life… and audiences recognize that.
 
Let’s say you want to portray an innocent person who is being accused by a powerful group of people of something they did not do. That’s a serious problem. It’s a dangerous situation. The innocent party needs to tread carefully, be thoughtful, weigh her words. Because she is innocent, she has the truth on her side, and her best defense is a straightforward presentation that allows the facts of the situation to come through, untainted by emotions or editorializing.

Seriously? This is just plain bad acting. Kavanaugh is showing us indignation, attitude, and outrage, instead of taking the actions to solve the problem. Why? Because, unlike Anita Hill, he is actually guilty. He imagines what an innocent person in his shoes might do. In his mind, that person would be feeling angry and oppressed, and so he is showing us that. Again… the difference between a trained professional and an amateur. I have no doubt that Anita Hill felt angry, facing that brotherhood of wealthy, arrogant, white men… men who had passed specific legislation to grant themselves, as Senators, indemnity from sexual harassment charges.  But, as I said, she was focused on solving the problem. Displaying her outrage was only going to taint the presentation of her facts and be seen as evidence that she was unstable. It would have been counter-productive. Displaying outrage is a function of privilege, and a luxury that few falsely accused folks can afford.
 
But Kavanaugh chose to perform indignation, attitude, and outrage, because the truth was not on his side and also because he was vulnerable to fear, guilt, and shame.

And here let me interject a word about outrage. It can be very, very useful in overriding and masking less flamboyant emotions. Outrage pretty much trumps them all. I learned this hitchhiking. If I was in a car with a driver who began to behave in a threatening manner, I would erupt into an emotionally violent tirade against a fictional boss, and I would keep this rant going until I was able to get away. It kept those icy fingers of fear from making inroads into my psyche. It gave me the floor. It shut down whatever scenario he was attempting to initiate. Let me be clear: a performance of outrage would not work on a Ted-Bundy-type predator, but, at least in my experience  with more garden-variety potential perps, I found it effective.
 
So Kavanaugh played outrage. And so did Lindsey Graham. In fact, Graham’s performance was even more transparent, as he used the display of anger to derail a specific line of questioning that was not going well for Kavanaugh. Because outrage carries the overtones of emotional violence, it disrupts discourse.  People confronted with outrage have a visceral response. Their choices become “escalate” or “appease.”
 
Kavanaugh’s display of outrage worked to solve his problem:  that of a guilty man attempting to defend himself when the facts do not support his case, when he is under oath and afraid to lie, and when he is fending off tell-tale emotions of guilt, shame, and fear. To a trained actor, Kavanaugh's performance of outrage was an admission of guilt, pure and simple.

This week Serena Williams, seeking a 24th Grand Slam title, reached her breaking point with discrimination, and it appears that her breaking point is now becoming a tipping point for the professional world of women’s tennis.
 
She was playing the US Open women’s final, when the chair umpire issued a warning for a code violation for receiving coaching. Her coach later admitted that he was signaling, but that she had not seen him. She and the umpire had a civil exchange, and it seems that Serena understood that he had rescinded the warning. He hadn’t. A few games later, when she broke her racket in frustration over a play, she was shocked to receive a second warning, with a point docked at the start of her next game.
 
She stalked over to the chair, demanding an apology:  “I have never cheated in my life! I have a daughter and I stand [for] what’s right for her! I have never cheated. You owe me an apology. You will never do another one of my matches!” She continued to challenge the initial warning for coaching, accusing him of attacking her character and demanding an apology. She called him a liar, and then she called him a thief. And that was when the umpire issued the third code violation, resulting in the loss of a game.

Serena stood her ground at the post-match press conference: “I’ve seen other men call other umpires several things…I’m here fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality… For me to say ‘thief’ and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark. He’s never taken a game from a man because they said ‘thief.’ For me, it blows my mind.”
 
To put Serena’s outburst into context, she was returning to the game following a harrowing birthing experience. This is something that male athletes can never understand. Here’s a recap on the difficult delivery and the life-threatening post-partum:  After her contractions began, the baby’s heart rate started falling and an emergency cesarean section was performed. Not exactly the ideal scenario, but a common procedure that went smoothly. The baby was born, the cord was cut, and little Olympia was laid on her mother’s chest. Then, in Serena’s words, “Everything went bad.”
 
Serena has a history of blood clots, and because of this, she takes blood thinners. She went off these after the C-section to facilitate the healing of the surgical wound. The day after delivery, she began gasping. Flagging a nurse in the hall, she requested an IV with a blood thinner and a CT scan for clots. The nurse just thought she was confused. A doctor arrived and did an ultrasound. Serena reiterated, “I told you I need a CT scan and a heparin drip.” At this point, the scan was performed, and, indeed, she had clots in her lungs, and the appropriate medication was given. 

Well, her coughing from the clots reopened the C-section wound. She had to return to surgery for the lung clot, and then they found a hemotoma—clotted blood—in her abdomen, from the resumed blood thinner. Another operation, this time to put a filter into a major vein to keep clots out of the lungs. Finally, a week later, she was able to go home. Debilitated from all the crises, she had to stay in bed for six weeks, unable to care for the new baby. She describes the rollercoaster of postpartum emotions: “(The) incredible letdown every time you hear the baby cry ... Or I’ll get angry about the crying, then sad about being angry, and then guilty, like, ‘Why do I feel so sad when I have a beautiful baby?’ The emotions are insane.”
 
So this was just last fall, less than year ago. In July Serena spoke out about the fact she is being drug-tested as much as five times more frequently than any other star tennis player.
 
And then, there was the issue of her tennis outfit. She stepped onto the court at the French Open in a special, full-body compression suit designed to prevent blood clots. Serena explained, “All the moms out there that had a tough pregnancy and have to come back and try to be fierce, in the middle of everything. That’s what this represents. You can’t beat a catsuit, right?” The French indicated she had gone “too far” and banned  her from wearing it. She responded with a one-shoulder-bared, black tutu and compression fishnets.

So here she is at the US Open, not believing that her coach could have been coaching during the game (yes, he admitted he had), and thus began the escalation of outrage. 
 
It was the personal breaking point that became a cultural tipping point.
 
Tennis legend Billie Jean King agreed with Serena, tweeting,  ‘‘When a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it .’’ King noted that male players with similar outbursts are characterized as ‘‘outspoken,’’ with no repercussions.
 
The Women’s Tennis Association backed up Serena’s claims of sexism with this statement: “The WTA believes that there should be no difference in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men v women and is committed to working with the sport to ensure that all players are treated the same. We do not believe that this was done.”
 
The president of the United States Tennis Association also backed Serena: “We watch the guys do this all the time, they’re badgering the umpire on the changeovers. Nothing happens. There’s no equality. I think there has to be some consistency across the board. These are conversations that will be imposed in the next weeks.”

Serena was aware that she was playing a different game for higher stakes:  “… I’m going to continue to fight for women and for us to have equal. ... I just feel like the fact that I have to go through this is just an example for the next person that has emotions, and that want to express themselves, and they want to be a strong woman. They’re going to be allowed to do that because of today.” Her voice began to shake. “Maybe it didn’t work out for me, but it’s going to work out for the next person.”
 
And all of this reminds me of another Black female athlete who was the subject of massive discrimination, and her breaking point—which was, sadly, so far ahead of her time that it did not result in a tipping point. Except for those of us who have used her example to arrive at our own moments of transformation.
 
I am talking about French former competitive figure skater Surya Bonaly. Originally a competitive gymnast, she began skating at the age of eleven. She eventually became three-time World silver medalist, a five-time European champion, and a nine-time French national champion. She was a three-time Olympian.

Bonaly was coached by her mother, who was not a member of the elite world of skating. They were outside of the network. And Bonaly was Black. Throughout her career, Bonaly was criticized for the athleticism of her skating. She was characterized as a gymnast instead of a dancer. One of her critics made this snarky remark: “I’d like to see her stop jumping for six months and learn to skate.”
 
The “jumping?” Practically unmatched in ambition. Surya was the first female skater to attempt a quadruple jump in competition, even though they were counted as triples, because they fell just shy of four full rotations. But the jump that really put her on the map was the “Bonaly backflip,” which is a backflip landed on one blade. Banned in competition, but a huge crowd-pleaser. In other words, Surya was muscular, daring, and athletic. Figure skating evolved in the late eighteenth century in Europe, incorporating elements of the ballet into circles and figure eights. These balletic roots led to an aesthetic that privileges elegance, lithe physiques, and a feminine ideal reminiscent of ballerinas. Surya’s skating is unapologetically powerful. The same kind of body-type prejudices that kept African American women out of classical ballet companies were applied to Surya.
 
Also, her costumes were usually showier than those of her competitors. She favored bold and unusual colors, with lots of sparkle. In spite of the fact that the judges favored tights, Surya skated barelegged. Possibly the tights she needed did not come in her skin tones.

But I was talking about her breaking point. It was at the 1994 World Championships in Japan. Surya was twenty-one, and, with three Olympic medalists not competing, she had good reason to be optimistic. Bonaly’s final overall score was equal to that of Yuka Sato, who was skating in her home court. There was a 5-4 tiebreaker decision in favor of Yuka, but Surya was not having it. At the awards ceremony, she stood on the floor beside the second place platform, refusing to mount it. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. One of the officials literally manhandled her up onto the platform, but when they hung the second-place medal around her neck, she immediately took it off again. The crowd began to boo.
 

According to the Los Angeles Times, “It came down to a choice between Yuka Sato’s artistry and dynamic footwork and Surya Bonaly’s gymnastic jumping.” Is that coded racism, or  the favoring the home team… or was Bonaly’s program just not as polished, as some would claim? Reviewing the videos later, it’s not all that clear that she was a victim of discrimination, but, for Surya, suffering through years of biased criticism and personal attacks rooted in racist values and traditions, it was the breaking point. She was sure she outskated Yuka Sato, and she was not going to participate in her humiliation by taking that step up to the second place platform and she could not allow that badge of discrimination to hang around her neck. It was an unforgettable moment. She refused to give a press conference and her only statement after the ceremony was “I’m just not lucky.” They could take or leave the sarcasm.
 
Unlike Serena, Surya’s breaking point had come decades before the #MeToo movement was exposing the institutionalized misogyny in the entertainment industry, and also decades before Black producers began to gain control over the representation of their culture and icons in the media.

But after her breaking point, Surya did get the last word. She entered her third Olympics in 1998 with an Achilles tendon injury that kept her from executing her planned routine. She knew she had no chance of medaling, and she was also planning to retire after the Games… so she “called an audible”—that is, she changed the play at the last minute. Three minutes into her free skating routine, as she was coming in backward for what looked like a jump, she suddenly raised her hands over her head and flipped backward into the air. Her legs flew up over her head, and she landed on one blade.  The crowd went wild.
 
It was totally illegal… and legendary. As one Canadian newspaper put it, it was “the most elaborate expletive in Olympic history.” The Washington Post was even more explicit: “Bonaly was making a statement not only as an accomplished skater, but also as a black athlete in one of the world’s whitest sports.”
 
Here is what I wish for all the underrepresented women in the world: May your breakdowns become tipping points, and whenever your excellence lies off the visible light spectrum of  institutions obsessed with color, may you never be afraid to show off and celebrate your brilliance… because you can, and because history will catch up and remember.

I am thinking about children being torn away from their mothers this week. And I remembered a story told by one of my playwriting colleagues, Eva Knowles Johnson.
 
I met Eva in 1989 at the second conference of the newly-formed International Centre for Women Playwrights. It was in Toronto.
 
Eva got up to speak in a large auditorium filled with women playwrights and lined with representatives of the international press. The first thing she did was demand that all the men leave the room. She said that the story she was about to share was “women’s business.” She would not tell it in the presence of men.

I have never forgotten that moment. I had never seen a woman exercise so much authority in my life. She ordered the men out of the room. And they went.
 
Eva Johnson is an Aboriginal Australian poet, actor, director and playwright. She belongs to the Malak Malak people of the Northern Territory, and she is a member of what is known as the “Stolen Generations” in Australia.
 
Between 1910-1970, the Australian government forcibly removed indigenous children from their families as part of a policy of “assimilation.”  Some of the children were adopted by white families, and many remained in institutions. They were taught to reject their heritage and forced to adopt white culture. Eva was taken from her mother at the age of two and placed in a Methodist mission where she was kept for eight years. At the age of ten, she was transferred to an orphanage in Adelaide.

After the men had left the room, Eva told a harrowing story of her abduction. She remembers, as a toddler, her mother running through the bush, holding her in her arms. An Australian soldier on a horse was pursuing them. He bent down and grabbed her, and she did not see her mother again for three decades.
 
She told us about this reunion. The children from the Stolen Generations were never intended to reunite with their families. Neither the parents nor the children were given information about each other, and the children had been renamed.
 
Eva’s mother was in a nursing home watching television, when she saw Eva on television. She may have been watching the acclaimed series “Women of the Sun,” about the lives of four Aboriginal women in Australian society from the 1820s to the 1980s. Eva recognized her daughter on the screen. Even though she had not seen her daughter since that day in the bush, she recognized her. That was the story of how they found each other.

Eva wrote a poem about this reunion, “A Letter to My Mother.” The poem has been widely published and is included in curricula of Aboriginal literature.

“A Letter to My Mother”
 
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now
White fulla bin take me from you, I don’t know why
Give me to Missionary to be God’s child.
 
Give me new language, give me new name
All time I cry, they say—‘that shame’
I go to the city down south, real cold
I forget all them stories, my Mother you told
 
Gone is my spirit, my dreaming, my name
Gone to these people, our country to claim
They gave me white mother, she give me new name
All time I cry, she say—‘that shame’
 
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now.
I grow as Woman now, not Piccaninny no more
I need you to teach me your wisdom, your lore
 
I am your Spirit, I’ll stay alive
But in white fulla way, you won’t survive
I’ll fight for Your land, for your Sacred sites
To sing and to dance with the Brolga in flight
 
To continue to live in your own tradition
A culture for me was replaced by a mission
 
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now.
One day your dancing, your dreaming, your song
Will take my your Spirit back where I belong
 
My Mother, the earth, the land—I demand
Protection from aliens who rule, who command
For they do not know where our dreaming began
 
Our destiny lies in the laws of White Man
Two Women we stand, our story untold
But now as our spiritual bondage unfold
We will silence this Burden, this longing, this pain
When I hear you my Mother give me my Name

I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now.
 

Eva spoke about her work as a director in Australia. I remember her talking about producing a play about the colonization of her people. In her production, all the white male roles were performed by Aboriginal women. She told us that she had been challenged for this casting choice. I have never forgotten her explanation, when she asked who better understood the mind of the white male colonizer than the indigenous woman.
 
Eva Johnson’s work reflects her identity as part of the “Stolen Generation,” and it also addresses cultural identity, Aboriginal Australian women's rights, land rights, slavery, sexism and homophobia. An out and proud lesbian, she lit up the conference with her joy and her exuberance, which was inextricably connected to her awareness of her history. She is a living embodiment of Alice Walker’s affirmation, “Resistance is the secret of joy.”

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-prize-winning classic, is headed to Broadway… or, at least, it was headed for Broadway.
 
The author’s estate has just filed a lawsuit against the producer, Scott Rudin. At issue is his adaptation for stage. The estate attorney claims that it deviates too much from the novel and that this is a violation of their contract, which specifies that they shall not “derogate or depart in any manner from the spirit of the novel nor alter its characters.”
 
As a playwright, I find this case fascinating. As a lesbian, I think that both sides are overlooking the obvious.
 
To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, was considered radical in its day. The protagonist, Atticus Finch, is a white attorney who stands up to the prejudice in his small Alabama town, defending an African American man who has been falsely accused of rape by a white woman.

Today, however, the book is seen—rightfully—as exemplifying the racist trope of the Great White Savior.  In a silent tribute to their white champion, they rise spontaneously as Atticus leaves the courtroom. His head bowed in defeat, he neither sees nor acknowledges them.
 
This was the book that Harper Lee wrote. It is an artifact of its time. Although African American authors were writing and publishing, the white-dominated mainstream market was not ready to identify with their perspectives. Lee’s book was an immediate bestseller. It’s my opinion that the popular embrace of the book is contingent on the fact that Atticus loses his case and that the defendant is killed in attempting to escape. Like the trope of the dead lesbian, this reification of the status quo invites self-satisfied expressions of compassion from mainstream readers who are spared the more difficult work of embracing an ending that signals social change.
 
Today the Great White Savior narrative is widely acknowledged as offensive, and one not likely to repay the investment that goes into mounting a Broadway production. This is why, in this dramatic adaptation by Aaron Sorkin, Atticus is portrayed at the outset as a man in denial about the racism of his town—an apologist for prejudice, unwilling to believe that an innocent man can be found guilty.  The role of Calpurnia, the African American woman who cooks for the Finch family, has been rewritten as the agent for Atticus’ awakening. Through a series of confrontations with her employer, she manages to win over the white attorney, mentoring him into the reality of Southern rural racism in 1936. By the end of the play, he has become the Atticus with whom we are familiar, the righteous hero standing against the masses for social justice… but he owes it all to a woman of color.

Actor/musician Evadne Bryan-Perkins notes that this rewrite swaps one racist trope for another--that of the "Magical Negro." This trope relies on a supporting stock character coming to the aid of the white protagonists, helping them discern the error of their ways. (This term was popularized by African American film director Spike Lee in 2001, during his lecture tour of universities, where he was criticizing the unrealistic and stereotyped depictions of African American men in Hollywood cinema.)

But Rudin, the producer, is not just responding to the datedness of the Great White Savior narrative. He also knows his dramaturgy. In theatre, the main character needs to have what is called a “narrative arc.” The protagonist must go on a journey of transformation, starting out at Point A and, two hours later, ending up—ideally—at Point Z. (A dramatic trajectory from Point A to Point B is not likely to carry a play with the gravitas of To Kill a Mockingbird.) The Atticus of the book, tried as he is by circumstances, nevertheless begins with sterling character and social conscience and ends in the same state of  grace. He goes from Point A to Point A.
 
As a playwright, I sympathize with the producer.  He wants a play that is going to work. However, as a playwright who is zealous about her own copyright protections, I have to side with the Harper Lee estate: It is clear that, in giving Atticus a narrative arc, the producer has deviated substantially from the character in the book. In rewriting the role of Calpurnia to be a major voice in the play, the producer has essentially created a new character.

As of the writing of this, neither side is making concessions.  Rudin, from his corner, maintains, “I can't and won't present a play that feels like it was written in the year the book was written in terms of its racial politics: It wouldn't be of interest…. The world has changed since then."
 
Attorney Tonja Carter, representing the Harper Lee estate fires back that the new Atticus “is more like an edgy sitcom dad in the 21st Century than the iconic Atticus of the novel.”
 
So that is the current standoff.
 
But I think both sides are missing something. It’s not about Atticus. It’s never been about Atticus. The voice of the narrator in the book is a gender-non-conforming girl named Scout. Atticus is her father. Harper Lee, a lesbian, has created a character that is her alter-ego, telling a story that was inspired by an actual event that occurred near her hometown in Alabama when she was ten years old. The plot and observations in the book are loosely based on her own experience. The model for Atticus was her own father.

Scout has a huge dramatic arc. In fact, Scout’s coming-to-consciousness about the socials evils of the adult world is the point of the book. She goes from being a naive child who has absorbed the prejudices of her peers, to someone who can break away, incorporating perspectives of the under-represented and standing with the outsiders of the world. Scout watches the trial, literally, from the colored section of the segregated courtroom. At the end of the book, she has traveled from fear of a developmentally disabled neighbor, to recognizing him as an ally and friend.
 
Why not make Scout the central figure in the Broadway show?  In the book, she is six, but she was older in the film. If the play is refracted through the adoring eyes of a child, wouldn't that explain her idealized experience of her father? In the book, Scout accompanies Calpurnia to a Black church, where she has a massive awakening as she sees Calpurnia's transformation of status among members of her own community. No need to violate the contract. Just allow the woman the full and radical context of that scene.

Can a Broadway audience identify with a gender-non-conforming little girl. Why not?  It wouldn’t be the first time. Member of the Wedding, another best-seller by a Southern lesbian author, was adapted for Broadway. It opened in 1950 and ran for more than five hundred performances. A historic production, the cast included Ethel Waters and a young Julie Harris. What is significant here is that the author adapted the book herself, and the character of the tomboy, Frankie, remains as central and unaltered on the stage as she was in the book. 
 
Yes, there will be a problem if Aaron Sorkin stays on to attempt a Scout-centric adaptation. Sorkin’s writing credits include the television series The West Wing, and a roster of tough-talking, political films including A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson's War, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs. He has already been questioned about his ability to write dialogue for Harper Lee’s juvenile characters. Asked if they will be expected to “speak Sorkin,” he responded, "Well, they're gonna have to, because I didn't write their language like they were children."
 
As a solution to this author-producer deadlock, I would like to put my name forward as an alternative writer. My credentials include thirty years of creating and performing lesbian roles for the stage, including more than a dozen gender-non-conforming roles for little girls. I invite Mr. Rudin to the webpage for my Butch Visibility Project. I really believe this might work.

The #MeToo campaign is causing a revolution, and I want to make sure that the other, huge percentage of women impacted by these sexual predators are not forgotten. I call us the "#MeNeither women." Read on!

In October of last year, the online #MeToo campaign went viral on international social media sites. The hashtag phrase was created by Tarana Burke, an African American civil rights activist, who coined it in 2006 to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault in the culture. Last fall, white actress and activist Alyssa Milano boosted the signal by posting a message on her Twitter account, encouraging survivors of sexual harassment and assault to post #metoo as a status update. She did this as a supportive response to the actresses who were coming forward with their stories of harassment and assault by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

t#MeToo marks a cultural watershed. In a nutshell, women are being believed.
 
Suddenly immediate action is being taken to remove and replace these predators, without the women needing to win a case in court. For decades powerful men have gotten away with rape and harassment, because they could count on their victims having fewer resources and connections. They could tie up these women in court for decades with costly litigation, as well as smearing their names and destroying their careers. In fact, Weinstein hired private security agencies to collect information on the women who accused him and the journalists trying to expose the allegations. These agencies included Black Cube, a business run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies, with branches all over the world. According to the New Yorker Magazine:

But in October, all of this changed. Women are being believed. We celebrate their courage as well as the international housecleaning that is going on as these predators are being fired and replaced.
 
But there is a hidden side of #MeToo. I call it #MeNeither, to include the victims who are currently not being included in this historic moment. Not all the victims have been assaulted or verbally harassed. In fact, the #MeNeither victims, like myself, are the ones the predators would not touch with a ten-foot pole.

The men who were/are busy raping, coercing, groping, and blackmailing their victims were/are not going to green-light any films about strong women standing up to perpetrators and winning. They were/are not going to fund narratives in which men like themselves are depicted as the bad guys. They were/are not going to foster a culture where they will be called out for their criminal appetites and activities. They did/do promote pornographic narratives where women are objectified, raped, tortured, and mutilated. They did/do promote romantic comedies where the heroine will sacrifice all to stand by her man. They aggressively have/do propagate male supremacy in their enterprises. These predators have colonized our collective imaginations.
 
Here is a partial list (out-of-date the day after posting!) of these mogul predators who have been busted just since October. It speaks for itself. These are men at the highest echelons of the top entertainment and media institutions in the US. Some are also in our government:

So most of these are gone or on their way out. What's next? Nature abhors a vacuum, so let's make sure that their replacements are not just "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Let's make sure that their replacements are drawn from the vast #MeNeither pool, packed with women whose talents have gone unnoticed for lack of opportunity and lack of resources. #MeNeither women have the narratives that are currently missing... and these narratives hold the promise of saving the planet.

 II have been feeling frustrated lately, and I think some of it comes from my friends not understanding what’s going on with me... So I am going to tell you a little bit about that... about  what is actually going on with me.
 
I am disabled. I have celiac disease, which I inherited from my mother. Born in 1920, she was one of the first diagnosed cases of what they used to call “sprue.” Her doctors hadn't realized that gluten was the problem, but they did realize that these sick babies would start to thrive if they were put on a diet consisting of nothing but bananas and oatmeal for the first three years of their lives. So that's what my mother ate.

She did survive, but, sadly, she grew up believing that sprue was a childhood disease that she had outgrown. No one outgrows celiac... at least, not to my knowledge. Because of this misinformation, my mother ate wheat all her life and, consequently, suffered from a huge number of mental and physical disorders. It never occurred to her to have her children tested. As infants, we were not noticeably sick. We grew up eating wheat.
 
I was forty before I realized that I had inherited celiac from her. It took a while for me to connect the dots back to my mother’s “sprue.”  By the time I realized what I had, I was suffering from a wide range of conditions related to poor absorption of nutrients from a compromised gut.  I was running serious deficiencies in the B vitamins, in zinc, in magnesium… and I was severely anemic.  And I wasn't metabolizing fats very well. Every year, I was becoming more and more malnourished.

My condition was compounded by Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).  I was stricken with ME/CFS in the fall of 1987.  It came on like the worst case of flu in my life… except I never recovered. I was desperately sick for about seven years: encephalitis, petit mal seizures, strange rashes, neurofibromyalgia, debilitating migraines, sleep disorders, extreme irritability, vision problems, multiple chemical sensitivities (allergies to everything), cognitive disorders, and fatigue. Fatigue so serious I could not clean the litter box and get the mail from the mailbox on the same day. And an inability to bounce back from even mild physical exertion (post-exertional malaise).
 
I am better now, but here’s the thing: I’m not normal. Not even close. Most people aren’t around me consistently enough to realize the extent of my disability, but it’s like this: I start every day with a certain number of energy chips… let’s say 60 chips. That’s all I’m going to get for the day. And if I try to do things that require more than my allotment of energy chips, I can become incapacitated for more than a week. It's like I go to energy debtor's prison.  It’s really important for me not to spend beyond my limit. 60 chips. No credit cards. No checks. Strictly energy cash, pay-as-you-go.

So most normal folks start their day with, say, 300 energy chips. On an average day, an average person only needs, say,  about 200. Most people never even have to think about it. They do a bunch of things all day until it’s time to go to bed. They end their day with a pile of unused energy chips. They have an abundance of energy for whatever they want to do.
 
But I have to budget. I have to  scrimp. I have to rob Peter to pay Paul.  There’s a whole  lot of calculation and negotiation that goes on in my daily activity log. When I get up in the morning, I look at what I absolutely have to do that day. That gets the first allocation of energy chips. Then I look at the things that have to be done sometime. That’s the next round. If I have any chips left, I can budget for something fun. I am mostly retired, which is a great relief, but just routine cleaning and cooking and keeping up with things like oil changes or dental visits takes much of my energy. I also have to eat a very specialized diet that precludes gluten, dairy, sugar, and prepared foods. I end up needing to cook a lot. It gets exhausting, but if I am not careful, I will wake up in the morning with only 50 chips instead of 60.

Anything emotionally strenuous or physically demanding will run through all my chips and land me in bed. I can’t do aerobic exercise. I can’t deal with dysfunctional dynamics. Drama is a luxury I can’t afford. And travel, because of all the unknowns, crowds, toxins, and changes in plans, is incredibly challenging for me.
 
If you ask me at the last minute to do something, I am very likely going to have to say no. If you ask me at 2 PM about going to a party that night, I probably won’t have saved up the energy chips for it. I was planning to be done with my day by 6 or 7, so most of my chips have already been used up. If you had asked me two days earlier about the party, I could have budgeted, but now it’s too late.
 
Also, as an introvert, I am drained when I am around people, even close friends. Like other introverts,  I recharge my batteries by being alone. (Extroverts are the opposite.) I  have to budget the plans I make to be with people. It can use up all my chips just to host a visitor for a day, or even a half-day. If you come to visit me, come prepared to entertain yourself without me for much of the time. I need most of my time for myself.  Introversion + celiac + ME/CFS = the main reason why I have been single for most of the last 30 years. I just don’t have the energy.

If  I am visiting you, and you have planned a whole bunch of activities, I will probably have to say no to most of them. I can budget for, possibly, one a day.
 
I love the saying, “If you see your glass as half-empty, pour it into a smaller glass and stop bitching.” That is exactly what I have done.

I have moved to a little village where I am two blocks from the library, the post office, the grocery store, the hardware store, and the town hall. I live on an island where there is a national park. I can access breathtaking day hikes in just fifteen minutes. I rarely leave the island… and my cup runneth over with beauty and gratitude.

I write for a limited amount of time every day. I’m often done with my day by 6 or 7 at night. I keep things as simple and easy as I can… and I still feel vulnerable. A flat tire or an emotional tiff can blow the energy budget for the day, and a day of energy debt can cost me an entire week.

Am I controlling? I experience that as an unfair question. I have to live within my energy means. The penalties for overdrawing the account are very severe. How I live isn’t micromanaging to me. It’s prudent self-care. And it's not optional.
 
So, if you are my friend, that’s how I tick. I am disabled all the time. I’m on the energy clock all the time. If you know this about me, and you have empathy, that is a bonus for me. It's fewer energy chips I have to expend when I am around you. And sometimes, believe it or not, I actually get  an extra chip or two from your concern and consideration.  And that is something exquisitely rare and precious to me.

So, there it is. Thanks for reading.