Pumpkins and Pessimism

Linvilla Orchards Pumpkins

My husband Clem and I came to Philadelphia yesterday to spend the weekend with our daughter and her family. Today my daughter Beth and I took her younger son Ikem, now 15 months old, to Linvilla Orchards,a family entertainment center, especially popular at this time of year. There are pumpkins everywhere. There are hayrides, apple sling-shot shooting, face-painting, a maze, farmers’ market, and lots of food. Cider donuts, pumpkin ice cream, and funnel cakes shared the bill with the staples of pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers. The fresh corn with salt and butter was delicious.

We had lovely fall weather with bright sun and no wind. I’m sure half of Philadelphia was there.

Beth’s daughter Nkiru, my Hawaii companion, went earlier in the day with several of her friends. Their goal? Pictures to share. “Why else would you go to Linvilla?” Nkiru says, and I know many 15-year olds would agree.

Pumpkins were of all shapes, sizes, and configurations. The strangest were the peanut pumpkins which you can see in the picture at the top. Beth said they look like they have warts! There were snake pumpkins which dangled from the ceiling. You can see Beth holding an odd-shaped gourd that looked like a hook or an “O”.

There isn’t anywhere in Nigeria like Linvilla Orchards, though Bar Beach on Sunday afternoon comes to mind as the Nigerian alternative. Thousands of Lagosians crowd the beach, not to swim or sunbathe, but to stroll.

A few people put their toes in the water. Most are there to enjoy the camaraderie and sea air, admire other strollers, and show off their own beautiful Sunday finery.

Hausa traders offer horse-back riding. They also offer jewelry and beads for sale, like the beads in the header of my blog. There are other entertainers too like jugglers and dancers. Food vendors are plentiful. But no pumpkins!

Blackballed

Darryl Pinckney is the author of the new book Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy. I heard him speak at the Westport Country Playhouse last week. His talk was part of the series organized by the Playhouse to build context for the play Intimate Apparel which Clem and I saw on Friday night. The play by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and a screenwriter Lynn Nottage delves into issues of race, ethnicity, and economic disparity in 1905 New York City.

Pinckney who writes regularly about race and gender issues is pessimistic about the state of civil rights in our country. I will read his book.

More Pessimism about Race Relations

“Extra Men” is an essay in The New York Times Magazine by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, author of Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America. Her scathing essay had the title, The Worth of Black Men, from Slavery to Ferguson, when it appeared a few days earlier. She describes the link between the lists of slaves for sale in the 19th century, where 20-year-old black men had the highest value, with the value we seem to put on the lives of black men today.

She says “a path can be traced from slavery to the killing of Michael Brown.” The slaves were valuable economic assets at the time of the lists she describes. But how things have changed.

“Instead of being at the center of the national economy – as were 20-year-olds in slave traders’ value scale – those who are young and black have become a distortion . . they are now surplus labor, discarded in advance as uneducable . . potential criminals.” Harsh words and sad.

Keep Talking

But that doesn’t mean we should give up confronting racism or police brutality. We keep trying, and we keep talking.

Kenechi’s Words

Kenechi is Ikem’s older brother, now 19 and a sophomore at Cornell, You’ve seen his picture, most recently from several years ago in Italy. He’s at home for fall break. I asked him to add a few words.

He says, “One of the more interesting things I have noticed at my time at Cornell is the bond that many of the black students have with one another. Even when someone is a complete stranger there is a moment of acknowledgment that we give each other, almost as if we know that we all represent what we hope will be a brighter future for African-Americans in this country. Hopefully we can all continue on the paths we have laid out for ourselves with our hard work and make strides toward a better lot for black Americans.”