The Real Geneva Tisdale

The amazing differences in the written word and the spoken word are never more apparent than in the story of Geneva Tisdale. Reading the text of the story lends a historical, impartial view of the happenings of that time. One can get an overall view of the layout of the restaurant and how hard the employees worked. But once Geneva begins to speak does the true story emerge.

To read the script, one would think the story was about the civil rights battles that were going on all over the south at that time. It was a fierce and frightening time in the history of our country during which many people were hurt and killed.
Civil rights leaders such as Martin King and Malcolm X were murdered outright as people were afraid of their charismatic leadership.

The real story here is in the wistfulness of Geneva’s voice as she tells her story. One hears the pride as she recounts being the first African American to be served at the counter. One can almost hear the anger as she focuses only on her work and ignores the demeaning work of waiting on Caucasians for years, always the servant but never the served, until the moment arrives. One can hear the yearning to be on the customer side of the counter on her own terms and not guided by her boss’s dictates. And after all that she has lived through for so many years, to be making such a low wage with the knowledge that the Caucasian waitress would make more money.

If I were in control of the telling of this tale, I would create a one-woman show in which I would have a woman of color deliver a monologue, speaking of all of the internal conversations that she would have with herself during this time. I would want to know what she was REALLY thinking behind that counter, but would be in too much deep trouble to voice. I would want to hear the longing, the anger and betrayal that was too dangerous to be expressed in a more open way. I might even have her spit in a hamburger before she would serve it to the man who called her racist names.

Yes, Geneva Tisdale is a remarkable woman whose real story is in her feelings and thoughts of a time that discounted her humanity, a story that can be more aptly portrayed through a spoken history rather than a written one.

Ideas the World Over

I have spent the last couple of hours viewing the front pages of newspapers from all over the world. Guess what....I saw more NFL football stories on the front pages of newspapers in the US than stories about the war in Iraq. Pictures of the pigskin take up half a front page while the occasional small article about the war finds its way into a corner. Every once in a while I noticed stories about illegal aliens. I didnt see much as far as any government criticism (that is, us nailing on our government about the job that they are(or are not) doing. Oh, yes, Britannie Spears. I saw her picture quite a bit in European papers. I saw more soccer in Europe. I guess it is their version of football.
It was difficult to understand what the German papers were about, but the picture of the young man with his fist raised into the air with Osama's face on his t-shirt brought back other extremist memories like those of Hitler. The one paper that I read that was thought provoking was the English version of Aljazeera. Especially the part where folks can email their opinions. What a wealth of information. I understand that these emails are very laden with the politics of the areas from which they originate. However, these topics are not open for discussion in our newspapers like they used to be. It is easy to forget certain topics when they are not in the forefront of the media.
I wish to pose a question to the younger folks--how long will Free Speech be allowed on the web?

Comment also posted to Brad Reed's blog

I was blown away by the video. I have been trained since an early age to read text and convert that to understanding. I read rather quickly and the words translate into pictures. Now with the new hypertext the transfer is already done and it can constantly change each time someone reads and responds to it. I can see that this will take getting used to. The word is no longer static. I am sure that to those who have grown up with the internet this is nothing new. However, to an older member of the group, all of the change can be rather dizzying. I just am amazed with the combination of graphics, movement, color and sound. It sounds like the next step is to insert a chip directly into the brain to communicate instantly with each other. This class is nothing like I imagined it would be.Simply amazing!

The New Wor(l)d

I am an old school person trying to transition into the new world of computer communication. In the past, we had photographs and books. We depended upon the crafting of the written word to be able to convey a mood, an emotion or a physical location. How the word felt as it was spoken gave it depth and sensual appeal. How the word sounded when it was spoken added to the experience.
(to be continued)