Why 'A Raisin in the Sun' is Still Relevant

Sean " P-Diddy" Combs is no Sidney Poitier. Nevertheless in 2004 his casting was central to the success of the revival of "A Raisin in the Sun," Lorraine Hansberry’s award winning play about a struggling Black family.

Poitier made the character Walter Lee famous in the original 1959 Broadway production and Combs’ rap credentials gave the role a sense of modernity. Walter Lee, like the protagonists of many rap songs, irrationally believes that his worth as a man is measured in dollars and consequentially he makes a decision that is both selfish and foolish. As Walter Lee learns that "money don’t make the man," the audience sees how poverty can crush the human spirit. Last Monday ABC broadcast the film adaptation of "A Raisin in the Sun," starring Combs, Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald.

"A Raisin in the Sun" takes its title from the Langston Hughes' poem, "A Dream Deferred," which describes how unfulfilled hopes wither and die. The play tells the story of the Youngers, Mama, her children Beneatha and Walter Lee and his wife and their son. The working class family is living in a cramp apartment on Chicago’s South side in 1950s. When Mama gets a $10,000 check from her husband's life insurance, she decides to move the family to a house in a White suburb. Through its characters, Beneatha an aspiring doctor and Walter Lee a frustrated chauffeur, the play foreshadows the social and political changes that the civil rights movement would usher in. "A Raisin in the Sun," is a quintessential America story—the principled underdogs prevail over the bad guys. Unfortunately, in real life it takes more than self-respect to get out of the ghetto.

Many young Black people in poor communities around the country simply don’t live long enough to fulfill their dreams. In 2007 between September and July, 34 public school children in Chicago had been killed. Among the slain was a girl killed on the playground, a student shot on a city bus and another teenager shot walking home from the library. Nationally homicides are the leading killer of young Black men between the ages of 14 and 34. In Washington, DC, although Black men make up only 25 percent of the population they represent 80 percent of the homicide victims in 2007. The young people lucky enough to survive their violent neighborhoods however are frequently unprepared to get more than a dead-end a job.

Poor children often enter kindergarten academically behind and the public schools that they attend are often ill equipped to help them to catch up. After years of frustration many poor teenagers simply drop out of school. Although a college degree is now the minimum requirement for sustainable employment, nationally almost 50 percent of Black students are dropping out of high school. According to the Children’s Defense Fund report, Cradle to Prison Pipeline, when teenagers drop out of school, they are more likely to be poor, probably for the rest of their lives and to end up incarcerated. Without early intervention, the drop-outs’ children will continue the cycle of poverty and low-academic achievement.

The unemployment rate is generally higher for Blacks than for other groups. Some Blacks cannot get jobs because they have been in jail. Others lack the requisite skills or education, while some willing workers literally can’t get to where the jobs are located. There are very few jobs in poor communities--- even fast food restaurants are reducing their staffs through automation. Nationally job creation is occurring most rapidly in the suburbs, not the cities. Beyond getting a job, low income workers have to find ways to get to work, particularly in areas where public transportation is scarce or non-existent. To stay employed these workers have to stretch their meager wages beyond food and rent to include car payments, car insurance and gasoline. Something so mundane as getting to work is a nearly impossible feat for a worker earning the minimum wage of $5.85 per hour.

"A Raisin in the Sun" still matters because despite the success of Black Americans such as Oprah Winfrey, Sen. Barack Obama and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in 2008 ghettos still exist in the United States. For ghettos to become obsolete, our elected officials have to again focus on urban policy. In the aftermath of the 1960s riots, the Kerner Commission in 1968 suggested ways to eliminate ghettos which included job creation, new housing construction and the end of de facto segregation. In the last 40 years there have been a variety of piecemeal efforts to improve low-income communities, but few attempts at the federal or state levels to implement comprehensive long-term strategies. Real urban policy would require both a great deal of money as well as committment. Regretably the public seems more willing to warehouse people in prisons than invest in better schools, employment training centers and supporting community-based businesses. Local businesses would not only employee people, and bring in needed services, they would also help to revitalize ailing low-income neighborhoods.

Individuals must be held accountable for the consequences of their choices. Society should not coddle criminals or people who repeatedly exercise poor judgment. But the ability to choose may be illusory for young people who are trapped in dangerous neighborhoods, attending subpar public schools and are unable to find work. We will know that ghettos have been eliminated when it seems absurd that the Youngers would have to move to a White suburb to have a better life.