55 pages • 1 hour read
Anna Deavere SmithFires In The Mirror
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Race
Race is an integral aspect of the Crown Heights riots, as they would not have begun without the racial tensions evident between the black and Jewish communities in Crown Heights. However, the play presents race within a larger socio-historical context than merely that of Crown Heights. Smith attempts to locate race within the larger American historical context, even going so far as to include Angela Davis’s analysis of the origins of race:
[R]ace has become, uh, / an increasingly obsolete way / of constructing community / because it is based on unchangeable / immutable biological / facts / in a very pseudo-scientific way, / alright? / Now / racism is entirely different / because see racism, / uh / actually I think / is / at the origins of this concept of race (30).
Davis suggests that race was created as a result of racism, and not the other way around. Rather, in order to allow for the subjugation of black and Native American bodies, colonizers had to create the pseudo-science of race to rationalize the racism inherent within their actions. Davis suggests that race is inherently violent because it was created out of this desire for corporeal subjugation.
However, many of the interviewees attempt to reconcile their racial identities with this violent history, constructing themselves as Other than those who have subjugated them. Wolfe defends a more positive view of his racial identity: “My blackness does not resis— ex— re— / exist in relationship to your whiteness” (10). Wolfe views his blackness as separate from whiteness; that is, he does not feel his blackness depends upon whiteness to exist. Rather, it is separate from whiteness as its own thing in entirety. The slippage between resist and exist, however, demonstrates the tension inherent within this explanation of race, despite how positively Wolfe constructs his own blackness. For Wolfe, it seems that the existence of blackness somehow is predicated on its resistance to whiteness; that is, that the nature of blackness is, by default, one of resistance. In this way, the tensions evident within the Crown Heights community and the surrounding socio-historical context are identified as a crucial aspect of racial identity.
Identity
Although deeply rooted in race and the racial tensions that exist within Crown Heights and American society at large, much of the focus of the play is dedicated to an interrogation of identity. Throughout the play, Smith is concerned with what identity means; many of the subsequent interviews—not only those within Act 1—deal with aspects of interviewee’s identities. From the very beginning of the play, Shange roots identity in place. In subsequent interviews, the audience sees that much of this interrogation of identity is thereby rooted in regard to location. Wolfe remembers how physical location affected his personal identity as a child: “beyond a certain point / I was treated like I was insignificant” (10).
However, this commentary upon identity is necessarily racialized, as Wolfe was treated as insignificant due to his racial identity. In this way, when identity is rooted in place, the communal identity is allowed to supersede the personal identity, which he recognizes: “I was extraordinary as long as I was Black” (10). Due to the segregation—both de jure and de facto—at the heart of American history, the place becomes racialized, thereby affecting identity itself. The identity is then inextricable from both the communal—in this case, the racial—identity, which is localized by segregation.
Similarly, Mohammed roots slavery within this localized construct of identity. That is, he suggests that because slaves were stolen from their land, their identity was also taken from them: “So this kind of thing, / Sister, / is what qualifies slavery / as the greatest / crime ever committed. / They have stolen / our garment. / Stolen our identity” (57). Mohammed suggests that identity is rooted within a place of birth, and that the black community suffers from a kind of natal alienation that prevents them from assuming a coherent identity. However, it does not only prevent them from assuming a coherent communal identity, but it also prevents them from creating a cohesive personal identity. Due to this natal alienation, Mohammed suggests that black persons cannot truly know themselves, the greatest crime of slavery. In this way, the audience sees how historical actions have traumatic ramifications upon personal and communal identity.
The Importance of Words
Throughout the play, Smith emphasizes the importance of words in understanding racial tensions and interrogating identity. Smith believes that words allow an actor to inhabit the character, representing a dynamic movement between the self and Other and blurring the lines between the actor and the character: “[B]y using another person’s language, it was possible to portray what was invisible about that individual” (xxxii). By using verbatim theatre, Smith believes she can blur the lines between herself as the screenwriter and the characters themselves, creating a more authentic embodiment of these real people.
However, apart from the importance of words to acting and to the play itself, words are presented as having great import to the beliefs and experiences of people within the play. Many of the characters emphasize words in order to convey their experiences. In the case of Miller, he stresses an absence of words at Gavin’s funeral: “I am not aware of a— / and I was taking notes— / of a word that was uttered / of comfort to the family of Yankel Rosenbaum” (85). In this way, words are important for what they are but also noticed in their absence. Miller finds the lack of sympathetic words for Rosenbaum upsetting, although a critical audience might question why the funeral of a seven-year-old black boy would require words of sympathy towards the family or Yankel Rosenbaum. However, in Miller’s mind, this absence of words represents the way the Jewish community feels they are being treated by the black community. This absence of words also stands in stark contrast to the racial epithets that Miller remembers being thrown around, although other characters identify that many people who use these racist terms do not understand their historical context. For this reason, there is also great importance placed on words in regard to what they mean to society as a whole. Words become politicized and cannot be taken out of context.
Other characters identify that the way in which someone can understand another person is through words; that is, at the most basic level, words are used to communicate. However, Smith suggests that the words we use communicate not only our thoughts but also our identities. In the interview with Sonny Carson, he explains that he is dangerous because he understands the language of the youth: “I am the ultimate bad guy / because of my relationship to the young people in the city. / I understand their language” (104). Carson implies that to understand a person or a group is to understand their language. In this case, he says that understanding the language of angry black youth makes him a target. This further politicizes the nature of words, as nothing that is said can be extricated from its sociopolitical context.
