to be or not to be
(huey freeman)


since season three is ON and i am back on the boondocks train, it seems appropriate to revisit an old series left for dead when i decided "to be" julio jones. it felt like jordan with his hand up in the air against the jazz. i was proud enough of the post, itself, and the series felt complete. time to move on. the conceit, though, never stopped sounding fun to me, but rarely enough do i find a subject worth taking a closer look at that doesn't lose my interest by the time i find my way to a computer with time to kill. so, we find ourselves this afternoon with a little bit of that. about an hour to kill before i take the girls to bradford park, so let's meditate, won't we, on a ten year-old revolutionary for a few minutes.

my buddy, vaughn, and i were going back and forth about the boondocks first episode of it's third season yesterday morning. we both agreed that little huey freeman is one of the more fascinating characters that the both of us have run across. named after the founding father of the black panther party, compared to most ten year-olds i've ever been around, huey is a cut above. intelligent, well-read, copious amounts of skill in the way of martial arts, enlightened that the world around him is a far cry from what it should be and a big brother to boot. he, as most of us would always like to do, speaks his mind articulately when faced with the hardest of questions. he loves his family, but he hates that they seem slaves to his idea of a fabricated reality. he seems to have only one confidant in also-little jazmine dubois, but the television series shows their relationship more as an instrument for huey to voice his concerns and opinions somewhere other than in his head. you see that he cares for her, but he also pities her, not the greatest trait in the realm of friendship.

huey, as he is drawn and visioned, is perfectly realized in that, as a kid, he is able to speak out to the adult characters around him and be a mouthpiece for his creator's message, but the peripheral characters most often cast the message aside as nothing more than a child's overactive imagination. the stereotypes that huey finds most disappointing in "his people" continue to be recycled, ever proving our perpetually scowling protagonist right in his opinion that "hope is irrational".

at times, i feel lost in a world that feels a lot like huey's world and the world of the boondocks. the people around me, most especially many of those that patronize my store, feel more like characters than individuals. conversations feel scripted, because it's the same conversation they have with every person they run across. "how's the weather?" "how's your dog?" "boy, i hear obama is going to make us mate with giraffes." "man, i can't wait to vote for tim james." i nod and am just as guilty to the fiction as anyone else. rather than pressing the issue and asking someone why they look so worried or asking them why they believe some crazy idea about god, i just smile. i comfort them if it feels like they need it. talk about alabama football if they need to. pretend to understand and empathize with a dog that "can't seem to find a food they can eat" while the owner won't let them stay with a food for more than a week or two at a time.

"eh".

i took my deposit to the bank monday morning and was asked a very telling question by the teller that most often helps me. let me quickly repaint the scene. i was fourth in line when i came into the bank. three windows were open. as i moved to the front of the line, i was well within earshot of the three customers ahead of me. the first was in front of an older teller. he is an older man, a retired marine (i know this because i hear him tell a variation of the same story every time i see him in the bank.). with no regard for the feelings of the teller in front of him, he comments on the lady's cleavage. she doesn't hear him at first because of the bulletproof glass in between them, so he makes his comment louder. "I THANK YOU FOR WEARING THAT BLOUSE THIS MORNING. YOU TAKE YOUR TIME WITH THAT CHECK. I LOVE MY VIEW." red from embarrassment, the lady tries to avoid any more conversation than what is required. the old, gross marine continues to be an ass and talks about how his wife doesn't satisfy him anymore. great. the second customer works at taco bell and is also bringing deposits. her deposit, she is told, is off by $47 dollars. "no, it's not. i counted it." "i am sorry, ma'am, but i've counted it twice and it's short." "you BEST BE countin' it a third time. YOU OFF." jesus. the teller counts it a third time. it's still off. i never hear an apology. i get out of the bank before the taco bell lady does. the third customer is cashing a check. he doesn't have an account, so "my" teller informs him that he's going to have to pay seven dollars to cash the check and that he'll have to put his thumbprint on the check as well. "the FUCK i am!!!" seriously, i am not making any of this up. i promise you. in the lobby of the bank, we've got one guy saying out loud to a teller, "the fuck i am.", we've got a disgruntled taco bell employee making an ass out of herself to compensate for her mistake and we have an old man telling another bank employee that her boobs look great today. cripes.

"fuck i am" guy storms off with his check uncashed. i walk up to amy. she says to me in a resigned voice, "good morning, kevin". "hey, amy." "what's wrong? you look sad."

she was right. i am sure i did look sad. i was sad. all three of the folks in front of me made me sad. not so much with their actions, but because, the longer i gave it thought, the more i wondered where or from whom they learned the actions. who told the old guy is was cool to embarrass women? who didn't embed thoughts of humility into the taco bell employee? who did the "fuck i am" guy think he was?

today, i've given monday morning's action thought through the eyes of huey freeman. huey would have been blown away too. he probably would have gone to his room and done some voice over narration that would have sounded a lot cooler and a lot smarter than the thoughts that were bouncing around in my head. more than anything, though, he'd have been dissatisfied.

dissatisfied that many agents of negative change in our society had led to all three of the customers in front of me monday feeling entitled to act the way they did. he would have sulked. he would have stayed to himself. and in the end of that episode, we'd be left to wonder if his disappointment would motivate him towards change or apathy. good or evil or indifference. huey's character is still being drawn. after one season three episode, he is now a "retired" revolutionary. the world has chewed him up and spit him out confused.

i love huey's ideals. i am in favor of his political leanings. i am a fan of many of his heroes. i like star wars a lot too. apathy, though, is for the birds.

all of that being said, "to be or not to be" huey freeman?

until he finds his legs again, i choose "not to be."