Metro to show courage on biggest stage yet

Written by Jimmy Braley
(jbraley@mscd.edu)

The Point: March for your education

Down in the deep dark recesses of the King Center — where, for a number of good, rational and private reasons, only a very small minority of us choose to spend our time — there exists a whole underbelly of creativity exhumed and channeled by a small group of exceptionally talented students who are somehow able to remain hard at work, focused, determined and serious about their passions, despite the uncertain political and economic atmosphere that has engulfed the rest of the known world.

But wait. I should probably start this thing off on the right foot.

Hi folks — Yeah, that’s better. It has been a while, I know. A few weeks at least, but I can’t be sure. I have been doing everything in my power to avoid both the idea and the act of writing anything at all, except under extreme circumstances. This accounts for my absence from this newspaper, for sure, but the vacuum I left was filled rather quickly by an overzealous, conservative hawk-boy who has taken great care to remind all of us that our country is still a wreck even with a black democrat in office. Never mind him though. He is not why I came back.

I came back because I saw those people under the stairs. I’m being serious, damn it. Listen to me. From what I could tell, there must have been at least 30 of them, and another 15 or 20 behind the curtains handling the ropes and the lights and the sounds and everything else. Or perhaps even less. Who knows?

Indeed, it could have been less because there was enough talent in the Eugenia Rawls Courtyard Theatre to make up for a lack of set gophers and stoned AV techs. “Parade” was the name of that performance I saw, and what a performance it was.

Now I am no critic, especially not on the topic of theatrics and entertainment. I can’t tell the difference between a good actor and a dead actor. But I know talent when I see it, and the people in the depths of the King Center have a freehold on it. I’m not sure that very many people understand that.

And this brings me to my point. Economic misfortunes abound. Everyone knows it — not everyone understands it and even fewer have any idea what to do about it. Shop I guess. I don’t know what to tell you, I’m just a hillbilly kid from the sticks who manages to sneak a few words into print from time to time. Probably you should have voted differently eight years ago.

Anyhow, politics and macroeconomics aside, there has been a lot of hubbub lately regarding the financial security of our beloved Metro. And I use that word beloved for a reason, because any institution endeavoring to do what ours has done for so many, whether they be underprivileged, underpaid, under acknowledged, under the boot or all of the above, deserves respect, recognition and a passionate defense from those of us who benefit from it.

The editors of this newspaper, among others, have begun to do their part to defend the college and renounce the fact that, as an institution, Metro receives substantially less in funding from the State than other colleges, which are populated habitually by drunkards and slobbering fraternity louts in tiny polo shirts, and rich kids who’ve managed to make an art out of trying to look poor. Which is neither here nor there, but I’ve been to Boulder. I’ve seen these people, and I can say definitively: the students of Metro deserve at least as much money for their intellectual endeavors as any one of them.

I’m sick, folks. I’m sick of hearing Metro is an inferior institution and deserving less of the higher-education budget than other institutions, which, in all seriousness, get paid because they have students who can run fast and shoot baskets. Hell, we can shoot baskets too, for that matter. The Roadrunner hoops squad mops the floor with everyone who has the misfortune of coming face to face with them. Take that, Boulder.

At any rate, there are times when people simply must stand up for themselves, and now is one of those times.

And it was the people from the bottom of the King Center who showed me this. It was they more than anyone else. I witnessed the passion and sheer determination in the eyes and on the faces of the actors in “Parade.” I saw people give themselves over to their characters in a relatively unknown and certainly underappreciated production. People who manage to put real emotions into your heart, people with the ability to leave you humming weird tunes about Georgia for days. People from Metro: proof that we have every conceivable reason to demand equality.

Indeed, if you are blind and deaf to the myriad whys and wherefores for which to march to the capitol with the SGA on March 9 to demand equal opportunity and confidence in our fine institution, I suggest you go watch “Parade.” It will change your mind.