Super

"Boom Bye Bye" by Buju Banton
...ooman is the greatest ting dat eva put pon the land...

The PJs is my new jawn on television. It is a stop motion show that ran on what was then known as the WB from Januray of 1999 to May of 2001. During the show's tenure, I don't think I was that into it but I have rediscovered in the last few weeks.

It follows the superintendent of a urban development building filled with Black people and immigrants primarily from the US's neighboring islands like Cuba and Jamaica.

There is a character that represents many groups in poor, urban communities, including crackheads. It jovially discusses the tragedies of urban life in its humor. It has the bittersweet quality of a functional communities, friends amongst neighbors, juxtposed against the dreariness that is the life of the poor.

The PJs has a lightness and a simultaneous depth in every punch line, situation, and character. I don't know if the humor is exclusive to poor people of color, as I am not White. But growing up in the culture I have, I wonder if White people get it, especially economically fortuante White people. I wonder if the humor and the tragedy are balanced or if they only see the misery of poverty.

I think it was Sonia Sanchez who wrote a poem about how defining "they" make poverty to be. She explained that they poverty of her beginning does not qualify the success of her later. She happened to be poor economically, but that does not mean her life was lacking in more meaningful ways. I think that is forgotten about the poor.

Michael Eric Dyson (my intellectual lover and these blogs possibly being our love child?) likes to argue that America has entered a stage in which the poor are blamed for being poor. His most poignant point is that despite their station in our economic hierarchy, they are people with dignity, with pride, with heart, with happiness, whole lives, and with potential but missing the opportunity and the resources.

So, I am struggling to remember that despite my mess in life, I am a whole person, with potential . Plus, The PJs is just funny as all hell.