Refined
Brutality is the story of
Malik, whose heartfelt struggles with everyday life make this play the
story of many human beings. Malik does not feel he truly belongs
anywhere in this world except in the arms of his girlfriend, Kayla, whom
his family is opposed to because of her race. He is trying to make it
as a rap artist, and as a basketball star at Georgetown University,
where he received a full sports scholarship. His past experiences leave
him unable to see all the goals that are actually being realized, since
he is conditioned to disappointment. This leaves Malik vulnerable to
other things or other people, like Ty, whose lifestyle could get both
him and Malik into trouble. Ever faithful is his friend, Kenny, through
any situation that Malik may face. Malik's family has no problem
intruding into his life, especially his nosy sister Tonya, and his
close-minded single mother, Mrs. Patrick. Malik also faces trouble in
school, where a no-nonsense teacher never gives up on teaching Malik,
even when he has given up on learning. In the end, it may be the teacher
that learns the greater lesson. Refined Brutality is the story
of man contending against his own surroundings, the likes of which he
cannot easily escape. It is a story that questions whether or not it is
worth keeping the faith and doing the right thing, if in the end, the
result is tragedy. It is a testament to mankind's struggle against one
another, and it opens our eyes to show us that fighting each other is
only self-destructive.
Refined Brutality was written in April of
2001, during the height of my senior year at Hammond High School in
Columbia, MD. During that year at Hammond, I dealt with the loss of
three friends, all male teenagers that never got to see the age of 20.
Two of them were lost to gun violence, the other to an unexpected blood
clot that ultimately took his life. The year before that, right around
Christmas, I was informed by a friend from my birthplace (Washington,
D.C.), that my childhood crush had been shot and killed over an
altercation that occurred when someone attempted to break into his house
and steal his Play Station. During my youth, my cousin Kenneth, the
brother of my closest cousin, Tia, who had adapted me as her sister and
taught me how to be a woman over the summers spent at their house, was
killed during a fight at a Dairy Queen after a party while defending a
friend. I remember sitting in the courtroom at the trial for the
accused, listening to his friends account for the tragic night. One of
his friends described the scene : "I was getting hit, and they had
pushed me back into the shelves at the store, and I looked up, and there
was a big crowd in the center of the room. And I could see the guy
going down to the floor with his gun pointed at somebody. And then I
heard the gun shot and the crowd parted, and there was Kenny lying there
on the ground."
After dealing with three teenage deaths in one year, I was
frustrated. I was so incited to take action. I participated in
organizing a community-wide forum called "After
Tragedy, What?", which was designed to raise awareness and examine
and reform the way that our community supports grieving teens after a
tragedy occurs. I was frustrated with the way I saw my friends grieving
with no consistent support bases to go to. I also was frustrated with
grieving so many teens myself. The forum organized community members,
students, grief counselors, the police department, and others to talk
about the way the whole community is affected by these tragedies. I was
finding that many people found these kinds of events hard to deal with,
since we live in such a "good" neighborhood.
But as with many things, I would not be satisfied until I wrote
something about it. My head was flooded with imagery from the words
spoken at that trial for Kenny, as I attempted to make some sense out of
how my other two African American, male, teenage friends had gotten
shot. None of them were "bad" kids. None of them were chasing any
trouble. In fact, they were the most unlikely of all of the people they
hung out with to have their life taken from them. I had always been
interested in writing a play, but never had the motivation or the
discipline to sit down and do so. I had to write something, and it
came out in the form of a play.
I didn't even intend on turning my play into the ACT-SO
competition. In fact I was totally banking on my poem, Patriotic, Isn't
It? to win on the local level. I entered them both after an urging
from my mother. They both won on the local level, but since I was the
only person in the playwriting category, I still didn't understand the
worth of my play. When it won on the national level, I was totally in
awe. I could not believe what I had created and it served as a loving
memory and a justice for my cousin and my beloved friends.