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We didn\u2019t really grow up together because of society\u2019s weird promotional formatting. Paul was closer in age to me. Ted was always Teddy. Five years younger. And 6th<\/sup> graders didn\u2019t play with Kindergartners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, for me Teddy was always frozen in time. I never got to know him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not Ted the Marine\u2014who still looked like a baby in combat gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not Ted the Sutter Health construction manager. Not Ted the husband to his beloved wife Trudy, and the father to his girls, Megan and Marisa, and Carmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We missed each other in life. My early memories of Teddy will have to last. Growing up in San Francisco\u2019s Filipino community, our fathers were both from Laoag who were colonized American Filipinos. Our family, our history bonds us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re one of those people who don\u2019t believe this Covid stuff is for real, then think again. After more than four months, the country is setting case records each day. And most of it by state\u2019s that opened too early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Georgia opened in late April\u2014new cases have risen by 245 percent. And then there\u2019s California, with a case rate spike of 275 percent since May 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re not through with this anytime soon. Not unless we practice discipline and delayed gratification. Tough stuff? Not if you want to live. So, mask up. Physical distance. Wash hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 130,000-plus lives lost in four months\u2014about a fourth of what the U.S. lost to WWII in three and a half years\u2014should be a motivator. Think of them. I\u2019ll think of my relatives; my Ate Esther, last week, my Cousin Teddy, this week. Covid didn\u2019t kill them. But it kept me from saying a proper goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Hamilton\u2019 and Trump at Mt. Rushmore on the same day<\/strong> I\u2019m glad this past Freedom Weekend, Disney finally gave poor, underprivileged folks like me a break. A scholarship of sorts. I got to see the heralded \u201cHamilton,\u201d in a historical (circa 2016) filmed version, for just the price of an app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t have to mortgage anything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2015, I was on the fringe unable to score a ticket on Broadway, Off-Broadway, on the road, anywhere to save my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHamilton\u201d? It was easier to get into Harvard. Best I could do to see \u201cHamilton\u201d was pull out an orange-ish ten-dollar bill and dream of about a few hundred of them to cover the price of admission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that I saw it, what\u2019s the big deal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s my take: So now black and brown folk get to play white supremacists? Is that progress? Great for Actors\u2019 Equity, I suppose. But what about humanity? We get to play the bad white guys now? Does that improve history or does it only help legitimize the white institutional foundation our country was built on by giving it a nice bronzing, like a statue? (Shouldn\u2019t we take it down? But it\u2019s so beloved this Hamilton-ing of history).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, what I saw is better than blackface, brownface or yellowface. It\u2019s not sprayed on. We\u2019re now the embodiment of the masters! Hallelujah?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, if you\u2019re gushing like crazy about the hip-hop musical after seeing it on a loop on the video app since July 3 or after seeing it live in the past five years, I hope my questions jar you just a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you really like \u201cHamilton\u201d all that much? As much as \u201cFrozen 2\u201d? (What if Olaf were Filipino like Robert Lopez?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reed\u2019s lament<\/strong> He\u2019s the OG novelist-playwright-poet on a mission, whom I first met as a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. When a famous white writer told me to take the Filipinos out of my stories, visiting professor Reed told me to put them back in. It was my story after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To this day, Reed\u2019s Before Columbus Foundation has been dedicated to highlighting the multicultural perspective. He\u2019s also the only MacArthur Genius I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At first, I thought he\u2019d love the idea of casting America\u2019s genocidal history in a new light. But not in this \u201cHamilton.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After years of denouncing the musical, Reed unleashed his own play, \u201cThe Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda,\u201d in June 2019, at New York\u2019s Nuyorican Caf\u00e9, the room where it happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m sorry I missed it. I was busy prepping my own American Filipino historical reckoning, \u201cAll Pucked Up<\/a>,\u201d in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his NYC production, Reed essentially put the history back in \u201cHamilton\u201d and took the whipped cream out. No more corny lyrics. No more rinsing of the facts. Jefferson and Washington were steeped in slavery, dontcha know? Hamilton married into the Schuyler family, notorious slaveholders in upstate New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was said to be a scolding, earnest satire that washed out the fun of a Mirandized \u201cHamilton.\u201d That\u2019s always been Reed\u2019s style, to confront with truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, his target \u201cHamilton\u201d mesmerizes you with hip-hop and convinces a dazzled public to throw away its shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump at Mount Rushmore<\/strong> But I was more disappointed that he used the scene in South Dakota to give his declaration of war against people of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was an odd speech, marked by Trump\u2019s own ignorance of history. Didn\u2019t he understand that by going to the Black Hills site, also known as the sacred He Sapa, Trump was reminding us all that we can\u2019t begin our racial reckoning with just slavery, that we must begin with Native Americans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Indian Country Today, the nation\u2019s leading news source on Native American issues, the Black Hills is such sacred ground that Trump\u2019s appearance itself was a desecration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Didn\u2019t he know that the sculptor Gutzon Borglum had ties to the KKK when the project began? Or that even Lincoln had once backed the hanging of 38 Dakota men in Minnesota?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Didn\u2019t Trump know that the Black Hills are part of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which is still in dispute? The U.S. has offered millions for seizure of the lands, but the Lakota want the land back. And the presidents removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVisitors look upon the faces of those presidents [on the monument] and extol the virtues that they believe make America the country it is today,\u201d said Chairman Harold Frazier of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe on Twitter. \u201cLakota see the faces of the men who lied, cheated and murdered innocent people whose only crime was living on the land they wanted to steal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not enough to say that the presidents of Rushmore, those in stone and those who just flew in, are merely flawed and then let things stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t force forgetfulness. I thought \u201cHamilton\u201d could be an escape from all that. But it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Admittedly, as I watched the app, I found myself tapping my toes and humming along. On the surface, \u201cHamilton\u201d is nothing but charming fun. Revolutionary in costume only. A shallow grave to bury the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The real villain, I suppose, is King George III, who is still a loon, given to frothing at the mouth and ditty singing. But casting white colonial slaveholders as heroic people of color is a little like cheering Clarence Thomas for being on the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you realize what you\u2019re seeing, you\u2019re left with that funny aftertaste. I don\u2019t want to rob you of your guilty \u201cHamilton\u201d pleasure. I\u2019ve got friends and family members who know the words by heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just look at it as you would a grand confection. Or a modest one, say a vanilla soft-serve cone double dipped in black and brown sauce that hardens in a deceptive shell and immediately crumbles on first bite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHamilton\u2019s\u201d a double-dippity, hip-hoppity delight that will leave you hungry for something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EMIL GUILLERMO<\/strong> is a journalist, commentator, and humorist. He has been a columnist for the Star-Bulletin, and also a member of the Honolulu Advertiser editorial board. Twitter @emilamok; Listen to his podcasts on www.amok.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Emil Guillermo Lost another relative. Not to Covid. But it doesn\u2019t matter. We\u2019re all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=978%2C732",978,732,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=150%2C150",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=300%2C225",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=640%2C479",640,479,true],"large":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=640%2C479",640,479,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=978%2C732",978,732,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=978%2C732",978,732,true],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=978%2C732",978,732,true],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=870%2C570",870,570,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=600%2C732",600,732,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=600%2C600",600,600,true],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=978%2C715",978,715,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=639%2C500",639,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=978%2C732",978,732,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=540%2C285",540,285,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?resize=375%2C250",375,250,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Candid Perspectives<\/a>","tag_info":"Candid Perspectives","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CP-Cousin-Ted-color.jpg?fit=978%2C732","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2916,"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions\/2916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
As they say, I\u2019m not throwing away my shot. I took it. I saw it. Finally. It being \u201cHamilton,\u201d the hottest ticket of the last five years. (I know, where have I been? Waiting in line, excluded. Again.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turns out my writer friend Ishmael Reed was right. Long a critic of \u201cHamilton,\u201d Reed, in his 80s, is no mere crank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps I was predisposed to not liking \u201cHamilton.\u201d I had just finished watching Trump at Mount Rushmore, where I was a little disappointed at how small Trump\u2019s head appeared next to a real monument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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