Second Anniversary

Gentlemen:

Congratulations. On this very day, January 20, 2007, a collection of black men met in Ryland Hall for an organizational meeting with the intent of beginning a book group in the Richmond area called Black Men Read?! We’ve been meeting regularly ever since, and from my perspective the future looks blazingly bright. Our members show up having uniformly read the book; they show up on time (well, most of us—ahem [trying not to look at a certain someone who’s always late]); and they cheerful arrive ready and eager to discuss the book pointedly and interrogatively, and yet with open minds. It’s that last I value almost as much as the first. Nothing is more wearying than a rigid ideologue, and a loud one at that. Being trapped in a room with one for a couple of hours would be more than I could bear, and I’m so happy we don’t have one. May it ever be thus.

No, I like our group; I like it a lot. I would change nothing about our group, and that’s why I’m wary of what I’m about to suggest, but will suggest it nevertheless. I hope we can have a good, long, sustained chat about it. And I especially like the blog format for this discussion, because it’ll hopefully allow us to hear a point and then immediately respond, or think for a while and respond. Or both.

Now, the bottom line reason I think our group is a successful? Simple: we meet every other month. That, more than anything else, is key. It allows us to jam a book that we may or may not look forward to reading into our regular reading rotation. I don’t know how those every-month groups do it, but just thinking about meeting every month makes me tired. Even if we eventually decide---sometime in the future---that we’re big enough to meet and discuss a book in the summer, we’ll still be meeting every other month.

But here’s the thing:

I keep having this impulse to occasionally meet—including our wives or friends or whoever we want—to discuss a FILM. After the November meeting, me, Nate, Hobbs and Daniel Selby kicked around the idea of meeting to discuss, for instance, Precious. I loved the idea, but did nothing with it because I knew the frantic Christmas season was staring us in the face, glaring at us—daring us; and trying to organize a meeting in December while Precious was still a hot topic of discussion seemed foolish and unrealistic. But I remain intrigued about the idea of inviting you brothers and your selected others to discuss a film. That sounds like big fun to me.

My question to you brothers is this: what do you think of the idea?

Other questions: if you do like the idea, can we set up some more or less standardized way of doing it? Suggestions on how we do this would be terrific. (I can handle “where” just fine: we’ll do it on campus in a bigger room.) Obviously everyone would go see the film on their own and then we’d meet and discuss. Now, me? My impulse would be to say something like, “I’m reserving a room at UR for Thursday, February 18 at 7 p.m. Show up and we’ll talk about the film.” It wouldn’t be until later, talking to my wife, that all sorts of questions would have to be confronted. I can hear her now: “How’re you gonna know how many people you’ll have? What if the room’s too small? What if it’s too big? Unlike you rough and tumble guys, women might like a little something to drink or munch on while they discuss the film—are you going to do anything to make these people comfortable? What about people who have kids? What about--- What about….?“

Well. Nothing is scheduled; there are no imminent plans. I like the idea of discussing this idea without the pressure of a specific date in the offing. I repeat: no film-discussion is scheduled, or about to be scheduled. I’m not suggesting you should confront questions of the sort my wife would ask—although she will likely ask all of the above, and more, should we decide to move forward. No, beyond the initial question—Do you want to?—is this all-important, subterranean question: Do you feel we’re strong enough as a group, after two solid years and heading into an ascendant third year, that we have such positive inertia that we can add an occasional film discussion including significant others and/or interested friends to what we have now? [‘Cause it the answer is “No,” then let’s call the whole thing off…]

But if the answer to that is, indeed, “Yes,” then I’d like to open a discussion of how: how often is “occasionally”? Would it be cool to schedule a film discussion for Black History Month every year? Might it be fun to have an opened-up film discussion during the summer, so that if a third or even half of the group can’t make it due to vacations or other summertime distractions, we could still meet and discuss a film sometime in between May and September?

What do you guys think of the above? Speak on it...