Modern Zoo

The word understanding led our discussions of  Edward Albee's true message in the Zoo Story, as we analyzed whether Peter or Jerry understood each other lives more accurately. The word understand stimulated my memory of this year in AIS and a famous quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson surfaced; "to be great is to be misunderstood." We concluded in our discussion that Jerry was not understood by Peter who even exclaims on page 36 "I DON'T UNDERSTAND" when Jerry tries to explain his story with the dog. Is Jerry great and therefore misunderstood? Was he meant to be misunderstood to enable Peter to understand him and be an asterisk on society?

All these questions swirled in my head as Mr. Lawler asked who are the Jerry's in this class and who are the Peter's? This comment got me thinking and I wonder how a Jerry in America's modern day society seeks to be understood by their communities. What great minds are misunderstood? Filtering through America icons in my mind the people who stuck out were the nonconformists. One in particular was Whoopi Goldberg. Although a random connection there is a point. With dread-locks, natural features, attraction to women and minimal self-consciousness to express her opinions, Whoopi stands out in society. Her unique beliefs and uncensored emotions parallel to the character Jerry, who speaks with a stream of consciousness. 

Whoopi was recently criticized for a comment she made on The View. She stated that as a child of the "Jim Crow" era, she felt that America is "not as free as it was when [she] was a kid." In response to her comment Congressman Peter King (R) of New York (Steve Malzberg's guest on WOR radio) argued that "these people are absolutely insane. They are so consumed by their hatred of George Bush which, by the way, I cannot begin to understand...saying things like this they lose all their credibility. This reflects the hardcore base which is driving the Democratic Party, and which is causing otherwise fairly responsible politicians in the Democratic Party to do really wrong things, and to act totally irresponsibly."(This comment in 2/3 through the link on WOR). He was appalled that Whoopi as a successful black woman could make such a bold statement with the era she grew up in.

In King's response he says "he can not begin to understand" in the same matter that Peter exasperated his misunderstanding for Jerry. Although

I do not fully understand Whoopi's intentions of her comment I believethere is a missing link in the interpretation the general public takes away

from unexpected opinions. I might never get the chance to ask Whoopi what she really meant when she made this comment but

this example of misunderstanding can stand as a lesson; the same lesson Jerry tried to teach. A Peters cannot ignore a Jerry's differences

otherwise slowly our country will become deeply divided. As a result of misunderstanding Whoopi King went on to make generalizations about 

the entire democratic party naming them "irresponsible and a hard core base". Out of misunderstanding and assumptions comes a great

mess which is hard to clean up. People should watch what they say before the make conclusions on other people's character. The problem 

though in American society is sometimes people do not recognize that they do not understand a person different than themselves, they are even 

incapable of expanding their norms to let in the unorthodox. This is the same phenomenon Albee highlighted in his story and hopefully in the

future Americans can come to a better understanding of how to understand people different than themselves if it be of social economic class, race, 

sex, ethnicity, or origins.