Go Big or Go Home
Is Ambition Free?
Paulo Freire warns that “one of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness.”1 In Sidik Fofana’s “Camaraderie,” Dary, an initially unnamed queer narrator, lives within this prescribed consciousness. The city and its media have taught him exactly what kind of ambition he is allowed to have—and what price he must pay for it.
For queer people, people of color, and those born into poverty, the city offers visibility, opportunity, and the chance to become someone. The narrator understands how perception can shape reality. Reflecting on media portrayals of queer people, he tells his friend Qua:
Look at all the movies. Anytime they show us, we gotta be on our knees. It can’t jus be us regular. If they did a movie about my buildin, they wouldn’t care about the two dudes upstairs who been together for years. They wouldn’t show when they jumped the broom in the bingo room. How everybody was happy even though it wasn’t official. They wouldn’t show the butch lady in 4D who is always wearing a necktie and got a computer certificate. They don’t care about that. That’s why we gotta be more. But some people is hell-bent on makin you a prostitute.2
