A Raisin In The Sun - the dilemma that really wasn't..but would YOU take cac money?

would you take cac a bribe to not move into their hood?

  • Naw I wouldn't I have my pride and I bought the house I want

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • Yep fuck pride and fuck living around cacs if they feel like that about it

    Votes: 3 75.0%

  • Total voters
    4

geechiedan

Rising Star
BGOL Investor


1:15:49 - the cac 1st cac offer

1:36:28 Walter Lee loses the money..sees how the world works and calls the cac back for the money offer but big momma forces him to do it in front of his son.



the last part where he turns down the cac money..


At the beginning of the play, Walter and Beneatha's father has recently died, and Mama is waiting for a life insurance check for $10,000. Walter has a sense of entitlement to the money, but Mama has religious objections to alcohol and Beneatha has to remind him it is Mama's call how to spend it. Eventually Mama puts some of the money down on a new house, choosing an all-white neighborhood over a black one for the practical reason that it happens to be much cheaper. Later she relents and gives the rest of the money to Walter to invest with the provision that he reserve $3,000 for Beneatha's education. Walter passes the money on to Willy's naive sidekick Bobo, who gives it to Willy, who absconds with it, depriving Walter and Beneatha of their dreams, though not the Youngers of their new home. Meanwhile, Karl Lindner, a white representative of the neighborhood they plan to move to, makes a generous offer to buy them out. He wishes to avoid neighborhood tensions over interracial population, which to the three women's horror Walter prepares to accept as a solution to their financial setback. Lena says that while money was something they try to work for, they should never take it if it was a person's way of telling them they weren't fit to walk the same earth as them.

Walter redeems himself and black pride at the end by changing his mind and not accepting the buyout offer, stating that the family is proud of who they are and will try to be good neighbors. The play closes with the family leaving for their new home but uncertain future.


here's the issue and why its not as big a dilemma as the play makes it...

they get an ins check for 10k...

momma put down 3500 for the house..
she gives the rest 6500 to walter but tells him to put 3000 aside for his sister.
leaving him 3500 to invest. but he never deposited the money and gave it all to his "business partner" who promptly absconds with it.

now the cac offer to buy the house from them was suppose to be at a profit.. which means what...I'm assuming the offer isn't for the value of the house itself but to buy back her down payment on it....she put 3500 down so they would pay them maybe 4000 probably as high as 4500...maybe.

it wouldn't be enough. Momma chose that house because it was the cheapest since all the houses in black neighborhoods cost twice as much. Even if they took a cac offer of 6500 which is all the money walter lost they would still be less the 3500 momma put down. Unless they stayed in that dinky ass apartment and work it from there..but that was her dream to get out of that apartment.

there were 3 main aspirations in the story:
*momma's dream of getting a house
*walter's dream of owning a business
*beneatha's dream of being a doctor (or at least educated professional)

10k covered that.. but anything less than that means only one dream can happen. Mommas not going to find a home cheaper in a black neighborhood. Walter blew his chance already so Beneatha's education is the only one that can happen (but she comes off flighty as fuck)

So anything less than 10k (which they would NOT get for the cac house under any circumstances) would be operating at a loss for all of them. They used a dramatic device to make SEEM like there was a choice but there really wasn't.

BUT heres the question..IF they were offered 10k should they have taken it??? If it were YOU in that situation would YOU take it???
 
Last edited:

34real

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I'm glad they didn't take the money but if I was in their shoes I would of took the money for two reason's and from my personal experience;The first reason being that I've come to understand how white people get down,no amount of money,education or understanding will make them fully overstand,accept, and treat you as an equal peer to them and they can't be trusted 100%.My second reason would be looking back there were many examples of black's moving into predominantly white suburban area's,white-flyte followed ,more blacks and minorities moved in and now these smaller communities in some cases worse than where they came from.I'll stay where I'm at I would be better off.
 

geechiedan

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I'm glad they didn't take the money but if I was in their shoes I would of took the money for two reason's and from my personal experience;The first reason being that I've come to understand how white people get down,no amount of money,education or understanding will make them fully overstand,accept, and treat you as an equal peer to them and they can't be trusted 100%.My second reason would be looking back there were many examples of black's moving into predominantly white suburban area's,white-flyte followed ,more blacks and minorities moved in and now these smaller communities in some cases worse than where they came from.I'll stay where I'm at I would be better off.
yeah but your statement comes from hindsight...at that time in the 60s white flight was in progress and no one thought or know what the results would be. At that time in that moment the only thing they knew is that cacs HATED blacks moving into their neighborhoods. That by itself is enough to turn me off..
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
great post...

I wonder if there is some way to modernize this story for the gentrification taking place all over NOW?

And I remember in HS we had a HEATED discussion about this...

I think I would have taken the money.

but in the CONTEXT of the play

would THEY have used the money WISELY?
 

exiledking

Rising Star
OG Investor
great post. Knowing what we know about integration and how fucking hard they wouldve had it in that neighborhood anyway- I mean, I think many at that time had SOME optimism about certain things- DEFINITELY take the money.

GREAT question. My favorite play. There are many solutions for any true hustler out there.



Sheeeyit, I woulda taken the money from the CAC, went to another CAC neighborhood and made the down payment, prompting another buyout. Keep finding neighborhoods and flipping these down payments lol
 

geechiedan

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
great post. Knowing what we know about integration and how fucking hard they wouldve had it in that neighborhood anyway- I mean, I think many at that time had SOME optimism about certain things- DEFINITELY take the money.

GREAT question. My favorite play. There are many solutions for any true hustler out there.



Sheeeyit, I woulda taken the money from the CAC, went to another CAC neighborhood and made the down payment, prompting another buyout. Keep finding neighborhoods and flipping these down payments lol
flipping down payments:lol::clap:
 

geechiedan

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
great post...

I wonder if there is some way to modernize this story for the gentrification taking place all over NOW?

And I remember in HS we had a HEATED discussion about this...

I think I would have taken the money.

but in the CONTEXT of the play

would THEY have used the money WISELY?
the reality is MOST people aren't good with money in any era...:dunno: walter's dream was noble and true...his execution was fucked up.
 

ronmch20

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
White people by offering the money were saying you're not fit to live around us. Anyone who would take it is agreeing with them. :hmm:
 

RoomService

Dinner is now being served.
BGOL Investor
White people by offering the money were saying you're not fit to live around us. Anyone who would take it is agreeing with them. :hmm:
Yes & no... if they're stupid enough to offer 10* what the house is worth I'm taking the money... But I do understand your point.
 

Mo-Better

The R&B Master
OG Investor
I think you would've needed to have lived in that era to answer that question.

That kind of money today means little. But back then it might take a black man several months to make that much money.
 

ronmch20

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
To quote Nikki Giovanni from her poem Great Pax Whitey, " Aw black people ain't we got no pride"? No self respect?
I remember how good it felt when Walter told that cac we are gonna move into our house because my father earned it for working 40 years for near slave wages at a job that caused him to die long before he should have. A story many of us could tell. Damn are we so devoid of self worth that we would accept a few shekels from those who say we are not good enough to live around them? I cannot think of another race who would do that, why should we? :hmm:
 

geechiedan

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
To quote Nikki Giovanni from her poem Great Pax Whitey, " Aw black people ain't we got no pride"? No self respect?
I remember how good it felt when Walter told that cac we are gonna move into our house because my father earned it for working 40 years for near slave wages at a job that caused him to die long before he should have. A story many of us could tell. Damn are we so devoid of self worth that we would accept a few shekels from those who say we are not good enough to live around them? I cannot think of another race who would do that, why should we? :hmm:
I think marcellus wallace said it best....

 

blackpepper

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
If I were him, I would have taken the money. I wouldn't want to put my children through the stress and trauma of living around people like that. Its not like today where most of the time if you move into a nicer neighborhood the racist cacs have enough sense to just leave you alone. Back then they would have went out of their way to persecute them and the police wouldn't think of protecting them. He'll also be demonized if he took matters into his own hands. So its a lose lose situation.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
A great follow up?

The move in the white neighborhood something horrible happens to the sister, momma has a heart attack and Walter goes equalizer and hunts Willie down.
 

godofwine

Supreme Porn Poster - Ret
BGOL Investor
IMO..if they could have gotten 10k for the house from those cacs then I'd take the money..nothing worse than living around angry cacs particularly at that time.. fuck pride.
Man, especially back in those times. They would bomb your house or Fire Bomb It and then wouldn't pay you the insurance even though you had insurance. It's a lot better now. I live in a majority white neighborhood, and I don't give a fuck about them cacs
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster


The sequel and prequel to the original play
 

Pack Rat

Imperturbable
BGOL Investor
I have watched A Raisin in the Sun too many times to count....Sidney Poitier overacted a few times, but it's still a classic.:yes:

 
Top