The Measure of a Man – Sidney Poitier

Suzie Eisfelder

You might possibly have heard of Sidney Poitier. He’s famous for being the first actor of colour to win an Academy Award for Best Actor and a Globe Aware for Best Actor, that was only in 1964. There are some people who need to push boundaries and break new ground, Poitier is one of them.  He’s inspirational in many ways, I’m not saying this book will show much of that as it depends on the reader. I certainly found it all there laid out just waiting for me.

Born in 1927 in a tiny place called Cat Island, part of the Bahamas, he lead what we might consider an idyllic life for the first ten years of his life. The family had little but it made them treasure what they do have, just reading about how his mother would light a candle for a short time at night made me look around at the amount of lights I turn on without thought and I am amazed at how much I have. He spent a lot of time outside learning about keeping himself safe and learning how to push boundaries.

Poitier grew up in an almost black culture with only two white people on the island. He didn’t understand colour meant in relation to people. This meant that when he went to live in America he didn’t model any of the preconceived ideas the whites have about blacks. He didn’t realise he was in the minority and that he was supposed to kowtow to the whites. He then had to understand why the whites behaved in a superior manner to him and figure out all the baggage that goes with that kind of behaviour. And going into the entertainment industry would have been hard as he would have been expected to play all sorts of demeaning characters. Thank goodness he had the spine to stand up to that sort of nonsense and refused to play characters that didn’t ring true to him. This brought him to the role in To Sir With Love…go and watch it, it was ground breaking in its day.

Poitier raises the thought that people need real life interactions in order to grow and develop. He notes some studies he’s read on young chimps who have been raised using a mother created from wire and with a bit of fur, a perch and an arrangement to get milk through the nipples. These chimps withered and died as they were missing the interactions from their real mothers. He feels that as we move more and more from the simplicity he had on Cat Island and move to more concrete and steel that our ‘souls will wither and die as a result’. What I’m wondering is if some of us are already there. I’m trying not to be political here but I can think of many politicians who are so far removed from real people and real life that they have stopped thinking of people as people and instead think of them as units. I’m sure you can join the dots there.

Should you wish to have all the fun of reading it just like I have then it is available using this link. If you click and buy through here I might even be able to buy a coffee.


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