COMMENTARY: BY OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 25, 2021 – I have been mired in a deep state of depression over the past two days because of the specter of possible eviction if I do not pay back rent that I owe before October 26, as stipulated in an eviction notice I received.
Consequently, I have been binge-watching old movies in an attempt to mentally stabilize my thoughts. Included among the movies that I watched – some several times — were movies in which Sir Sidney Poitier played significant roles.
I became convinced many years ago that Sir Sidney’s performances in “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner,” “To Sir With Love,” and “Defiant Ones” were more worthy of him receiving an Academy Award than his role in “Lillies of The Field,” for which he did receive the Best Actor Academy Award in 1963.
Then I ran across “Band of Angels,” a movie released in 1957, starring Clarke Gable, in which Sir Sidney played a significant role and was deserving of a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. His performance in that movie galvanized my firm belief that over the span of his career he has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is one of the world’s greatest actors.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Sir Sidney’s movies until the early hours of this morning, and after I got out of bed shortly before noon – still mired in a state of deep depression – I received a telephone call that, at least temporarily, lifted my spirits out of the dungeon of depression.
Following the D.C. Superior Court ruling in favour of my landlord back in March, I applied for financial assistance through the STAY-DC program that was introduced by the D.C. Government to assist D.C. residents in need of rental assistance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
God is certainly good. This morning I received a call from a lawyer for STAY-DC that my request for financial assistance is being processed, and an application has been made to the D.C. Superior Court to suspend my eviction notice until January.
Meanwhile, I shall continue doing all that I can to pay the back rent that I owe, which increases every month I do not pay my monthly rent on time.
Of course, whether I am able to pay my monthly rent on time will depend on whether I am successful in my efforts to get the new government to utilize by services as a journalist in a similar capacity as when I was Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas here in Washington, D.C., before the FNM became the government in May of 2017 or in some other capacity.
