WE’RE ALL HYPOCRITES, MOVE ALONG
June 8th, 2020
I love Hypocrites.
Dear White Theatre,
I love hypocrites. And you do too.
I am a hypocrite. I am a freedom-fighter who wants to cultivate the “gap” between my thighs. I’m the brown artist who leads introductions by mentioning my very privileged very expensive education. I’m brown, but damn if I don’t keep realizing that I am completely white too!
Sadly, In my life, I have found that I will never be white enough, though, and I really, really tried.
I bet you did too, theatre companies.
So let’s talk about that.
---------------------------------------
Beautifully chosen racial armor
I know this is hard to talk about, white theatre companies. And I really do feel for you. It’s not your fault that you didn’t realize that including Black, Indiginous and People of Color voices in your COMPANY AND OR BOARD was actually a significant point of contention, or that it would point you towards being better companies.
On your behalf, I would like
to point out that NO ONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD has ever written about racial
inequity before. NEVER. No one has ever written about inequity
between BIPOC folks and their endless challenges within white culture, so it’s completely fair that white folks
would accuse me of making this stuff up, you know, to be mean. After all, you've never caught hide nor tail
of it in life yourself, so racism probably doesn’t exist.
However, my data, though paltry in comparison to some folks, is consistent over 25 years of a career. It’s BECOME the standard of a theatre interaction for me.
"Hello, theatre!" I say. “Brown woman you don’t mean shit,”theatre says back to me.
Silly theatre.
My point is, even if you can’t rely on the sun setting at the end of the day, I might
still be able to rely on a white man brushing my concerns off as unimportant
and whiny.
***
It's consistent.
And you're hearing this from people across the world.
And they're MAD at you!
***
You must feel really confused. I see you acting innocent of offense, puppet-ing the words you saw on another person's facebook post, trying to find SOMETHING to place-hold this giant gap in your otherwise beautifully chosen racial armor.
Leave the brass polish at home, White Theatre. Your armor was laughable in the first place, because the truth is we are ALL racist.
-----------------------------
Even as a brown queer woman, I am not innocent. Get your translator out- it means we are all racist. YUP. All of us.
I have been a minority in every category of my life for as long as I can remember. But that didn't make me know things until I was older. No, when I was young you better believe that I studied the white doctrine of my environment with all my heart. I studied hard!
I tried to be the best 1980’s hairspray Storm Trooper I could be: I followed orders, I dressed right, I did what the conservative white men in government told us we should do. I was in a local Anti-drinking/drug use commercial for chrissakes! I reinforced all the hottest (but not too racy) white standards for a healthier, happier society with my whole heart. I knew, just like you know, assimilation is important…
Inexplicably though, I was often at the center of racial conflicts of which I was completely unaware. A little girl wants to beat me up because of my hair, or teachers accuse me of acting "uppity". What was all of that about?
Were there social forces at work around me, which defined me, that I just didn’t understand?
Once my mom got really worked up because some old dude in a mall parking lot was whistling provocatively at me as we crossed the road, I was 13 and probably had forgotten to wear a bra.
At that same time in my life, I was spending most of my hours singing Debbie Gibson songs at the piano and practicing my completely unsexual pop dance moves in the mirror. (I even had Debbie's replica hat.)
I remember WANTING to be seen, to a heightened degree. But that guy seemed to see something different in me than what I saw in the mirror.
-------------------
No context for me
Again and again while growing up, people in the wider world saw someone in me that was vastly different than who I thought I was.
My family didn’t talk about or even sometimes KNOW about things that involved race or sex. No context for me. We never discussed race except to say in the most pat way possible, "Everyone is equal." It spoke with the same cadence as, "You look great in that replica hat," because they clearly did not really mean it.
And for the topic of sex, my mom's ONLY attempt at a "sex" talk with me was the time she showed me 6 pages of pictures exclusively featuring the billboard, "VIRGIN: Teach your kids it's not a bad word." No conversation, she just watched me look at the pictures and then said, "What do you think? I think it's a good message."
I was really, really confused.
Maybe your families and your access to context were similar to mine, White theatre companies.
I can tell you’re really, really confused.
--------------------------------------
Can you take direction?
Even if I did
grow up in an extraordinarily sheltered white environment, nothing in my youth
could not have prepared me for the sheltered, precious, belligerently ignorant
exclusivity of imperial White power which typify the professional industry of
the theatre.
I mean, in the
theatre, we literally judge folks on how well they follow instructions.
"Can they take direction?” we ask about actors in our
field.
Feels
fascist/Trumpist/Empire-like at first. And for some directors, yes, asking this question basically always means they want you to to exclusively DO WHAT THEY SAY.
To be fair,
however, in the context of theatre education, this
question has widened to imply more. In training, it is asserted that the best actor "collaborators" are
those that can take an idea in many directions, brainstorm, listen and innovate
on their feet.
If an actor
can't take direction, they are considered probably too green, too inflexible,
not a good fit for that director.
That begs at a question I have, White theatre:
You
are told that the best practices ask that you allow yourselves to be open
to and ultimately be led by Black, Indigenous or POC leaders. But when given
the opportunity to practice this in your home companies, it is exactly what you WILL NOT DO.
So my question
is, White theatre, are you too green? Inflexible? A bad fit for this field? Can't you take direction?
-------------------------------
When will you take an ethical
stance?
Theatre companies, I see you
struggling with your whiteness. You’re a
fucking complicated mess of contradictions.
I’m listening to you as you realize that you’re both not Debbie Gibson, as well as not completely NOT a Storm Trooper.
You say you don’t see color, but then you won’t let anyone who doesn’t look like you in the room.
When will you take an ethical
stance?
--------------------------
You don’t have the needed experience in making ethical choices, do you?
Look, I’ve been sitting here all morning looking at all the baby white theatre companies in my city issuing solidarity statement after statement, claiming to be teachable, claiming to plan to make actionable changes in their planning and I can’t help but laugh and cry at the same time.
You are the same fuckers that teased
me in grad school without mercy. The
same ones that ignored me in planning meetings.
The same universities that didn’t hire me because you wanted someone “more
established”.
Are YOU teachable??? First you’re going to have to learn to
confront your feelings of discomfort when your authority is challenged by a BIPOC people who have earned the right to ask questions.
Living your marginalized arts-fed lives like big ole imperial storm troopers, calling yourselves teachable...
You don’t have the needed experience in making ethical choices here, do you?
---------------------------------------
THE choices
So, I've told you all about me. Now that we're closer, I feel like I've earned this small request of you.
Here's what I would ask:
Please choose who the fuck you are.
You do it like this:
You say, "Whom do we trust? Who is doing something right?"
And then you get that person/those persons in your company.
And then when they say you’re doing something racist or privileged you
fucking pay attention and fix it.
You don’t:
argue with them, discredit them, exclude them, ignore them; you don’t take your game and go home. (I’m already back at your house, theatre companies, and your parents are furious!)
Get the fuck back to the board, the
ensemble, the administration, whoever!
And tell them that you’re going to let someone else make some choices.
THE choices.
All the fucking choices.
OR... there’s the other option:
If you don’t want the power you have to change hands to someone else so that they get to also curate things that reflect them and their experience of the world, then go and get your fucking Storm Trooper helmet, dumbass.
Cuz this is
just getting started.
-----------------------------------
You’ve got to grow up sometime.
YOU CAN’T BE BOTH oppressor AND oppressed on the same topic, white theatre.
Holding on to white power and Fighting for Black Lives.
Debbie Gibson AND Beyonce.
You’ve got to grow up
sometime. Someone just handed you your
first Ibram X. Kendi book. It’s time to
let some shit go.
------------------------------------------
Set the expensive luan flooring back down on the Home Depot shelf…
“What do I need to let go of?” you might say to me, White theatre.
Competition.
Stop running in the hamster wheel of white elitism, reaching for Broadway performances. You’re not “the best out there”. And believe you me, those goals of “being the best” have NOTHING to do with being on the side of equality.
The right thing and the BEST thing are often at odds. Could you pick a side please?
If you want to know if you’re doing
the RIGHT thing, look at who is in your company and who is
coming to your shows. Are there a
significant number of Black, Indigenous and people of color there? No?
Then you’re still not doing it right. Try again.
Stop running the race that just pegs
you against other artists in a race of white supremacist values. Instead you could be using that energy serving
your WHOLE COMMUNITY.
Also, if you are creating the same white supremacist environment that oppresses BIPOC's and still wondering why they aren't coming to your shows, you've LOST YOUR WAY.
We’re all needed out here. Don’t perpetuate the feeling of desperation
or scarcity or competition. We’re all
making it with nothing.
Set the expensive luan flooring back
down on the Home Depot self and start cultivating an environment, instead, with
BETTER IDEAS.
------------
You know the right thing.
But most of all, theatre companies, stop
the hemming and hawing about “trying to do the right thing.” You’re making me nauseated.
You know the right thing. You’re supposed to shut up and run an
organization that is not just for you and people who look like you.
White theatre companies, WE’RE ALL FUCKING
HYPOCRITES, please get over not being perfect. Start looking at the ethical choices you're making at the most fundamental level, and take off the white Debbie Gibson
hat.
You’ve got real work to do now.
Comments
Post a Comment