Federally funded National Arts Centre event to allow only 'Black-identifying' theatregoers

[The_Foxer]

FIRST READING: National Arts Centre event to allow only 'Black-identifying' theatregoers

A Feb. 17 play for Black History Month at Canada's National Arts Centre will be open only to Black-identifying theatregoers.

nationalpost.com

I"m sorry - how is this anything BUT racist? This is just going to give fuel to the white nationalist groups and spread division and animosity between the other races. Why is the gov't funding what is now "state sponsored" racism?

 

[petros]

You can go. Just identify as black whatever the fuck that means.

 

[Ron in Regina]

You can go. Just identify as black whatever the fuck that means.

Yeah, it sounds like it’s how you self identify instead of how someone else identifies you….Which means it’s open to everybody like a woman’s shower room.

 

[petros]

Trans-Black?

 

[Jinentonix]

Fucking seriously?

"“If someone self-identifies as a non-Black person and demands to enter the room, a member of our staff will be present to chat with this person,” it reads. “We try our best to have this labour land on a non-Black staff member and we will have non-Black front-of-house, leadership, or technical and production team members present in the lobby to help de-escalate such situations.”

There'd only be an escalation of "such situations" because of an unreasonable, if not Constitutionally questionable demand made by the publicly funded National Arts Center.

 

[pgs]

Fucking seriously?

"“If someone self-identifies as a non-Black person and demands to enter the room, a member of our staff will be present to chat with this person,” it reads. “We try our best to have this labour land on a non-Black staff member and we will have non-Black front-of-house, leadership, or technical and production team members present in the lobby to help de-escalate such situations.”

There'd only be an escalation of "such situations" because of an unreasonable, if not Constitutionally questionable demand made by the publicly funded National Arts Center.

Don’t worry 50% of your labour goes to fund shit like this . Be happy

 

[pgs]

And get to the back of the bus you honky . But keep paying those taxes .

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Sounds good. Now the whiners can say everything's even.

 

[The_Foxer]

Sounds good. Now the whiners can say everything's even.

So - if you think it sounds good because it makes everything even, does that make you one of the whiners? I mean, 10 points for self-awareness, but still...

 

[Taxslave2]

Just go in blackface.

 

[The_Foxer]

Just go in blackface.

(Background clapping noise) Sir, your ability to pack SO many levels into just four words like that displays a mastery of sardonic comedy. twisted sarcasm and dark national soul searching that one rarely sees outside of a douglas adams novel. If i tried to be THAT tounge-in-cheek i'd fear a sprain Well done!

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Just go in blackface.

Or don't go.

 

[The_Foxer]

Or don't go.

Sure. Be a good little whitey and do what you're told. No racism there

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Sure. Be a good little whitey and do what you're told. No racism there

Sometimes, more in Canada than in the U.S. I think, they just don't know when to quit.

I went to Stratford last year, and they had a Hamlet with a Black, female actor playing Hamlet. OK, couple of things. First, it's been done, which detracts substantially from the "bold, revolutionary."

Second, she fell short on the two fundamentals of stage acting: enunciation and projection. As did the White woman playing Gertrude and several of the others. They could take lessons from the old pros playing Claudius and Polonius. Neither was a glittering performance, but the audience could hear and understand the lines. Which I've always considered kinda the minimum in acceptable performance.

I'm no less annoyed by this crap than you are. I just don't consider it THE. . . WORST. . . POSSIBLE. . . THING! For me, it's just one slim volume in the massive library of Stupid Human Tricks.

The part that amuses me is the OUTRAGE! I get when I propose that in the next Star Trek re-boot, Captain Kirk should be played by Michael B. Jordan, a Black American actor. It's high-sterical, the squeals from the not-a-racists at the proposition that a fictional character from a supposedly color-blind (and species-blind) future could be played by a (shudder!) Black man!

My favorite limp-dick excuse was "But Captain Kirk was born in IOWA!" Apparently there are no Black people in Iowa, nor will any move there in the next two centuries.

So. . . the balance appears to be Slavery/Jim Crow/ongoing effects of racism in society vs. a one-off performance of a play. I know. . . I know. . . you'll say "They're both wrong!" True. But not equally wrong.

Performative wokeness is stupid. So what?

 

[Taxslave2]

Sometimes, more in Canada than in the U.S. I think, they just don't know when to quit.

I went to Stratford last year, and they had a Hamlet with a Black, female actor playing Hamlet. OK, couple of things. First, it's been done, which detracts substantially from the "bold, revolutionary."

Second, she fell short on the two fundamentals of stage acting: enunciation and projection. As did the White woman playing Gertrude and several of the others. They could take lessons from the old pros playing Claudius and Polonius. Neither was a glittering performance, but the audience could hear and understand the lines. Which I've always considered kinda the minimum in acceptable performance.

I'm no less annoyed by this crap than you are. I just don't consider it THE. . . WORST. . . POSSIBLE. . . THING! For me, it's just one slim volume in the massive library of Stupid Human Tricks.

The part that amuses me is the OUTRAGE! I get when I propose that in the next Star Trek re-boot, Captain Kirk should be played by Michael B. Jordan, a Black American actor. It's high-sterical, the squeals from the not-a-racists at the proposition that a fictional character from a supposedly color-blind (and species-blind) future could be played by a (shudder!) Black man!

My favorite limp-dick excuse was "But Captain Kirk was born in IOWA!" Apparently there are no Black people in Iowa, nor will any move there in the next two centuries.

So. . . the balance appears to be Slavery/Jim Crow/ongoing effects of racism in society vs. a one-off performance of a play. I know. . . I know. . . you'll say "They're both wrong!" True. But not equally wrong.

Performative wokeness is stupid. So what?

So are you trying to tell us the hiring was not done on merit?

 

[The_Foxer]

Second, she fell short on the two fundamentals of stage acting: enunciation and projection. As did the White woman playing Gertrude and several of the others.

Well.... in fairness kind of just sounds like a bit of a crap production, which happens no matter what 'colours' you use

I'm no less annoyed by this crap than you are. I just don't consider it THE. . . WORST. . . POSSIBLE. . . THING!

Well of course not. Actually given that all the females used to be played by males in Shakespeare's day it annoys me less than some 'gender bent' or racially altered characters we see out there. But even despite that i get what you're saying.

The part that amuses me is the OUTRAGE! I get when I propose that in the next Star Trek re-boot, Captain Kirk should be played by Michael B. Jordan, a Black American actor. It's high-sterical, the squeals from the not-a-racists at the proposition that a fictional character from a supposedly color-blind (and species-blind) future could be played by a (shudder!) Black man!

You know that's got nothing to do with race. When you retell people's favorite stories and take an iconic part of it and alter it NOT to make the story better or the like but JUST because you now want to use that story to preach a social agenda, then people get angry. Nobody had a problem with Captain Janeway, that series was one of the most popular in the franchise. So the idea of a female captain as the lead in a star trek is not even a little off putting to the fanbase. It was the trashing of a character that has been developed over, what, 40 years or so and is utterly iconic.

It would happen with any story. Make Bilbo a tall fat person. Make Mr T a short asthmatic balding jewish man. Redo Black Sheep and have Pappy played by Jennifer Lawrence. Set star wars in the near future in a galaxy right next to ours. I mean, c'mon. People love their favorite characters and stories .Mess with that and they get pissed.

But, your whole discussion there misses the point.

Performance wokeness as you say IS, we can agree, a bad thing when it's done for wokensses sake. (say THAT ten times fast). But that's not the problem with this performance.

The problem here is that one race is allowed to ATTEND, the others are not unless they're prepared to lie and try to 'Pass' as black. That's the issue here. It's state sponsored segregation and it's every bit as wrong now as it was in history.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Performance wokeness as you say IS, we can agree, a bad thing when it's done for wokensses sake. (say THAT ten times fast). But that's not the problem with this performance.

Can't say as I really know. If the annoying characteristics of "wokeness" had played a part in preventing the Holocaust, I'd say it was worth it.

Could it have? Fuck if I know. But in my travels around Europe, one thing has become clear to me. The Holocaust didn't happen out of a clear, blue sky. It was the culmination of over a millennium of European anti-Semitism.

That's kinda my answer to "discrimination is illegal, so what's the problem." Murder is illegal, too, but I don't think the criminal law has as much to do with the fact that murder is rare (statistically) as the cultural ethos that one shouldn't kill people fer funsies.

 

[The_Foxer]

Can't say as I really know. If the annoying characteristics of "wokeness" had played a part in preventing the Holocaust, I'd say it was worth it.

IT's more likely that kind of thing would lead to a holocaust. Being deliberately divisive often does. but nonetheless, if a bad thing happens in one case to lead to a good result that doesn't stop it being a bad thing. Murdering children is bad - arguing that maybe that child would have grown up to be hilter and killed jews would not make murdering children good.

The Holocaust didn't happen out of a clear, blue sky. It was the culmination of over a millennium of European anti-Semitism.

Not a millennium. It occurred because a politician was able to exploit and expand a division between two groups and make people scared and angry about the smaller group. Then that politician took that fear and anger and used it to convince people to allow him to commit an atrocity that served his purpose.

And that's how this kind of thing always happens. And it's happened MANY times in history. It's extremely effective and there's ALWAYS some group or another that you can divide and spread fear and anger about.

Like the vaccine hesitant today, and trudeau. You know - those people he calls bigots and misogynists and people we shouldn't "tolerate" taking up space. Litearlly his words. And he used that division to win an election, and has persecuted those people ever since.

That's kinda my answer to "discrimination is illegal, so what's the problem." Murder is illegal, too, but I don't think the criminal law has as much to do with the fact that murder is rare (statistically) as the cultural ethos that one shouldn't kill people fer funsies.

Murder would be far less rare if it weren't illegal. We can certainly see that in history. In fact, the term "outlaw" came from someone who'd done something wrong having the protection of law removed so that it was legal to kill them - and most of the time they got killed.

Now - no law, no social covenant, no morality is going to end murder entirely. And no such thing will eliminate racism.

But it makes it very manageable. There aren't a lot of murders in canada when you look at the big picture, especially once you eliminate criminal-on-criminal murder (an example of what happens when laws don't matter). There isn't a lot of actual racism in canada, although that's still more of a problem and there's still more work that needs to happen there. But overall the laws and the social covenants keep things in check.

But - when the gov't actually PROMOTES racism. ANY racism. Then that goes out the window and we go backwards to a point where there was a lot more. ANd that's what this is doing.

There is no 'good' racism, there is no positive or restorative racism, there's just racism. So when you make it ok to be racists - then it becomes ok for everyone.

 

[Taxslave2]

Not a millennium. It occurred because a politician was able to exploit and expand a division between two groups and make people scared and angry about the smaller group. Then that politician took that fear and anger and used it to convince people to allow him to commit an atrocity that served his purpose.

Anti-Semitism was strong in parts of Europe long before Hitler came on the scene. At one time ,Jews were forbidden to do almost any kind of work except bankers.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Oh, I'm not saying that it being illegal is insignificant. Just that I think the ethos is more of a factor than the law.

It's a hair-fine distinction, because the law (the basic stuff, not the highly technical, abstruse parts) is part of the cultural ethos.