While our population skews non-white, most theatres employ majority white leadership, ensembles, casts, staff members, playwrights, and directors. It’s also majority male, straight, able-bodied, English-speaking, and cis-gendered, but this piece will focus on the whiteness. If our goal is to create diverse, dynamic, multi-cultural, and relevant theatre, dismantling this white majority is highly important.
5 comments:
One point of this article really stuck out to me, but not in a good way. One of the points he makes is that once a month or so, artistic leaders should dedicate a meeting to discussing the issue of race in theatre or in their theater specifically. Cool! But he ends the advice with this quote: "Whatever you do, don’t ask the nearest artist of color to explain anything to you."
This rubs me the wrong way. Shouldn't artists of color be LEADING the discussion? Shouldn't artists of color be the primary source on how to do better? Isn't making the issue of race all about white people effectively silencing people of color even further?
Another thing I wanted to mention was on demographics. He talks about how people should just hire more artists of color. The problem is, due to the very economic and social privileges he later points out in the article, there are less opportunities for people of color to even become artists in the first place. Schools in cities with high budget cuts will almost always slash art programs first, stranding a huge population of further artists, stopping them before they could even begin their training. Even here at CMU, which is considered diverse, there is not an equal amount of white vs. nonwhite in any of the disciplines. It's then not hard to see why more white people get hired, because there literally are more white people in the field. The solution is in education: make it more accessible to people of color, encourage nonwhite roles and artists.
The philosophies behind this article are great, and I support the results that it is desiring. However, I am unsure of the seven steps that are provided. The first one is great and easy, we can definitely boycott artistic decisions that support white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy. The second I start to have issues, most notably because I have relationships with theatre companies in Chicago who have intentional color-conscious casting policies as a staple of their company, and yet are still primarily white. Thus, the issue runs deeper than a focus on the ensemble (not that that focus isn't important, but it will not produce ensembles with more diversity until the source of the lack of diversity is changed). The third is a good idea, and it reminds me of a casting call that I sat in on, where the color-conscious casting came into conflict with the roles that the director/writer thought was the best for the role. In the end, diversity won out, as it rightfully should have, for the talent difference did not trump the importance of diversity. As far as number four is concerned, it is a good idea to have monthly meetings to discuss issues of race and sexuality in the theatre being produced. However, I disagree that the conversation cannot be had with people of color. It is everyone's responsibility to educate themselves, but for issues that are less present in culture, or that people would not even think to be an issue, I believe that there are ways to open the discussion to the point where everyone feels comfortable to say what they ought to be saying. Which is why number five is a great idea, except that it ought to be said 'open the discussion' rather than 'call people out' because the latter is far too aggressive for people that would have a shame response ignited by the comment. Number six is undeniably important, and I need not go into why. Number seven, however, is the most difficult for me to agree with, mostly because I cannot see the argument for less theatre and more pay to be one that produces any fruitful results. The message ought to be for further support of the arts in funding by major institutions and the government, and then that money can be used to hire the right people. Theatre companies just cannot afford to sacrifice their ability to produce work, in my opinion. There are better solutions.
I agree with the above comments. I support the broad statement that this article is trying to make, however, I think they could have gone about it in a different way. I also agree that making the change isn't as easy as simply hiring non-white actors. There is a much deeper issue that with economics that makes it hard for non-white people to become artists in the first place. For example, I went to high school in a pretty low socioeconomic neighborhood. Our school had huge diversity of both race and income. I took an introductory acting class there and out of the twenty five people in the class, I was one of three white people. The following year I took the next level acting course and there were a similar number of students but, instead, there were only three black people. This was amazing to me, I didn't understand why they were all dropping out after the first level. But then I noticed who gets cast in our shows. The only roles that black people seem to get were slaves, servants, and animals (no joke). Once this was pointed out to them, the faculty has started making more of an effort to even out the ratios, but even so, I understand why all the black actors got out of the theater program. Hiring people of color is one thing, but it's also very important to note what roles you are giving them.
I seem to agree with Jack and Paula on the complexity of the issue, and how this article seems to over simplify it. Yeah, most of the things on the list seem to be good ideas, and probably are good rough guidelines to follow, but simply trying to be less white is by no means a solution to the inequality of race. In fact, in my opinion, it exacerbates the issue.
I consider myself to not be a racist person (as I’m sure most people who exist, including racist people, do). I try and have diverse friends, be accepting and tolerant of other people’s culture/views, the whole deal. But I am white. That is not a subject for debate, I’m a white male. I enjoy all of the advantages and privileges that come with that fact, even if I think that everyone deserves them. Because I can’t change who I am, and I am a white male, I can’t change the fact that I get a very real unfair advantage.
Now, it’s one thing to recognize and mitigate that in a way that elevates all people, and I do mean all people, no matter what race, creed, sexual orientation, or other minority pocket of beliefs (as long as they aren’t hurting people), to the level of freedom and social mobility that white men enjoy. It is something else to try and ignore the fact that people are different.
I think that as an individual, the best way to deal with race isn’t to be hyper cautious about dealing with race. It’s to just try your damn best to view people as what they are; people. I have friends from India who are super different from me, and that have an entirely different perspective. I enjoy having them as friends, I think they’re nice people. But I didn’t become friends with them because they aren’t white. I became friends with them because they are good people. When theatre’s cast, they should cast who would be the best for the role. If that happens to include some component of race, then yeah, I don’t see a problem of using that to make a statement (as long as that statement doesn’t actively try and oppress people). It’s part of what art is, and trying to conform it to politically correct notions of racial equality exacerbates the problem of viewing people as something other (be it greater or lesser than) as people.
This article is a mixed bag for me. While some of the steps laid out are good, others are very over-simplified, and some are just flat-out wrong. Having a meeting every quarter to talk about whiteness and how to be supportive white allies is all well and good, but not allowing artists of color to explain anything during those meetings is completely wrong. Like Cassidy said, the artists of color should be leading those discussions, because they will have a perspective that white artists will not have on how to effectively support artists of color. I felt that the points on avoiding cultural appropriation were very important and were well-thought out, and it was great that the article encouraged calling out people you worked with who tried to culturally appropriate something. However, the points about hiring more actors of color and about paying people more seemed very simplistic. It is not as easy to pay people more as the author makes it seem, and figuring out where to find that money is a real issue for individual theater companies, especially when pay inequality is an issue rooted in deeper systems of racism and classism. Hiring more actors of color will not necessarily solve the problem-while this author does make a good point about avoiding tokenization and encourages casting actors of color in leading roles, this is an issue that is also rooted in racist and classist systems, which need to be addressed on their own.
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