Arts Integrity Initiative: To be clear from the very start, two points. Judi Honoré, the owner of Shakespeare Books & Antiques in Ashland, Oregon, has every right to display anything she chooses in the window of, or for that matter anywhere in, her store. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, also located in Ashland, Oregon, has every right as an organization to express its institutional opinion about events locally or nationally as it sees fit, and to align its business practices accordingly.
4 comments:
This article is ridiculous. The OSL are ridiculous. The bookstore owner is ridiculous. This entire scenario is straight up absurd. Talk about blowing things completely out of proportion, on both sides of the argument. I think it’s quite a reach for the OSL actors to say that since the Wizard of Oz books are near Little Black Sambo that somehow equates the two and then applies to OSL’s production of The Wiz? That’s really stretching to take offense. I’m sure most passersby of the window wouldn’t even make that connection, and I’m sure the bookstore owner didn’t initially as well. I also don’t understand why the bookstore owner felt the need to escalate the issue into something much more than it had to be. The frequent letters and meetings this woman called for made it seem like she was extremely upset that her window display was asked to be changed. Both sides of the argument got blown completely out of proportion and I think it is because the discussion was about race. Race has become a very touchy subject recently, and a lot of people over react when told that their actions could be perceived as racist.
Aside from the truly horrible communication and escalating responses here, I agree with the earlier comment that this wouldn’t be such a big issue if it were not about race. Based on the photo, I can see why The Wiz cast might have walked by and been uncomfortable seeing a racist book next to the Oz books. But at the same time, it was in the context of a banned books display. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure exactly what racist message the bookstore owner may have been sending, it was never stated by any of the parties interviewed. It’s good that the cast spoke up and that the bookstore owner was willing to make a change to the display, the problem (or perceived problem) was resolved. The OSF really should have stayed out of it, it was resolved, and they weren’t asked to become involved. While it is good that they want to defend their performers, it really wasn’t need or handled well.
At the beginning I thought the title was just sensationalising a relatively small incident that ended well for everyone involved and created a nice little feel good story. Then I kept reading the article and that hope vanished as the entire situation twisted completely out of control to the point that the title seems to be completely accurate. I agree with the earlier comments that this situation seems kind of ridiculous. It started out fine, with the group of actors seeing something they found offensive and talking to the owner about it and the owner agreeing to move them and asking if the actors would like to help. Then it just got weird and went down hill. Why did Rider feel the need to speak with Honoré, and if that conversation ended amicably how did the rest of this situation end up happening? How did things go from friendly to Honoré verbally attacking cast members and accusing OSF of somehow getting rid of the majority of her business? It almost feels like the owner was looking for something to be offended by in her interactions with OSF, after all after the first two meetings she’s the one that seems to be escalating things each time.
This situation is a long and complicated one, and it’s difficult for me to form an opinion on the whole thing. There are so many issue intersecting here, including censorship, business’ rights, racism, and an overall lack of communication. One issue on the side of the bookstore owner is that they are not listening or taking the views of POC in that community seriously. It is not her right to decide when a black person is allowed to be offended. Although, I don’t think there’s any issue at all with displaying books banned for racism, so long as there’s a disclaimer. It’s important to read about how racism has been ingrained in our history for thousands of years. And it’s also important to see which books were banned for actually being racist versus simply making white people uncomfortable. I’m not sure exactly how placing certain books together creates a negative message, but honestly if a group of several black actors told me I was sending a negative message through my window display, I’d listen to them.
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