HuffPost: Camille Sturdivant, who graduated in May 2018, claims she was eventually ostracized from gatherings of the Dazzlers dance team after she reported the alleged discrimination to officials with the Blue Valley Unified School District and the dance coach was fired. The lawsuit was filed in December in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas.
5 comments:
"It's 2019, racism is a thing of the past"
If I didn't have a word limit, that's all I would say. So many people are convinced that we've reached an era where racism isn't really a problem any more, but that's far from the truth. It's well known that within the dance community there's a lot of discrimination in the interest of "conformity" (also known as thinly veiled racism) but I'm honestly even more appalled that this happened in a high school. This is not a professional dance troupe, it's a high school extracurricular, and the fact that this student went to the administration with these allegations and nothing was done is atrocious. This is what happens when a culture becomes this toxic, it starts seeping into places you never thought it would be. We need to stop ignoring bullshit like this and start actually doing something about it and acknowledging that our country and our society has a problem. No one should be able to sit in an office and feel morally alright hearing these allegations and doing nothing about it. It's an indicator of a much deeper rooted problem.
How can an adult who is meant to foster the growth and development of children think it is ok to stifle the opportunities of any kid. Not only is this inexcusable for its racism, but there are countless teachers and coaches who think it it within their power to decide who succeeds and who does not so often based on an arbitrary and biased basis. What sucks is that this will just disappear and continue to be a problem rampant across the country. Best case scenario is this woman gets fired the student gets to perform and we sweep it all under the rug again. She probably gets hired somewhere else because someone else feels bad for ruining her life as if an apology fixes all the mental and emotional damage this give could’ve incurred. I’d say I’m glad this is getting attention, but they all get attention for a flash and only surface deep and then we move on.
What in darn tarnation is going on here! Really, I just don't know how a woman who works with children at a school with students of all colors would think that this is in the slightest the right call to make. The article does a decent job of hiding this woman behind things like "standing out" or "clashing with costumes" but this call here comes down to racism plain and simple. Ever since I was a child, I was surrounded by dancers of color, they have never made anyone feel uncomfortable by appearing onstage, so I don't understand why the presence of this girl was so egregious that she made this call. I'm both upset and kind of glad that I have to read this article, upset because its racist and asinine, but I'm glad because stories like this needs to come into the radars of people everywhere, especially entertainment people so we can denounce this type of day to day bigotry that happens all the time to people of color in the industry.
I really wonder what was going through these people’s heads to make them think this behavior was acceptable. I can’t believe they actually thought the costumes clashing was a real problem, they were pretty clearly using that as an excuse in order to be overtly racist as far as I’m concerned. And the fact they used that excuse means they knew if they said what they intended outright it would not have been an okay decision. So they knew what they were doing was wrong, or at the very least they knew what they were doing would be considered racist. Maybe they just think racism is okay, and that they need to hide it from a society who has the audacity to be fighting against it. All and all it doesn’t seem like they have much of a case when this goes to court, but I’m curious what excuse their lawyers will be making. I’m hesitant to jump to judgement without hearing both sides of the story, but if someone tells a black girl she can’t perform because her skin is too dark, I don’t really care that much about their side of the story.
This is absolutely disgusting. Racism and discrimination in the performing arts field is still so prevalent, you can never say it doesn’t exist. After entrusting your child with an adult to teach them skills they will use in their life and career, I could never imagine being a parent and hearing about the abuse but upon my child. Coming from an arts high school where the ballet teachers had a very discriminatory way of dealing with students of color, this is a trait that is ingrained the core of a lot of art forms. Black artists aren’t accepted. Especially for black dancers, their “typical” body types aren’t one that teachers like to work with and their hair isn’t straight and perfect like the white students. I’m glad this student wasn’t neglected in her mistreatment by this teacher and was a lawsuit was put into action. This should never be ignored and the arts should never stop talking about this problem that needs to be ripped out of the roots of entertainment.
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