“Gem of the Ocean” at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company

The Pittsburgh Tatler: A couple of weeks ago The New Yorker featured an article by Kelefa Sanneh about the work of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, the founder of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University. Sanneh describes how Kendi came to realize that his embrace of the notion of black self-reliance – “a doctrine that urged black people to overcome the legacy of racism by working hard and doing well” – was itself “shamefully racist, because it blamed black people for their own failures.” Kendi argues that, in fact, “the idea of black underachievement lends support for anti-black policies, which in turn help perpetuate [racist] conditions.”