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February 29, 2024 - 5:00pm
When we think of racial segregation we tend to think of Jim Crow America or apartheid South Africa; we don’t associate it with London’s West End in the twenty-first century. But we live in strange times, and a play called Slave Play, about race in twenty-first century America, will host two performances exclusively for black audiences in the UK this year. At the Noël Coward theatre on July 17 and September 17, Slave Play, which features the Game of Thrones actor Kit Harrington, will only admit black people into performances of the play to protect them from the “white gaze”.
It should go without saying that a play, a book, a song, a film, or any other kind of culture, should be open to anyone irrespective of their racial or ethnic background. The idea that black people can confidently enjoy and talk about a work only in the presence of other black people, moreover, is condescending at best and racist at worst. It treats them as fragile and homogenous.
The author of the play, Jeremy O. Harris, loves the decision. He is “so excited” and has said “it is a necessity to radically invite them in with initiatives that say ‘You’re invited’. Specifically you.’” There is a conversation to be had about widening access to the theatre. We are living through inflation and a cost of living crisis. Watching a play is a luxury that many people can’t afford, and this is not helped by the fact that most plays are mediocre.
But there’s a big difference between widening access to the materially disadvantaged and explicitly setting aside performances for groups of people based on their race. One is about making culture accessible to a wider range of people; the other is an ideological agenda that subjects a British audience to some of the most toxic aspects of America’s never-ending race drama.
What makes this all the more strange is that the poster says it is reserving spaces on those two nights for “an all-Black-identifying audience.” Does this mean that white people could identify as black just to see the play on those nights? Will the security guards and theatre staff scrutinise the fingernails of anyone who doesn’t look black? Will they evaluate how curly their hair is? Identity politics is not just morally wrong. It is also silly: this is why it is so ripe for mockery, as the recent Oscar-nominated film American Fiction demonstrates.
America and South Africa were able to successfully destroy institutionalised segregation in their respective countries. But cultural segregation should not be legitimised by the use of sweet-sounding progressive language. All this talk of “inclusivity” and “protection” masks what is in fact quite sinister: reintroducing into mainstream society the toxic idea that we should divide people into racial categories.
Tomiwa Owolade is a freelance writer and the author of This is Not America, which is out in paperback in May.
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SubscribeIs this even legal?
Don’t know, but if it was for all the performances I guess it would be, but as it’s only some of the nights, perhaps not as the excluded can still attend if they want to.
Aren’t you making a bit of a fuss?
Looking back at that comment it seems like a very bland statement to me.
Under the equalities act the test is whether it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
It’s proponents would no doubt argue something along the lines that encouraging black audiences to attend the theatre is a legitimate aim and reserving 2 performances exclusively for them is a proportionate means to achieving it.
Personally I think this sort of thing is insidious race-baiting and serves nobody except those who wish to promote divisiveness. But I suspect a legal challenge would fail.
I think the whole object of the exercise is to make a point nothing more and nothing less. It’s, actually, rather clever, from a dramatic point of view, and it certainly got you lot going!!
I know it sounds blase, but I believe that no-one should be discriminated against because of their skin color.
It also suggests that on other nights the white audience will be free from the black gaze: sauce for goose and gander.
I don’t know the laws in the UK, but in the US, this would be absolutely illegal and generate immediate legal action because it violates the Civil Rights Act and probably the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. Yet, somehow, an act that would be illegal and immediately recognized as such almost anywhere in the USA is an example “of the most toxic aspects of America’s never-ending race drama.” I’ll leave that as something for Unherd’s UK readership to unpack however they wish.
https://blackoutnite.com/ It started in New York.
How is this legally accomplished?
We did not prevent or preclude anyone from attending the BLACK OUT performances. While the intention of BLACK OUT was clearly to create a space for as many Black-identifying audience members as possible, nobody was turned away.
My point was that everybody in the US knows segregation is illegal and if an American saw an example of a ‘blacks only’ performance most would immediately recognize this was illegal and ask how the people in charge were getting away with it, a question you’ve helpfully answered here. If they’re not turning anyone away, it’s not really ‘segregated’ per se, is it? There was also some hullabaloo about Harvard having a ‘black’ graduation ceremony a few years back but it wasn’t Harvard’s actual ceremony it was just a bunch of black students having their own informal graduation ceremony. Most Americans understand these little exceptions within the basic framework of segregation being basically illegal.
If it was the other way round it would certainly not be legal
It’s all about garnering negative attention for ticket sales. If they wanted to be truly avant-garde, they would make a play and invite only white people.
It’s best to ignore it and let them bask in their own mediocrity.
Once the ESG social credit system adjusts it’s algorithm, the “inclusive segregationists” will get canceled or debanked. Every Marxist movement ends up getting eaten by the systems they cultivate.
It will be interesting to see if the can even fill the ‘black-only’ theatre. No theatre performance I have attended, including ‘Hamilton’ ever had even a tenth of the audience be black. Perhaps if blacks are the featured audience ‘made special’ they will show up?
Indeed-I think they should take it to its logical conclusion and promote it as a black only event-then lets see the economic case take over-which is colour blind!
That’s rather elitist.
I remember a similar outcry over the screening of Attenborough’s film Gandhi in South Africa to an all white audience.
As I recall, the Private Eye cover for that week was one of the final shots from 10 Riddlington Place, with Attenborough stood between 2 policemen an looking back at the camera, and the caption “It’ll be all white on the night”
This is the new Jim Crow and one more example of how many ideas, including the ones that are patently bad, have this habit of coming back and, at times, coming back into favor.
It’s tongue in cheek, folks.
So were the old black and white minstrel shows, but that excuse didn’t save them.
Very amusing to see the same people who are outraged by this commenting on the very next thread about how much they hate Islamic folks.
Pick a lane, people!
I call right lane!
That goes with out saying!
‘Islamic folks’. What a quaint turn of phrase!
So do you think it’s reasonable to have a public show that prohibits, for some of its showings, a particular group of people based on their skin colour. If so, why?
If it annoys the racists then I think it is absolutely hilarious
But you have no actual answer
You just responded to my answer, dumbo!
So your position is that race-based exclusion is fine as long as you find it funny. It’s good to know where you stand.
Took you a while to get there but you made it!
Oh, I feel so cut down to size.
It’s to make a point for dramatic effect. Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Dennis!
Choosing to join an authoritarian religion is a choice. Skin color is not.
Good luck in your next suicide attempt.
I’ve got it. You’re Gorgeous George Galloway
I claim my £10
You should hate islam if you have any brains at all. Care to live under Sharia, you stupid Marxist. When the mullahs took over in Iran they killed off the Tudeh party by mass execution. Islam cures Marxism.
Appears to be a publicity stunt, and it’s obviously working. That doesn’t make it any better however, it’s sad and toxic that people would stoop so low, but unfortunately that is how trends have taken place with many adverts featuring exclusively black people, and all the others featuring the now ubiquitous mixed race couple. Same of course for TV dramas.
Whole thing is extremely patronising.
Why am I not surprised that the thought of black people on television or mixed race couples is so horrifying to you?!?!
I’m uncertain, so maybe you should read my post again.
It’s not ‘horrifying’, it’s patronising.
To everyone.
Why does it make you so furious that black people and mixed race couples are shown on television? Do you really hate them so much?
Boring
I’m actually interested.
Do you idiots sit at home watching TV advertising and monitoring how many black people and mixed race couples you see? And then get yourself all worked up about it?
The only person that seems worked up is yourself. Everyone else thinks it’s tedious eye rolling nonsense. Including this stupid stunt, which doesn’t help anyone’s supposed cause.
No, “we” don’t. Your asinine, bien pensant contributions are always welcome though. I enjoy the light entertainment.
Nothing wrong with featuring black actors on adverts but it should be in proportion to the black population which is about 4% of the UK population.
In the U.S., certainly beyond any parity of 13% of the population. Some Americans when surveyed, reckoned that half the nation’s black…no doubt the zealous over-inclusion via voiceovers for ads, representation in books, films, enterainment, lessons, workplace P.R., ‘cultural diversity’ training, print and screened media, billboards, and DEI-obsessed academics, ‘activists’, talking heads, journalists, soundbites, politicians, grifters, corporations…Stock multiracial kids and families BIPoC now the norm. All bent on making up for centuries of ‘erasure’, sure. But not in any ‘ratio’ in accurate demographics. Advertisers are terrified of being called out/cancelled for any perceived slight or ineradicable microaggro.
Any attention is better than no attention for you eh?
Could it have something to do with the fact that some people see this development as a none-too-subtle attempt at social conditioning for the hard of thinking?
What is your view of a white woman playing N Mandela or Dr Martin Luther King? Should whites be allowed to listen to Reggae ?
You cheer on the liquidation of whites. This culture must be paradise for you. The West deserved to die.
No, we don’t know why. You’re assuming that all commenters are white and married to other whites. Wrong!!
Look, usually your diatribes are usually merely funny to anyone with any degree of sense, but this openly-hostile and ignorant race-baiting crap most certainly is not.
I never usually report comments, but on this occasion I’m going to do so purely through utter disgust at your conduct.
But I’m right, John, and you know it.
I refer you to Jim M’s comments.
“You cheer on the liquidation of whites.”
“I do hate them. They are part of the white genocide project.”
And so on…
I do hate them. They are part of the white genocide project.
You’re only “not surprised” because you’re unable to interpret the over-representation of mixed-race couples on TV etc. as an attempt at brainwashing.
Listen, i’ve been in a mixed-race couple, so take your pathetic sneers elsewhere.
I’m “not surprised” because I know that any positive representation of black people or mixed race couples drives your average klan member into a frenzy.
How would you know that, exactly, unless you’ve been to a Klan meeting?
Some of your pals seem to be running a Klan meeting right here!
The thoughts of Jim M:
“Every mixed race couple is a couple in which no white children are born. Making whites extinct is the goal”
The Kurrent Klan numbers about a few thousand in the U.S. Compare far more massive memberships during Jim Crow. With likely half as informants, stool pigeons, and provocateurs. And despite the SPLC’s hectoring and panic-profiting, about 50k, another fringe cabal, as the ‘white nationalists’ nowadays elevated to boost Biden and scare swing states as if it’s millions of fanatical militia, misfits, ministers, and mass murderers.
Anyone having an opinion that isn’t yours seems to drive you into a frenzy.
Me too, the love of my life.
God, imagine being cornered by Champagne Socialist at a party. Intense, doggedly literal, fastidiously PC, completely lacking nuance, and boring, all at the same time.
I doubt very much CS is invited to parties, which is why he comes here to while away his lonely life via pathetic trolling.
Its highly unlikely that you would be invited to any party that I was attending. Unless maybe you have a catering job?
I’ve got it. You’re Diane Abbot.
I claim my £10
Because you have predictably and once again failed to understand what’s being said.
Seriously just F*FTCEAFEAGH 8ff. Richard Spencer and the KKK just love people like you. You are taking every opportunity to re-legitimate racial segregationist politics. When it inevitably ends in violence, I very much hope that the karma is instant for you.
“Seriously just F*FTCEAFEAGH 8ff”
Easy for you to say!
Very droll. Go and feed your cat
Are you going to tell us what you were trying to say? Or was it just a howl of impotent rage?
People are angry at you – not because they are racist – but because YOU have no idea why anti-IdPol anti-racists think identity politics IS racist. I wish you would just listen to people and stop being a 12-year-old Trot
I listened to Jim M saying that he hates black people and mixed race couples.
Because it is getting whites used to the idea of white genocide or the erasure of whites in the societies that they founded. Every mixed race couple is a couple in which no white children are born. Making whites extinct is the goal. Diversity is suicide for whatever group it is being imposed upon. It is part of the white genocide project. There is nothing about Marxist ideology that is not sinister.
Ah, someone willing to be honest about why black faces on TV makes you mental. Honest but also totally insane!!!!
This is who you people are even if you pretend that it isn’t. I hope you like it!
Please say you’re joking.
Tomiwa Owolade, the writer of the piece said the idea was “sinister”.
I think he’s referring to proportionality – Black people are less than 5% of the population, so it’s misleading and simply strange to have them as 40% or so of people in adverts.
Patronising is definitely the right word for this. The phenomenon is getting old actually. There’s a character on the controversial American satire “South Park” whose actual name is Token Black and that show has been on the air since 1998, so people were poking fun at this nonsense as early as the late 90’s. It’s in literature too, and not limited to race anymore. I read a lot of fiction and almost anything from the past decade will have a token homosexual or these days a transsexual. Rare is the occasion where it actually is done tastefully, or well, or impacts the story in any way. More often it is handled with all the subtlety of throwing a slab of meat to a pack of wolves, just brought up out of nowhere, discussed for a bit, then forgotten by the next paragraph. A thorough writer might bring it up regularly just to remind the reader of their virtue signal, like updating their facebook page. If I were a member of one of these groups, I think I would find this insulting, to be pandered to out of some form of hollow virtue signaling, but that’s just my personal feeling on the matter. Maybe the minorities actually get something out of this psychologically so I guess I’ll defer to them on the matter, but it seems like shameless pandering to me.
Think of it as conditioning and you won’t be far wrong. The elites are doing this for our own good.
Oh I realize that, but I don’t think it’s gonna work out the way they think. Psychologically speaking conditioning works almost entirely on the subconscious level. It works great with lower animals like rats, birds, etc. because they don’t have the level of self awareness and consciousness that humans do. Humans though, once they become consciously aware someone else is trying to influence them, tend to overreact becoming suspicious of both the person attempting the manipulation and whatever the topic of persuasion was. In order to condition people in this way, they need to be subtler about it. The people can’t realize they’re being manipulated.
It’s like a magician’s trick. If everybody knows how the trick works, there’s nothing magical or interesting about it. I’ve even seen this in dogs. My brother’s dog used to chase flashlight beams on the wall like cats do. The dog was otherwise smarter than most dogs so one day I took the dog aside with a flashlight and turned it on, pointed to the floor then to the lighted end of the flashlight, then turned it off and did the same. The dog was good at following where a person pointed so it looked where it was supposed to and after a few repetitions of this I could almost see the light come on in the dog’s head as it figured out the light it had been fascinated with was coming from this object. After that, it never again chased lights on the wall, but it did develop an odd affinity for flashlights. Flashlights became it’s favorite toys and we had to keep a few around. The dog would bring them to us when it wanted one turned on.
So yeah, I don’t think that shoehorning in as many examples of ‘diversity’ in popular culture as possible is going to convince the people that it’s normal or that anyone that questions it is a bigot. People aren’t that stupid. Hell even some animals aren’t that stupid. I think there will be too many people who see something that wasn’t there before and try to figure out where it’s coming from, and it won’t be hard to find who and what is the source or all the ‘diversity’ messaging, and then the magic is gone. People see the examples of diversity and almost instantly go to the next step of remembering all the other examples that have been shoehorned in and everything they know about why it happens, then they’ll dismiss it just as quickly, eliminating its’ usefulness as a conditioning tool.
It makes some amount of sense to aim this sort of thing towards children, placing the examples in children’s media These subtle, indirect forms of deception are very effective with most children who haven’t enough intelligence to unravel complex motivations in others, and more importantly have no experience and no frame of reference to compare to. It’s also possible to be so blatant about it that it generates media awareness and turns parents off the brand. Involved parents tend not to like corporations attempting to influence their children.
You forgot to mention the almost compete erasure of white men
Oh, pleeeeze!!
They are good for the foolish and bumbling roles. Oh, and Nazis.
Lionel Shriver, who knows both sides of the pond initmately, delivers her characteristic blend of satire, sass, and savvy. ‘Having formerly catered to what was until recently a white super-majority, programming now elaborately overcompensates, verisimilitude be damned. Many a British murder mystery is set in a poky English village, but these days the real mystery is how these quaint, underpopulated rural outposts attract all those black people and why their police detectives are so reliably black women.’ https://thespectator.com/topic/google-ai-erases-white-people-gemini/
Yes, that’s bothersome because it’s just not authentic, particularly if it’s a period piece. I tried watching Bridgerton but couldn’t get into it because Shondra Rhimes insists on inserting black aristocrats when in reality there weren’t any. I was born and raised in an English village and never saw a person of color till I went to London.
You
“Bothersome” doesn’t quite get it done.
You should enjoy the new and much praised film, advertised as being based on a true story, and set in Littlehampton just after the First World War, where not only does the white Irish heroine have a black partner, but the local police force has two black constables – one of them a young black WPC who solves the case, and the judge they all end up in front of is black also. At first I assumed these casting choices were to celebrate how things have improved over the last century, or something. Then I thought why would the film’s producers deliberately destroy their audience’s confidence in the historical veracity of their tale? The only possible answer is that they are round the bend.
No, it’s all carefully planned social engineering.
No. It isn’t.
Shriver is excellent, and that’s a hilarious observation. She hasn’t become like unfortunately too many “conservative” and anti woke people, rancid, Putin worshipping, unpleasant misanthropist people.
Blacks should boycott the play for those two nights in support of their white friends if they have any! Before CS jumps all over me that’s irony, dear.
Right up there with Disney wanting to re-mix Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs into a dark ‘snow white’ and 7 LGBTQI’s……….
it is now so absurd that it is comical beyond belief.
It stopped being funny a long time ago. It is sinister now.
I consider that greater mixed race visibility is actually quite positive, though not to the exclusion of white only couples I would agree.
If I were younger and had a lot of time, I would go there and try to get in. They would tell me “you are white”. I would tell them, no, I am black which would likely create a scene. The police would be called. I would get arrested. I would sue them on the basis of their non-acceptance that I am black, and demand them that they prove it. First they would come back saying “he looks white” which would be thrown out in court, then they would demand that I submit to a DNA test, which I would refuse of course unless they also submit to DNA testing. They may agree. I would then ask, how would it work in the future, would people have to submit themselves to DNA testing before attending any such event and bring a report with the testing results to be shown at the door? They would think for a while and then recognize that it would be unpractical, and would come back with the logical final solution: a government-issued race-ID card.
There is some vague memory in my mind that it happened before somewhere but maybe I am mistaken.
I think what you’re saying is covert racism. It feels uncomfortable.
Not sure how DNA would help. I am white but I have lots of DNA cousins according to Ancestry who present as black and have various levels of DNA usually found in African populations. Would traces of such DNA be sufficient to qualify to see this blacks only performance or would a certain Pantone level of skin colour be required?
Clare Knight – I think what he is talking about is overt racism surely. I agree it is pretty distasteful but it falls well short of Jim Crow levels and I don’t think most who fail to qualify for this viewing are going to be too upset. It would presumably be rather more provocative if they had a whites only viewing for those who wanted to view the play away from the black gaze.
You would not have to go through all that. The invitation is to people who “identify as black”. When the bouncers say “you are white”, you reply “I dentify as black” and point to your cpoy of the publicity handout.
Dumb, and probably illegal.
But, if I were a white guy looking to create trouble, I would show up and force them to either kick me out, preferably physically or to harass me and I would get it ALL on video.
Then, take em to court for money.
The British-Malaysian comic Phil Wang summed up this sort of thing in one of his podcasts as “apartheid masquerading as inclusion.”
I think that sums it up perfectly.
I wonder what percentage of Black blood is needed to enter. For example, Barack Obama is only 50 per cent Black. His mother was white. If the place is sold out, except for one seat, who would they let in, Barack Obama or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is 100 per cent of Black origin, coming from Somalia.
Good point, but why do you capitalize the word ‘black’ and not the word ‘white’ in your post? I have noticed this trend on other postings and can’t help wondering what the grammatical logic behind this might be?
Good observation. Well caught!
It’s insisted upon by black racial supremacists in the hopes of creating a single global black identity.
It’s almost as though “self-identifying blacks” need segregation to feel good about themselves. If you can’t get enough victimhood, then make it up for yourself kind of thing.
Nasty comment.
No, it’s true as was observed over a century ago:
There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
Is it because it’s a shit play? ‘Oversimplified and titillating’ says one review from an outlet generally supportive of this kind of thing, so this just sounds kinda like a low-rent tactic to squeeze what they can out of it, before its consigned to oblivion.
Exactly!
I wonder if any “white people” have officially complained of racial discrimination, or are they just lying in their comfort zone of whingeing and whining!
These condescending stunts are the product of very dull minds, so it’s likely that the play is, as well.
It’s racism, quite simply, no matter what bullshit language Liberal Fascists may want to defend it with.
No, it’s not it’s theater.
I wonder if this is actually legal in this country. Setting this aside, this is also unbelievably stupid. Why would anyone attend such an event?
If I was white, I’d attend saying that I’m eligible for a front row seat under an 1895 Mississippi law called the “one drop” rule. My great-great-great grandfather was half-black.
Perhaps “theater” studios opt for these race-based stunts to boost revenue for a show otherwise mediocre or amateurish. That they treat black people as irredeemably infantile, expecting that they will clamor to attend, is depressing.
Rubbish.
It would be very gratifying if the seats were empty on those two occasions, but I suspect there will be at least a few smug, black middle-class members of the DEI/arts industry who make a point of attending.
We’re also starting to see “black dorms” and cafeteria tables at colleges. Segregation 2.0…
Multiracial societies are a mistake and best avoided if you want to have a harmonious, cohesive society. China does not allow citizenship for anyone who is not Han Chinese. These people are really smart and realistic about human nature in this regard.
You must not have any friends of other ethnicities. How boring you must be. One presumes you wouldn’t dream of enjoying a curry either?
Another backwards woke step. Plain for everyone to see the real intention is to create division and resentment. Bravo. It has succeeded.
I’m not sure why we continue to give oxygen to a sad person who has no counter argument or opinion to contribute but who resorts to name-calling and insult. The ‘N’ word that comes to mind every time s/he posts is ‘negativity’ but I suspect s/he is simply a ‘wind-up’ artist with nothing better to do. I’m done with it!
The woke entertainment and media industries give the impression there is an equal number of black and white people to judge by TV advertising. The next step would seem to be to vanish whites altogether in the manner of Google AI.
The South Shall Rise Again, in England
Heck, if the ‘Blacks’ want to separate themselves from ‘Whites’, who am I to disagree?
Let them wallow in their racial segregation. Give them what they are asking for.
One problem with much black representation in the theatre, film or TV, is you don’t always know what is supposed to be going on. We can accept that not all actors have to be identical in appearance to the people they depict. But then on the other hand on the black actors supposed to be playing black characters? Then it can get confusing!
I believe that those identifying as black are also invited, though how this shields them from white gays I don’t understand.
This kind of stupidity can only be indulged in by the subsidised arts coterie, whose lame talents cannot exist in the real world of competitive theatre.