Oh, my God. The things I will do when I don't care if I get thrown out of school or not. So I'm grading my 152 papers, and they're writing about a musical done here called Crowns, all African-American cast, set in the South, etc. A lot of these papers had sentiments along the lines of "this isn't my culture, so I didn't relate to it" or "I wouldn't recommend this play to anyone because I don't know any black people" or "I don't see why I have to be subjected to watching this when it has nothing to do with me" (welcome to central Illinois). Lots of stuff about how they couldn't relate to the women in the church because all they did was scream (there was no screaming! I don't know what the hell these people are talking about!), they are stereotypical, etc. This wasn't the best play I've ever seen, but one thing I thought it did very effectively was portray realistic black characters that addressed the stereotypes and deconstructed them. I talked to my supervisor about one paper that I thought was overtly racist and she told me that I could talk about it in a non-confrontational way and still get my point across, but I talked to the student and I am not entirely sure that it worked. I was also disturbed by the fact that it was so widespread! Easily three quarters of the papers I read had some sentiment along those lines. People consistently distanced themselves from these characters because they weren't the same color (can they not relate to Metamorphoses because they weren't raised on Greek myths? Why does this even come up???).

So I'm sitting in my 497 class this morning and we're talking about the responsibility of graduate schools to change the face of theatre and make it more inclusive and challenge people's preconceived notions about our society and I just decided, what the hell. I am not all that happy here for reasons I should not discuss on a blog, so it doesn't matter if there's a scandal and they boot my ass, so I'm doing this. So I called out my students and told them that Crowns was not a play about stereotypes, it was a story about African-American history, and further, that African-American history is all of our history. I told them that they needed to challenge their assumptions about race, and that the difference between a racist and a non-racist isn't that a non-racist knows everything, it's that they are willing to admit that they don't, that they are willing to admit when they are wrong and that they are willing and able to think critically about the socio-political atmosphere they live in and the kinds of assumptions they hold. Ideology versus methodology, people!!

THEN WE WATCHED THE MOVIE. Oh, my goodness. That's when things got crazy. I borrowed a movie called Ethnic Notions from my professor and showed it in class. Most of it. It is a really unsparing look at how black people have been treated in this country and portrayed in the media (especially theatre), from around the time of the Civil War to present day. Well, we got about halfway to present day when one of my black students got up and walked out because he couldn't stand to watch anymore. I shut it off and said we should talk about what we've been watching. So we started talking about what this has to do with "us", and I said that this is the kind of thing that Crowns is talking about, this is the kind of thing that Crowns is challenging, AND this is the kind of thing that is part and parcel of all of our histories because we are all from the same damn country. So of course it came up that some white people in the class have no ancestors who ever had slaves, and I said, well duh, me neither, but I am standing here before you, and you are sitting there before me, and we're enjoying privileges that we aren't even aware of based on the fact that we're white. And so even though you live in a white area and you don't know any black people, this story has everything to do with you and with who you are. And then a WHITE guy left me class because HE couldn't stand to listen to it. So I was like, o.k.I was actually REALLY nervous about doing this, I am not usually all that confrontational, but I just would be the worst professor in the universe if I just decided not to discuss this issue when it come up SO blatantly in everyone's work. I mean, it's a university, for God's sake. SO I was like, how is everyone feeling? Are you angry at me? If you are, it's o.k. and we should talk about that too, and one of my black students goes NO, we are not angry at all, we're glad! Really loud. And the room was just quiet for a while. And then I dismissed class. It was pretty amazing. Afterward a couple of students, white and black, came up to me and thanked me for doing it.

I know I didn't handle this perfectly, but I don't think I did the wrong thing. I know that I would be the biggest fucking wimp in the universe if I didn't say something. Another thing that this confirmed for me is that I am so back at UW Oshkosh as far as people's attitudes go. I miss Iowa City.

Weep weep.