“HAMILTON is holding OPEN AUDITIONS for SINGERS who RAP!
Seeking NON-WHITE men and women, ages 20s to 30s, for Broadway and upcoming Tours!
** No prior theater experience necessary. **”
(the issue with this ad is semantics, because casting calls often ask for race. Loads and loads of casting calls are for certain races. The problem isn't the idea but the use of "non" as opposed to "people of color")
As the idea is still the same, just put in a less offensive manner, I think it would have been best had it merely said that any character could be played by a person of any race, thereby disillusioning anyone (white or POC) of thinking that the roles had to be played by race. (Because seriously. Washington was awesome.)
I think the issue here is that to you, racism is a fun thought experiment, where essentially anything can be racist and racism can be good. What that does is it takes power away from the world. There are people and scenarios that are actually harmful and racist, and calling them racist is a way of condemning them. It's not just some passive observation (i.e. handicap parking is discriminatory, scholarships for certain types of people are discriminatory) its a way to call people out for their shitty behaviour. Back when Obama was president, people were genuinely afraid of being racist. Now there's racial apathy –people who are racist but simply don't care. If we keep using the word racist as a neutral word and not as something negative, to me it just fuels racial apathy.
Which really isn't racist at all, since white people are the leads in a ton of other shows.
Why do you think this is true? Would it be racist is white people weren’t as privileged? I think racism is racism regardless of the circumstance.
I think taking privilege into account when dealing with issues of race is very important. Context is always necessary.
I think taking privilege into account when dealing with issues of race is very important. Context is always necessary.
Can you give an example of how this would work that doesn’t directly reflect the thing we are discussing?
Okay then. I'm the recipient of a scholarship at my school. Although I am Black, my skin is on the lighter side and I have no perceptible accent. The only other person in the scholarship group freshman class was…also light-skin with no accent. We both come from upper middle class families. The others in the group were overwhelmingly white. Is it racist for the scholarship committee to realize, hey, we have a bias against Black people, in particular darker skinned Black people/Black men, we should probably try and remedy that by making sure we accept those people (with comparable scores/stats btw)
I mean for arguments sake you could say that the entire entertainment industry is racist because of how they specifically cast for parts.
(shrug)
There's actually kind of a technical term for "reverse racism" but idr what it is and it isn't really important but it's like favoring a certain group that was discriminated against in the past. A lot of colleges do it. I'll sit back down now
I love coming back to this after a long day of school (sigh)
We’re really just going in circles. One side find it racist to divide the casting by “excluding whites”. The other disagrees because it’s “making room for POC”. I don’t think we’ll ever come to an agreement.
Then let's just agree to disagree.
I think we're more disagreeing on the definition of racism. I'm talking about racism in terms of power structures, privilege, American society, and current race relations. I assume the opposing argument is using the literal dictionary definition?
Racism is racism. There shouldn't be a need to look at the literal dictionary definition
…well I mean you’re associating the word with its, admittedly, bad connotations. But that doesn’t define the word.
But that is exactly what this country is doing. Fighting about what is racist and what isn't based on the definition of the word among other things.
Racism shouldn't be defined by its negative connotations? Um, why not…?
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
^^^ That is the literal definition
Wait… hold up. Would you agree with me if I said the casting Lin held was discriminatory toward whites?
In the same way that certain scholarships are discriminatory to people who don't qualify. In the same way handicap parking is discriminatory to able bodied people. In the same way Lin was discriminatory to anyone not in their 20s/30s.
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
^^^ That is the literal definition
based on a belief that one's own race is superior
i think some of y'all are ignoring that bit.
Does that mean if a black person made negative jokes about the African race that would not be considered racist?
Well, no, because those comments would likely arise from the believe that somehow African-Americans are better than Africans. Right?
African race? We're all black. (though I do understand there are some other races there but if you're talking about the blacks in Africa then^)
