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And the curtain came down
Dozens of students from a Cincinnati suburb worked for nearly three months memorizing lines, building sets, making costumes, designing sound and lights, and rehearsing for a production of Agatha Christie’s classic “Ten Little Indians.” But then school administrators suddenly cancelled the play after receiving complaints it was racially insensitive. Now some are wondering whether it was really a case of censorship.
Topic: Issues, WorldMagBlog
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1 little
2 ”
3 ” Indians
4 ”
5 ”
6 ” Indians
7 ”
8 ”
9 ” Indians
10 ” Indian boys!
Good, now it’s sexist too.
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I feel bad for the kids. My son has been in a school musical the past two years and I know how hard he worked on them and how much they mean to him. For the past two months he has been rehearsing for a musical at church, and tomorrow is opening night. I can barely imagine how devastated he would be if it were called off.
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That’s why homeschooling is so great. If you want to have a play about 10 little “insert unPC label here” or any other program, have it in another homeschooling family’s home, set up chairs and refreshments afterward. That way it’s no one’s business.
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A comic-opera farce, and I’m not talking about the play the students were planning.
A racial-sensitivity consultant with a history of complaints against the school and its students comes along claiming that certain anonymous parents have complained. He asks for procedures for demonstrating against the play (without actually staging such a demonstration) and the school officials just fold. This despite the chairman of the school board knowing the consultant’s game already. The reporter helps by putting the consultant’s company name into the article. (Any publicity is good publicity) And the school announces that the students are “disappointed but know it’s for the best.” Heh.
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It’s amazing that this play should create such a controversy when other schools perform such pornography as “The Vagina Monologues” and “Angels in America”.When parents object to these, in many cases their concerns are brushed aside.
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I wonder if they could have just changed the title. In conversation with 20-something college students, I discover most of them don’t know the standard nursery rhymes or even a lot of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales. These younger children probably don’t even know what “Ten Little Indians” refers to.
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It’s odd to me that the consultant says that the kids “don’t have enough information about diversity”. As though a censoring the play informs them in any positive way about diversity.
One of the other people quoted in the article says that the school’s approach to the play was to treat it as a “teachable moment”; the moment came when the administration pulled the rug out from under the kids.
Protest and debate of art have their place in American society, but censorship does not.
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This is one of those issues where I am of multiple minds on the matter. There are all sorts of conflicting principles that come to my mind:
1. Free speech. I’m a big believer in free speech and I don’t like censorship of plays, music, books, art, or anything else.
2. Cultural sensitivity. I’m also a big believer in not being offensive to other people and their culture.
3. Historical accuracy. I want books, plays, etc. to present an historically accurate picture of events.
4. Artistic freedom. A writer or a playwrite or an artist should have the freedom to present their work, even if it’s controversial.
5. Common sense. A teacher, school, theater director, etc. should use common sense when selecting material for presentation. If the presentation is going to be controversial, it behooves them to get all of their ducks lined up beforehand.
6. Live and learn. Sometimes it takes controversy to get people to look at things from another perspective. All of us grow up looking at things a certain way. Something might be totally innocuous to us (especially if it’s widely accepted in the culture). Then we find out that not everyone looks at things the same way we do. Part of being a mature person involves looking at things through another person’s eyes and taking their views into consideration. Working through this stuff is not easy.
In hindsight, perhaps the wiser choice would have been to invite those who were troubled by the play to take part in the event. I would envision the following:
1. A presentation prior to the performance of the historical context of the play, including why it’s considered offensive to some.
2. A presentation of the play.
3. A panel discussion (including the minority community) on the play, the author, and the controversy around it.
4. A discussion on what can be done to make us all more aware of different cultures and how we can bridge the gap in real, meaningful ways.
Is that hard work? Yes. Is it overly ambitious? Maybe. But it’s better than the alternative, where everyone is unhappy about the outcome. I know, I know – anger and lashing out at each other is much easier. But in the end it only begets more anger.
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It’s odd to me that the consultant says that the kids “don’t have enough information about diversity”.
Right. Big city public schools just don’t talk about diversity much. It’s only celebrated and glorified every day, worked into virtually every class and lesson plan up to and including calculus, etc. And those poor ignorant kids probably watch a lot of TV, and we know that TV never ever mentions diversity and its putative benefits.
Another genius race hustler. He also said that the play is a”about genocide”. He’s Cincinnati’s version of Anthony Bradley.
As though a censoring the play informs them in any positive way about diversity.
Sure it does. It demonstrates for them, loud and clear, just what “diversity” is all about. Conformity. And it lets them know that no matter how innocent a project, how many months of work scores of people have put into a project, it must all be sacrificed to the god of diversity when one of the high priests of diversity, a civil rights hustler, waves his magic talisman in the air and declares that the project is “racist”.
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Kathy (#5): There are high schools that have presented “The Vagina Monologues?”
Links to articles? Because I’m really highly skeptical.
Also, “The Vagina Monologues” is just a sequence of women performing, well, monologues. Talk. It is talk about sex, and maybe that gives some people the vapahs, but it’s not “pornography” by any sensible definition.
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I suspect the consultant wrote the University of Delaware and the City of Denver diversity training.
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CB rolls her eyes. The Cincy paper refered to a comparison between Indian and the N word. That’s a new one on me. Most Indians I know (and I know quite a few as I have a pretty big family with a hundred or so cousins of my own …) would not make the comparison and in fact do refer to themselves as Indian. It’s the R word that tends to rile ‘em if they’re gonna get riled about what the white people call people.
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1. Free speech. I’m a big believer in free speech and I don’t like censorship of plays, music, books, art, or anything else.
Free speech and “diversity” are anathema to each other. They cannot co-exist in the same space. Oh, the legal fiction of freedom of speech will still be celebrated, even as law school reviews and leading professors publish and write articles declaring that “hate speech” is not protected by the First Amendment. Which is obscenely ludicrous on the face of it, but it happens more and more often. And “hate speech” is simply any speech that a black, Hispanic, Jew, Muslim, homosexual, etc., doesn’t like to hear. It doesn’t work the other way. If a white person is offended by the words of someone from these protected classes, too bad. And since there are many passages of the Bible that are considered very offensive (homosexuals should be executed, Jews killed Jesus, women should stay home and take care of their families, you shall not covet your neighbor’s slaves, slave owners may beat their slaves brutally as long as they don’t kill them, etc.), the Bible is more and more considered a book of hate. So you can love diversity or love the Bible and it’s god. But not both. They’re anathema to each other, too.
This episode reminds of the Harold Washington painting uproar back in the late 80s or early 90s. Washington was Chicago’s first black mayor, elected in 1983. He was also widely rumored to have a penchant for wearing ladies’ underthings. He died in office around 89 or 88, and a few years after he died, a Chicago Art Museum held a student art show in which one of the student paintings was a depiction of Mayor Washington in bra and panties. Blacks heard about it and started screaming, the high priests of diversity waved their talismans in the air and pronounced the evil RACISM was cursing the land and must be destroyed, and there were threats of ” a long, hot summer” to boot. But the art museum stood its ground and refused to remove the painting on 1st Amendment grounds. So one night 20 or 30 black city councilmen and other elected officials simply walked into the museum, took down the painting, and marched out with it. In full view of security and administration. And, because if the gods of diversity are too offended, they will plague the land with riots, no one was ever prosecuted for violating the student’s or school’s rights. No one was even prosecuted for theft.
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CB, the N-word / Indian connection is explained in the linked article. Apparently in Christie’s day, the n-word was used in British slang to denote anyone vaguely Eastern or near-Eastern (i.e., “Indian”).
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Angels in America deserved every Tony Award it received. It was one of the best plays I have ever seen. Pornographic? Ridiculous.
Cancelling the play? Also ridiculous. I don’t think liberals need to go through the kind of handwringing that Anlir does. Free speech trumps. As for cultural sensitivity, I don’t think this complainant really had the interests of Native Americans in mind.
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Another genius race hustler. He also said that the play is a”about genocide”. He’s Cincinnati’s version of Anthony Bradley.
uhm, one of the last people I would ever put in the category of “race hustler.” That’s pretty ad hom. And in this conversation, unwarranted as well.
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Simple solution, change it to “Ten Little Native Americans” or “Teh Little Aborigines”. The children will get the point.
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Kristin: “Now some are wondering if it was really a case of censorship.”
What do you mean, they are “wondering”? The school canceled the play. That’s censorship. It’s not a matter of opinion.
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Oh, but of course, words don’t actually mean what their dictionary definitions say that they mean. “Censorship” now means “canceling or removing something that minorities and their supporters like.” If the artwork is something that they don’t like, then it’s not censorship.
The word “diversity” is another one with a special meaning. Others have already mentioned it, so I won’t repeat it, but I will emphasize the fact that the word now has nothing to do with diverse people or ideas.
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Coyoteblue,
“R” word? I’m racking my brains (what there is of them) and can’t come up with anything…
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#19
MIM, I was wondering that too. The first word that came to mind was Republican, but that didn’t seem to make much sense in the context. I’m guessing now maybe Redskin.
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Great. Now I suppose they’ll have to change the title of “Murder on the Orient Express”…
I thought they already changed the name of the play to “And Then There Were None.”
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What if we changed the name to:
“Ten little white kids”
or
“Ten little Christian kids”
I usually find that people aren’t offended until it affects them personally.
Personally, I try to look at things from the other person’s perspective. Even if it seem ridiculous to me or I can’t see any reason at all why they would be offended, I still try. Getting all huffy and telling them “You shouldn’t be offended” usually doesn’t work.
I realize I’m more of an idealist than most people on here. That’s ok – I’m still going to keep on keepin’ on.
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Not only is Angels In America a great play, I absolutely defy Kathy to find me news mention of a single High School preforming it.
I know what the conservative reaction is going to be, this is PC liberalism gone too far, the really victims are the kids, yadda yadda yadda. But if we can mute language so effectively in the name of free speech and fun, why not just preform the play under the books original title, Ten Little Niggers?
Or does that prospect compel you to think that their are at least some limits on what a high school can do under the shroud of free speech?
It is important to consider two things:
1. Even the supporters of cancellation agree that these decisions should be made on a district by district basis, and at Lakota East HS the administrators made their decision based on their own best judgment.
2. Those administrators have access to information that you don’t. They know their students, teachers, and community and you don’t. They are living this experience and YOU are reading about it the Enquirer!
3.
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uhm, one of the last people I would ever put in the category of “race hustler.” That’s pretty ad hom./i>
Well, then you simply haven’t read much of Bradley’s blog. He’s an irresponsible race hustler who declared the Duke lacrosse players guilty of gang rape, accused every single member of the team of lying to cover up the gang rape…in a column published in several newspapers across America. He repeated outrageous untruths about “racial injustice” in Jena LA without bothering to check the facts. He wrote on here that that racial segregation in churches is pretty much just as bad now as back in 1958, which is a monstrous, reprehensible lie. In 1958, almost every church in America, except for some big city modernist mainline churches, was completely monoracial. And these integrated liberal churches were widely regarded as corrupt, decadent, immoral, and even communist by evangelicals for their “racemixing”. There was hardly a single evangelical preacher in 1958 America who would perform an intteracial marriage. Many evvie churches still accepted the doctrine of the Curse of Ham. Now, you can either believe that that’s still the case today, and that it’s just fine to declare people guilty and call them liars in one of the most racially charged cases of the last decade, or you can believe that Bradley is an irresponsible race hustler. It’s one or the other.
And in this conversation, unwarranted as well.
Actually, it’s perfectly germane. I can’t help it that WoW readers are embarrassed by Bradley’s antics and would rather I didn’t remind people of them. Too bad. It’s true, and it’s perfectly warranted in this discussion.
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Anlir and Luke,
Please take the time, if you will, to explain why censorship is the ultimate crime if liberals like something but a positive duty if liberals don’t like it?
Luke, I would not approve of a play that used the word nigger unless it fit a historical context or it was cast in a negative light to use the word. In that case, I would try to either change or omit the word, rather than outright ban the play. If the play itself had to be banned, I would do it BEFORE the students had already worked on it.
Anlir, I don’t care if the play was called “Ten Middle-Aged White Christan Men” which describes me to a T. I know the plot of the play, and that title wouldn’t offend me. Even if it did, I wouldn’t let my offense hinder the performance of a play that the students had worked on already. Who am I to ban a play just because a certain word in the title offends me?
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“R” word? I’m racking my brains (what there is of them) and can’t come up with anything…
Rascal
Rapscallion
Raconteur
Nah, I’m sure she means “Redskin.”
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3. Historical accuracy. I want books, plays, etc. to present an historically accurate picture of events.
Anlir, so you refuse to read nonfiction?
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This is just another example that proves it is only the left that censors and discriminates today. The rest of us gave it up years ago and actually believe in the first amendment rather than just using it hide behind.
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I don’t know where anyone would get the idea that I’m in favor of censorship, when I clearly pointed out (in post #8) that there are conflicting principles at work here.
I’m happy to let this play (or any other) to go forward within a certain framework.
The charge that liberals favor censorship is a canard. If one wants to find efforts at censorship, one needs to look at the conservative community (particularly many conservative Christians), who regularly advocate for books, plays, music, and certain ideas to be banned.
Liberals take a principled stand for both free speech and diversity. Sometimes those come into conflict, and things need to be worked out. It’s not easy, but it can be done.
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Anlir, I didn’t not mean to misrpresent you or your views, if I did so.
I think you are less than sincere when you claim that it is a canard that liberals favor censorship. How often have there been stories posted here about evangelicals and fundamentalists being censored–and even arrested–for voicing their beliefs, only to have most of the non-Christians and liberal Christians approve?
And when you say that “things need to be worked out,” why do I suspect that that really means “things need to conform to political correctness”?
Answer this if you dare. If a Christian club on campus wanted to perform a Nativity play next month for a school assembly, would you approve?
Again, I’m sorry if I’m misrepresenting you. Stories like this one put me in a pretty bad mood.
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Why is my reply to Harris being held back?
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Kyle,
Being able to point to appropriate versus oppressive censorship is a matter of having a nuanced understanding of social theory and of the way that power operates. I don’t look at this instance of censorship as silencing a voice of protest or of canceling out attempts at meaningful discussion or of challenging oppressive societal norms.
Speech and censorship are both bidirectional in relation to power especially in relation to power that oppresses.
Let me pick an example not connected to a high school play and bordering something I think you feel strongly about, religious oppression.
Anti-semitic discourse for example very rarely serves as a means of liberation or of challenging oppressive cultural biases; it’s not protest language and it doesn’t make our society more equitable. In a radically anti-Jewish state like Iran we could conceive of “radical censorship.”
Nuanced understandings come from rejecting overly simplistic good/bad understandings and committing to including into your analysis complicated and often messy things like power, personal relationships, history, and context.
I’m not taking a position on this specific case. Nothing I have written says, “oh yeah they were totally right.”
But I can offer to you an observation that as a white Christian male you are the beneficiary of a considerable about of social privilege.
You put considerably less at risk when you are willing to make yourself the subject of poem about the macabre deaths of your young, than those people do who have in their remembered family history considerable amounts of racial oppression or even genocide.
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Additionally it is not legitimate to answer the folly with, “Well I would have no problem if they did it to me.”
There is apparently enough concern over this to warrant the action of school officials and you are not justified in assuming that people from different cultural backgrounds than you should think like you do, value the same kinds of speech, or want the same things for themselves or their treatment by speakers.
One of the first things you can do to challenge the way that racism may be creeping into your own life is understand that the “Golden Rule” is a uniquely western conception and that if you treated me the way you want to be treated, I might actually take considerable offense.
Social theorists have come up with a variety of alternatives, one that I like is the “Platinum Rule” which is not “treat people the way you want to be treated” but “treat people the way they want to be treated.”
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“The charge that liberals favor censorship is a canard.”
Hardly. Who favors hate speech laws? Who wants to remove anything remotely Christian or religious from public life?
Sure. There’s attempts to censor from both sides of the aisle, but you’re being dishonest by calling the charge a canard.
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Kyle A at #29: I think you are less than sincere when you claim that it is a canard that liberals favor censorship. How often have there been stories posted here about evangelicals and fundamentalists being censored–and even arrested–for voicing their beliefs, only to have most of the non-Christians and liberal Christians approve?
Probably never.
In America, nobody is arrested solely for “voicing their beliefs.” Now, if they’re voicing those beliefs while kneeling in a large group in a street to block traffic, maybe. But not just for expressing opinions.
I doubt you can find many cases of actual censorship either. On the other hand, since you immediately went to the nativity-play-in-school hypothetical, I expect you’ll point me yet again to a case where Christians want the government to support their religion and scream about it when they don’t get their way.
If you have examples of censorship that don’t involve a city hall or a public school (or similar government institution) then please, show me.
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Wiglaf at #33: Who wants to remove anything remotely Christian or religious from public life?
Nobody.
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Kyle A,
Please be specific and give me an example of where a Christian has been arrested for their beliefs in this country. I suppose it has happened somewhere in America, but it would be an isolated incident. Also, I’m certain our justice system would throw out an arrest of someone for their beliefs. Not only that, but the ACLU would be there filing briefs on their behalf in a heartbeat.
Federal law guarantees equal access, which was put in at the behest of Christian groups and organizations. Where “equal access” has been used to keep Christian groups out, the courts have stepped in and allowed them to go forward.
Interestingly, it’s not so much Christians that are being prohibited from forming groups at schools, but gay groups. And who’s leading the charge to deny gay groups “equal access”? Why that would be the Christians. Now that they’ve gotten in to public schools they’re trying to pull up the drawbridge behind them and prohibit other groups from having the same equal access.
I know that saying liberals are the source of all evil and troubles raises lots of money for Christian ministries and people like Rush and Hannity and Fox News. But it’s dishonest and erodes civility in this country.
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Doesn’t ANYBODY remember the case of the folks in Philadelphia who were arrested at some kind of gay pride event?
Doesn’t ANYBODY remember the girl whose microphone was turned off during her valedictory address?
These are just two of the examples that have been discussed here in the past. It’s not very nice to just pretend that they never happened.
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LUKE: “Additionally it is not legitimate to answer the folly with, ‘Well I would have no problem if they did it to me.’”
Anlir asked,and I answered. That’s all. A favorite rhetorical tactic (not just for liberals) is to ask, “What if it was ____ instead of _____?” I did the same thing when I asked about the Nativity play.
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Luke, in applying the Golden Rule to this situation, I would have allowed the students to follow through with what they had started, as I would not want anyone to cancel something that I had already worked on.
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Anlir and Luke, I’m not arguing that conservatives never try to censor things or that liberals are the only ones who do. I’m arguing that liberals are inconsistent in censoring the things that they don’t like while decrying censorship about things they do like. You two and SteveG are actually demonstrating that it is so, but you won’t come out and admit it.
I might be repeating myself, but it’s like this. As a Christian I think that there should be some limits on speech, but the limit should not be based on what “offends” people. It should be based on actual harm that is caused.
As I hope I have demonstrated myself, I do believe in self-censorship when it comes to offensive language. I never call people names, and I try not to insult them. (I know that I do so inadvertantly, and for that I am sorry.)
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As I said, free speech and Diversity cannot long coexist. Meet America’s latest “hate criminal”, a 9 year old kid suspended from school for a “hate crime.”. His offense? He used the term “brown people.”
http://tinyurl.com/2v3xmb
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Doesn’t ANYBODY remember the case of the folks in Philadelphia who were arrested at some kind of gay pride event?
Yes. They were not arrested for their beliefs, but rather for their actions. It was an anti-gay hate group that showed up at a private festival. It would be akin to the KKK showing up at a NAACP meeting. The police were trying to protect the rights of gay people to have a festival without it being marred by violence and intimidation. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has held that a private organization can have an event on public property and restrict access to those who adhere to it’s beliefs. Remember the St. Patrick’s Day parade in NY City?
Doesn’t ANYBODY remember the girl whose microphone was turned off during her valedictory address?
Yes. She was not arrested for her beliefs. In fact, she wasn’t arrested at all. Her microphone was turned off because of her actions. She deliberately lied to the principal about the content of her speech, which she knew was in violation of the rules. I’ve yet to hear an explanation of how she as a Christian justified her deliberate lie, by the way.
So, Kyle, you still haven’t shown us a case where someone has been arrested for their beliefs.
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I didn’t mean to imply that the valedictorian was arrested. I put it in as an example of a censorship case that we have discussed in which liberals supported the idea of censoring someone for “offensive” speech.
According to Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/inpublic.asp), the protestors in Philadelphia had the charges against them dropped because they were simply exercising their First Amendment rights. I suppose that there are different interpretations of the event, but one way to interpret it is that they were arrested for voicing their beliefs.
Again, you can pick apart the specifics, but my point in general has been established. Liberals want to stop speech that they don’t like, but they claim to be against censorship.
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Kyle A,
Hmmmm….I asked you for an example of someone who’s been arrested for their beliefs in America, and you haven’t given one. So how has your point in general been made?
Liberals want to stop speech that they don’t like, but they claim to be against censorship.
Can you give me a specific example?
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Kyle,
I was pretty forthright in my explanation that I agree that censorship is sometimes ok, but I’m not entirely sure you have read it. I said that analysis has to go beyond naive good/bad narratives to admit obviously complicated factors like power, personal relationships, cultures and histories. So why are you insisting on simplifying all of that back down to “ideology”? You are deliberately misrepresenting what I said.
Re: Golden Rule- I understand that you were answering a question poised at you, but you still took a position that “your” reaction was inherently the correct one. Your reaction to the possibility that this play could be called “10 Little White Kids” is based on your position as a privileged white male, and doesn’t have cultural authority over the reactions of those people who do not self identify with your position. This is a valid point regardless of the response you intended to give. Anlir’s question was naive and short sighted; it didn’t take the power gap between white and native peoples into consideration. This isn’t the first time me and Anlir have had disagreements and it won’t be the last.
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Kyle A at #37: I’m arguing that liberals are inconsistent in censoring the things that they don’t like while decrying censorship about things they do like. You two and SteveG are actually demonstrating that it is so, but you won’t come out and admit it.
Me? I haven’t censored or advocated censoring anything. I just asked you to back up your claims, which so far, you haven’t really done.
The Snopes article you linked to is exactly what I mean. You say the Philadelphia Christians were arrested just for expressing their beliefs. Snopes makes clear that in the course of that expression, they deliberately targeted a gay event with the intent to disrupt it, blocked a public street and disobeyed police orders.
In #40, you said, “I suppose that there are different interpretations of the event, but one way to interpret it is that they were arrested for voicing their beliefs.”
Not in any reasonable way. People protest events all the time. If these Christians had stood on the other side of the street and marched with signs for the duration of the event, I seriously doubt anything would have happened. They were arrested for being disorderly and disobedient of the authorities.
I think it’s fine that the case was thrown out, but I don’t think it was persecution of Christians that caused them to be arrested in the first place.
Anlir in #39 makes a good point about the Valedictory address.
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Luke,
What question? I tried to find it and I cant.
No doubt there is a power gap between white and native peoples and should be factored in.
You’re right- we’ve disagreed before and will do so again. In theory, I agree with many things you say and I really like the questions you ask. Intellectually, you can probably talk circles around me. My knowledge is very limited, which bugs the heck out of me. Also, I’ve probably got a little more Rodney King in me (”Can’t we all get along?”). I should be a man of fewer, but better words on here. I’m working on it.
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Anlir, post 22: What if we changed the name to:_“Ten little white kids”_or_“Ten little Christian kids”
That wasn’t necessarily a criticism directed at you either, but thanks for taking it thoughtfully.
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SteveG (#10)
Amherst Regional High School presented “The Vagina Monologues” in 2004. This is a quote from the article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040126-578986,00.html: “The girls who will be up there faking orgasms onstage wouldn’t even be old enough to see When Harry Met Sally in the movie theater.” That sounds like pornography to me.
Luke (#23)
While I could not find a link to a news article about “AIA” being performed in a high school, I found this one about students being forced to study the play. I believe that is equally age inappropriate.
http://americansfortruth.com/news/teacher-calls-school-use-of-profane-angels-in-america-an-arrogant-challenge-to-conservative-parents.html
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OK, I stand corrected. But that’s still just one, in a very liberal town.I’s not like it’s sweeping the nation.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you that the play isn’t really appropriate for a high school to perform. I do not agree that it’s pornography.
Pornography is a graphic and explicit depiction of actual sex. Mere nudity is not pornography, and I wouldn’t even count the simulated sex of an R-rated movie. In this case, we’re talking about a fully-clothed performer moaning a bit. That’s not appropriate for a high school, but it’s hardly porn.
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SteveG, I definitely stand corrected concerning your views on censorship–you didn’t state one. I had trouble keeping up with the conversation.
Luke, I carefully read and understood all of your comments, except for one. (I somehow didn’t retain the part about the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule.) We are at a bit of a stalemate, I’m afraid, because I simply don’t accept all the stuff about power gaps and culture and so on. All you do by delegitimizing me, because I am a white male, is create a different class system–with the perenniel victims as the favored class and their supposed oppressors as the unfavored class.
Anlir, the burden of proof is on you to explain why the charges against the anti-gay protestors were dropped if they were guilty of crimes. (At the time I said I did not appove of their actions but that I support the First Amendment, and I still hold that opinion. Freedom has to be freedom for all or else it’s meaningless.)
It’s been stimulating chatting with you, although I’m not sure we accomplished anything significant.
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Kyle A,
How can the burden of proof be on me? You’re the one who brought up the charge that people in America have been arrested for their beliefs. You’re the one who brought up the Philly protesters as an example of people that have been arrested for their beliefs. So I’m totally stumped as to how the burden of proof suddenly changed over to me?
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Anlir,
I told you. I think you have to account for the fact that all the charges against them were dropped and the judge ruled that they were exercising their First Amendment Rights. Those two facts seems to support the view that they were arrested for voicing their beliefs, as I asserted at first.
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Increasingly I see a dominant trend here and in the rest of America; to find an example of supposed ridiculous censorship and claim a lack of common sense and an over oppressive political/cultural opponent. The right also commits the same acts of nonsensical repression and the left makes the same claims. Hypocrisy on both sides
Censorship is, as Luke points out, about power. However, admission of this fact should not allow for a reversal of roles. One does not allow for multiple voices by silencing the dominant one. The libertarian in me does not distinguish between appropriate and oppressive censorship.
The challenge is to allow for new narratives while still allowing the dominant cultural narrative while losing its dominance. The move from a singular American vision to pluralism is not a smooth transition. On a practical level this minor bit of theorizing means little but should point a way to the moderate meridian.
In this dispute, my sympathies lie with the students and I would press to have the play continue. No offense to Anlir but his suggestions are the usual white man’s guilt trip which is rather patronizing for those concerned. While the choir may stay for a panel discussion, the rest of us rush home to catch some stimulating television . Instead of patronizing the minority or oppressed view/narrative, I would encourage new narratives (what the dutch call separate pillars) and narratives that clash. Show up outside the theatre , hand out phamphlets before and after the show, watch the show and write critical reviews for the local media. If anything its an education experience for everyone involved. If you have a problem don’t whine and ask for censorship, get into people’s face so they know your opinion.
Sometimes my Canadian experience leaves me unprepared for the either/or never compromise approach to American cultural differences since my experience has generally been about polite non-offensive compromise on both sides of the fence. Usually we engage in polite censorship, ten little indians and the vagina monologues would both never leave the starting point in a public school. We’d aim for something safe: a greek tragedy, Anne Frank, The Crucible, etc.
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HRW, excellent thoughts. Thanks.
Greek tragedy? Some Christians, Jews, and Musims would consider an ancient Greek play too pagan.
Anne Frank? Some people would be offended that it is about Jewish people.
The Crucible? Some Christians would be offended at how it protrays Puritans, and some Republicans would be offended at how it protrays anti-communists.
My point is that if the limit on free speech is what might offend somebody, we couldn’t produce any plays.
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Don’t expect Anlir to do anything other than throw a hissy-fit when challenged to actually support his statements, Kyle. But thanks for trying.
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Please be specific and give me an example of where a Christian has been arrested for their beliefs in this country. I suppose it has happened somewhere in America, but it would be an isolated incident.
What a joke. Anlir self-righteously asks for “an example,” and then follows that up by predicting that “it would be an isolated incident.”
Which is it, Anlir? And would such a case being an “isolated incident” therefore make it okay?
Kyle is exactly right. You libs decry censorship at every turn (even when it’s justified), but hypocritically practice censorship yourself.
That’s why people really haven’t taken liberals seriously since the days of JFK.
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Ok lets clear some air. Nothing I have said has implications for free speech and I absolutely hate the way that conservatives have tried to pass themselves off as suddenly the voice of free expression. A lot of what I am saying here is a strategy to get past the hypocrisies that you’re talking about, HRW.
But lets be clear this claim to “free speech” has nothing to do with wanting to protect the efforts of students. It is a reactionary position rooted in white fear that leaps to oppose all pushes against established power systems out of ignorance and self interest.
Were they trying to preform Angels in America (which I do not think is age inappropriate for high school seniors, but that’s beside the point), I do not think Kyle would be adding it to his list of acclaimed classics that should be protected.
We are talking about the same group of people that have consistently protested every performance of the Laramie Project (which was written in order to be high school appropriate). There would be zero bemoaning about the effort those poor kids had put into the play if they were preforming any of the shows above. ZERO.
I haven’t purposed policing speech by some autocratic dictator. A school administrator decided from his/her perspective that it as not in the best interests of the function of the school to continue a traditional hegemonic appropriation of Native American imagery or use the school to give continued voice to a poem that is racist even if its relationship to genocide is questionable.
Whether that action was right or wrong doesn’t interest me. Whether I would have done the same thing, doesn’t interest me. There is a line we walk between our concern for a free society and our responsibilities to people when we are empowered to be editors, and I’m not willing to simplify this issue down to, “free speech is good so clearly this administrator was wrong.”
And YES the content of the play matters. And NO I would not be singing the same tune if it was the Laramie Project that they had canceled. That doesn’t make my position hypocritical it makes it nuanced. The Laramie Project has net benefits, racist stereotypical imagery has a net consequences.
As I said above I don’t think that canceling this play was silencing a voice of protest or of canceling out attempts at meaningful discussion or of challenging oppressive societal norms.
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The play is back on. Sanity is restored!
http://www.local12.com/content/breaking_news/story.aspx?content_id=b76b4817-80a1-420e-b1a8-9c332a1d51fa
Luke I am not the voice of free expression. My contention is that liberals claim to be the voice of free expresion and then quash expression that they don’t like.
I AM for reasonable censorship. I admit it. I agree that speech should have a few strictly-defined limits.
Unlike you, I don’t think the limit should be what “offends” somebody. Otherwise, how dare you say that people shouldn’t oppose the Laramie Project if it offends them?
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You just gotta love it. A fellow blogger on here says that Christians are being arrested for their beliefs. I ask for an example, and get none. And then I’m attacked. Instead of providing proof, you attack the person who asked for it. It’s a nice diversionary tactic, but it’s a low-down one too. Alas, that’s the way it goes on here sometimes.
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Kyle,
I have mentioned a lot of things that should go into consideration and have listed them more than once including: power, personal relationships, culture, and history. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means but it doesn’t include “offense” for a very good reason.
The “right to not be offended” is a joke conservatives made up to shelter racists.
I largest and most insidious impact of racism is not the offense experience by an indignant audience. It’s the legitimation of race based assumptions and perceptions that give birth to material impression. The offense is a side effect of being a decent and aware person.
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damn it!
material oppression!
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Offense is not what limits free speech or nothing would be produced as Kyle points out. We produce culture to both reflect and transforms society. If cultural production does neither and instead perpetuates exclusion and oppression, we are better off not producing this particular artifact. However, once the work has begun and has been approved, I find it difficult to justify the heavy hand of censorship. At that time, you are left weighing benefits and drawbacks. In this case, I would continue with proper awareness to the participating students. But in the Showboat production 10 years ago in Toronto, I would be against it. Prior to production, they were asked not but choose to produce the musical.
The criteria of exclusion and oppression is borne out of the European enlightenment project which spawned both classic liberalism and marxism (psot modernism claims to have moved beyond this paradigm but I have yet to be convinced). Both ideologies purport to support the development of the individual and his/her freedom. The former seeks to reduce the constraints of the state on individual power and the later seeks to reduce the socio-economic constraints on individual power. In opposition, fascist and totalitarians demand the individual submit to a group ideology let it be the state, race, ethnicity, corporate culture, the guild etc. Culture which perpetuates the domination of the group over the individual is mere propaganda.
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