August 25, 2023

"But during the Globe’s first Shakespeare and Race Festival... she hosted a workshop in the theater with actors of color and learned how they were disadvantaged by some of the set and lighting design decisions."

"'What we have proved subsequently is that it does not work for actors of the global majority,' she said, using the Globe’s preferred language to describe actors of color. 'It feels like a space of empire.' With this in mind, the Globe has plans to change the design when it raises the money, repainting the space in a lighter hue and reconsidering the Renaissance-inspired ceiling mural that depicts the white-skinned goddess of the moon surrounded by similarly complexioned cherubs...."

"Like King Lear riding out a storm, advocates of race-conscious Shakespeare scholarship and performance have weathered a torrent of criticism from those who see their work as unconventional at best and heretical at worst. But Lear, exhausted by his surroundings and maddened by injustice, resigns to silence. 'No, I will be the pattern of all patience,' he decides mid-tempest. 'I will say nothing.'"

This is the first time I'm noticing the term "of the global majority." According to Wikipedia, the term was chosen "to challenge the normativity of a white majority or Eurocentric perspective." By excluding white people from a set that includes every other kind of people, you arrive at a majority. We're told the term has also been criticized because "It does not include white ethnic groups that are cultural minorities in white majority societies, such as Irish, Jews, and travellers in the United Kingdom."

130 comments:

RMc said...

Othello unavailable for comment.

jaydub said...

I wonder how many citizens of the "Global Majority" lived in England during Shakespear's time. Could it possibly be that there were damn few? Could it be that Shakespear populated his tales and the Globe's scenery depictions with people who looked like him and practically everyone else he met? I thought that was a good thing?

R C Belaire said...

Race. Is there anything it doesn't affect? Just like "climate change", it can be used in nearly every occasion when seeking a reason to bitch about something.

Tina Trent said...

The Globe Theater has helped bring Shakespeare to countries all over the world, and Shakespeare's plays, which have universal themes, have receptive audiences and thought-provoking local adaptations worldwide.

But the Globe Theater is also the home to the British and historically situated Shakespeare. If a group come in and does not respect that tradition and wants to tear it down and paint it over, then they should be asked to leave. Shakespeare is a wide, human tent: these people are cultural imperialists and historical vandals. They are not respectful.

Imagine if a group of white actors wanted to stage an all white version of the walking and poetry recitation tours that introduce audiences to famous sites where the black art and culture of the Harlem Renaissance were born. That would violate the particularity of the Harlem Renaissance. Erasing the culture that Shakespeare was born in is the same form of historical pillage.

And cut the baby-talk about "discomfort." Grow up.

rehajm said...

How much of a racially mixed population was there in Stratford-Upon-Avon in his day? Somewhere between little and none? I suppose it’s okay to allow yourself child like fantasy and declaration but is something less worthy than click bait…

Next up: Did Dinosaurs Build Stonehenge?

rhhardin said...

They're writing Goldilocks out of the Three Bears.

rehajm said...

It really places them at a disadvantage because they can’t be seen

Oh jeez…well, somebody has a race problem…

Dave Begley said...

“the global majority”

Orwell and Shakespeare would be proud.

Leland said...

I wonder how many Chinese playwrights today, compared to 500 years ago, make sure to include Africans and Jews in their stories.

Enigma said...

Now do the same analysis for stage dramas in ancient Greece.

Those with equity anxiety about the stage plays written by WHITE English Shakespeare for a WHITE English audience can craft a deus ex machina plot device whereby all humans have equally medium brown skin and equally wavy hair. Perhaps this can be an added function of the COVID-26 Global Equity(tm) virus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

Rocco said...

The true “Global Majority” is men - globally there are 101 males per 100 females.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Dexter: Tracy, you are a lily-white moon goddess. You probably feel superior to the people you live with every day. I'm guessing you give no thought at all to the global majority.

Tracy: Back at you Dexter. The only thing worse than a white moon goddess is a charming white prick like you. Let's have no kids, and contemplate suicide.

tim maguire said...

the term was chosen "to challenge the normativity of a white majority or Eurocentric perspective."

Wouldn’t it be simpler to call whites a minority? But, of course, this tortured elocution allows them to demonize the minority.

they were disadvantaged by some of the set and lighting design decisions.""

When lighting doesn’t work for a white person, they try to get better lighting. When lighting doesn’t work for the “global majority,” they complain that they are disadvantaged.

Bill R said...

Shakespeare doesn't have a race problem. Farah Karim-Cooper has a smug, preening, nausea inducing self-righteousness problem.

Fritz said...

rehajm said...
How much of a racially mixed population was there in Stratford-Upon-Avon in his day? Somewhere between little and none?


Not true. They had Angles, Saxons, Normans, and perhaps a Gael or two (probably slaves), and their racial passions were probably as high as ours.

Old and slow said...

Maybe they should stop obsessing over race and concentrate on theatre. And Irish/UK "travellers" are no more of a race than hillbillies are.

Biotrekker said...

Blah blah blah muh race, blah blah, muh disadvantages,

Rocco said...

So the term “Global Majority” was invented to divide the world between whites and non-whites. Where have I heard that before?

Big Mike said...

IMHO “Othello” contains the meatiest role for a black actor that has ever been written by any playwright anywhere. Leave Shakespeare alone.

MadTownGuy said...

Write your own plays.

Quaestor said...

Let's throw this back at these "race-conscious" (the PC term for fascist racism) in terms they use to torment people like me. We'll make a rule based on skin color and national origin. The fascists claim a white guy in blackface makeup paying Othello or a Gentile performing the role of Shylock is inexcusable and unforgivably offensive and must be prevented by any means necessary. Fine, we'll accept that if they accept our terms. Shakespeare was English, he wrote in English, his actors were English, and much of his financing came from a Scot, consequently, if fewer than 80% of your ancestors living in the latter half of the 16th century of the common era were born anywhere other the island of Great Britain you must shut up about Shakespeare and his art. You may not edit his works or translate them into any language, not even Klingon. Nor may you enact a role, direct, or produce a publicly staged performance of a dramatic or poetical work commonly attributed to the Bard of Avon without permission of the controlling authority yet to be constituted. Those rights and privileges belong exclusively to the genetic descendants of Elizabethan and Jacobean British persons. Agreed?

Amadeus 48 said...

I am sticking with the MLK formula--content of character rather than color of skin.

We went to the Globe last year. They were putting on an almost unwatchable, hopelessly miscast version of Julius Caesar, with gender-blind casting of leading roles. We almost left at intermission, and it was a mistake not to go.

Here's a tip from an audience member: if you want to portray authority figures onstage, give them the voice of command. Margaret Thatcher had it. The piping, girlish, female voices coming from the stage did not.

Dude1394 said...

No thanks, when I see anything remotely discussing, presenting, whining about race I check out.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Nataki Garret ruined Oregon Shakespeare Festival with her wokeness. They are close to bankruptcy. They took the COVID employment money yet fired 80% of the staff. The plays are raced and gender infused monstrosities. They did "King John", and the tag line highlighted that all the actors where either female or non-binary.

They did another play with an anti-Columbus group called 1491. It concerned a confused Native American character who had magical powers. At the end of the play, he uses his powers to eradicate all the White people from existence. Not a racist play at all!

They've removed Garret as creative director, but haven't fired those who hired her nor have they asked for forgiveness for hiring her. Confession is good for the soul.

We were big donors. No more.

The Crack Emcee said...

I wonder how many Chinese playwrights have large groups of blacks in the audience going "This is f***** up"?

I'm getting sick of white excuses for what they've done. Blacks have to live with it. Whites have to live with us b******* about it.

Learn to shut the f*** up



n.n said...

The Times cannot see the people... persons for the diversity [dogma] (e.g. racism). That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion

n.n said...

Albinophobia? Raise the rainbow banner.

William said...

On the plus side, you can't argue with the fact that Shakespeare was way ahead of his time in promoting cross dressers.....The Merchant of Venice was anti-Semitic but take a look at the Marlow's Jew of Malta if you want to see what anti-Semitism back then looked like....Caliban used to be portrayed as representative of the dark forces of the id. Nowadays, he's usually played by a Black actor as someone representing the inchoate resentments of a colonial people....Same thing with Lear's fool. Last generation he was sometimes played by a woman. Now it's frequently cast with someone from the "majority population of the world" in the role....The important thing to observe here is not that some generations got it wrong or right, but that generation upon generation has found something meaningful and relevant in Shakespeare's words. With the possible exception of the King James Bible, I can't think of any written words that have had a more profound and lasting effect on our consciousness.....I'd like to see an updated Taming of the Shrew with Dylan Mulvaney playing Kate and Eliot Page her suitor.

Sebastian said...

So how many more Shakespeare's did the global majority produce?

Temujin said...

Well...she knows more about Shakespeare than I ever have or will. But...doesn't the time and place that The Bard wrote his works and staged his works have everything to do with the tone in it? The 'racism' and 'antisemitism' that is a known known in his works are a part of human history. They are a fabric of the times he lived in, as well as other times. Why do we always feel the need to adjust people from other times- times we can only read about, but never truly know- to meet our faint-hearted times today?

It is what it is. Understand it and look it at in it's entirety. As for actors/actresses who have to play the roles, or read the scripts, again- it is what it is. People playing other people are upset with the people they are playing?

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

A month ago, while preparing breakfast, I says to the wife, I says, "How long before they go after Shakespeare?"

retail lawyer said...

I suppose they moved past the "cultural appropriation" problem.

DanTheMan said...

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Orwell, "1984"

AlbertAnonymous said...

So now I’m in the “global minority”? Great, my progeny can put it on their Harvard applications.

Or is this stuff “non-binary” ? I mean I can’t imagine the race hustlers giving up the power that comes with being in the historically oppressed minority. So much opportunity for graft … or is it grift?

Reparations Forever!

ga6 said...

Will Farah now do Kabuki theater in Downtown Osaka at the foot of the castle?

stlcdr said...

"It does not include white ethnic groups that are cultural minorities in white majority societies, such as Irish, Jews, and travellers in the United Kingdom."

You mean gypsies? Apparently they are some kind of minority group that need to be put on a pedestal.

Cappy said...

WCLV Cleveland, National Public Radio. All Florence Price. All William Grant Stills. All Wagner. All Day. All Night. Diversity!

The Crack Emcee said...

Temujin said...

"It is what it is. Understand it and look it at in its entirety. As for actors/actresses who have to play the roles, or read the scripts, again- it is what it is. People playing other people are upset with the people they are playing?"

America thought she was going to go back to how things were, racially, after fighting the Nazis. And did. People need to reflect on that more.

pious agnostic said...

Conquering invaders usually paint-over the losers cultural artifacts. Why is this even controversial?

Tina Trent said...

Shakespeare met Moors, possibly black as we imagine it today, possibly Middle-Eastern. Elizabethan Britain had a small but growing population of blacks, some ex-Muslims and former slaves of other Moors.

At the time, it was more likely for white sailors and others to be kidnapped and enslaved by Moors.

Duke Dan said...

My sister is a big Shakespeare fan. Wants to see a performance of every play is on her bucket list. She was in England just after the Queen passed (which meant no palace tour). But Henry VIII was at the Globe so she got tickets. And she left after the first intermission because it was some some interpretation performance. The large inflatable dock and balls tossed off the balcony by one of the characters was the last straw for her.

So I’m not sure I would trust any of this to be Shakespeare

Fred Drinkwater said...

Albert, no.

The phrase "historically minoritized group" has recently come into fashion. It's purpose is clear.

You and i will never be members of such a group, no matter how small of a numerical minority we become.

"Global majority" serves a similar purpose.

Update your Newspeak dictionary accordingly. Remember too, you must memory-hole your older version immediately.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee!

CJinPA said...

"Now, about those Renaissance Faires you white folks like so much. We want in. And, boy, are we're making changes."

Karlito2000 said...

William said:

'I'd like to see an updated Taming of the Shrew with Dylan Mulvaney playing Kate and Eliot Page her suitor.'

I do hope this was a failed attempt at sarcasm. If not, please don't give them any ideas. Just before COVID, the Royal Shakespeare Company put on a performance of Shrew with a near complete shift in cast genders. Men played women and women played men. None of the sexualized humor worked. It transformed one of Shakespeare's great comedies into a tragedy.

guitar joe said...

The comments over at WaPo about this article are overwhelmingly negative.

wildswan said...

It's embarrassing to me as a woman to see women trying to improve on Shakespeare and failing so utterly miserably. Still, I tell myself that even in his day Shakespeare was criticized for offending against the canons of: Art: What It Should Be. There were academic rules back then, too, different, but still right from the university and still pretty silly. One rule was that no action should be shown on the stage. If anything happened - a murder, a sleep-walking Queen confessing guilt - a messenger came in and reported it. Important actions might take nine written pages for the messenger to explain. Another rule was that the action should have a moral meaning which should be pointed out. This was not done by messenger but by a member of the nobility standing about the King's Presence Room with other members of the nobility who then agreed with him. I think that today's academics might want to resurrect some of those old academic plays and improve them by applying more rules. The advantage would be that their miserable lack of imagination and talent would not be so apparent.
As it is it's pretty plain that these are the people who just shout "racist" when they want someone else's job or funding rather than making an effort to demonstrate competence. People like them were running disaster preparedness on Maui.

hombre said...

What bullshit! No problemo. People of color can skip Shakespeare and patronize their own bard.

Better yet, we can focus on this caca while the world goes Marxist. The Marxists, the WEF and Skynet can fight it out while the rest of us bleed, overdose on fetanyl or starve.

Michael K said...

The WaPoo loves its race card. Kenneth Branaugh made a movie of "Much ado about nothing" in which Denzel Washington played the prince. That was quite a few years ago and he did a good job. I can't remember any comments about it. That was back when even leftists were sane.

Iman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yinzer said...

Crack MC says whites should 'learn to shut the f**k up'. I don't think I will. Blacks were enslaving each other long before they met the first white person, and still do to this day. Maybe you should quit your bitching, we ain't buying it no more.

Yinzer said...

Fritz says, in response to the suggestion that most of Shakespeare's contemporaries were white, that it is not true, that there were Angles, Saxons, Normans and Gauls. Pretty sure those groups were generally all white.

Joanne Jacobs said...

I stopped going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival at Ashland because the woke content got too high. I have no problem with a black actor playing Julius Caesar or a female actor pretending to be a male to play a male part. What got me was a female Hotspur (married to a woman). The play is about fathers and sons. It doesn't work if Hotspur can't compete with Hal to be Best Son.

The festival also lost its sense of humor. And there was the pandemic to screw everything up.

BTW, a moon goddess has to be white or silver.

PM said...

The phrase 'global majority' finally upends 'people of color' or any other racial euphemism because it highlights that the world is, and has been, controlled by a certain 'global minority' for its personal aims and enrichment. Evidence of this is obvious as Western civilization continues to prosper simply because it has inhaled the ideas and forced the labor of the 'global majority'. N'est-ce pas?

Jersey Fled said...

Now do a 600 year old theater anywhere in Asia and see how it disadvantages people from the “global minority”

I’m so sick of this stuff.

loudogblog said...

Back before the turn of the century, (when I was in college) we were taught in our lighting design classes that it was important to take the skin tone of the actors into account when choosing your gel colors.

Although doing a historical recreation of what the lighting looked like during that time period is interesting, it's not going to look good because theatrical lighting was terrible back then.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

It was really insensitive of the people who designed the theater not to make it in a way that would best serve the future "global majority."
They should have thought of these problems!

Jim Gust said...

Just when I thought race mongering couldn't get any more stupid . . .

AlbertAnonymous said...

Cheers Fred!

I just returned from Room 101, fully re-programmed. Meet my new friend Winston…

Oligonicella said...

Now let's see this same person disparage public places, plays, murals, etc in African and Asian countries for depicting only *their* myths and races.

traditionalguy said...

Wait until a WOKE IDIOT stumbles upon the white race of the King James Bible translator William Tyndale.

Interestingly, Tyndale and Shakespeare both were from the Wales border area of England where the beautiful Welsh Language was spoken. The Global Majority should just say thank you.

William said...

Maybe every generation gets the Shakespeare they deserve. Up until early Victorian times, they used to tack on a happy ending to King Lear and Shylock used to be cast as a flat out villain with traces of tragedy as opposed to his nowadays portrayal as a tragic hero with traces of villainy. When I was young, I believe that MacBeth was played with LBJ mannerisms. Richard III is usually played as a proto fascist. It's a wonder to me why he hasn't yet been played as a Donald Trump type....Anyway the creative types are going to do what they do with Shakespeare, and we're stuck with it.

Anthony said...

I think Patrick Stewart once played Othello and seemingly pulled it off. He said they wondered what to do with some line or other where he refers to his own blackness, but they decided to just leave it in and it went fine.

Somehow I can't imagine Brie Larson squeaking out "Even so my bloody thoughts with violent pace
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love."

JK Brown said...

Stop appropriating white culture. Do plays from your own cultures. Even if those are modern plays from when there was more cultural mixing.

William said...

Nineteenth century novels are packed with details. Some novels are time machines that take you back to the author's time and place. You experience the soot and desperation of Dickens' London and the meager fare at Jane Eyre's orphanage. But that's not Shakespeare. Shakespeare is like entering a portal to another dimension....Tolstoy justifiably complained about the improbability of Shakespeare's plots, but that's part of their appeal. We're in a world where the physics of our world do not apply. The appeal isn't to verisimilitude. It's more like opera, say Cosi Fan Tutte or Fidelio, where the plot and the characters are befuddled, but the foolishness is interrupted by great arias. In Shakespeare, you don't get great arias but rather great poetry. You can fuck up Shakespeare in a lot of ways, but you can't fuck up the poetry.

William said...

Nineteenth century novels are packed with details. Some novels are time machines that take you back to the author's time and place. You experience the soot and desperation of Dickens' London and the meager fare at Jane Eyre's orphanage. But that's not Shakespeare. Shakespeare is like entering a portal to another dimension....Tolstoy justifiably complained about the improbability of Shakespeare's plots, but that's part of their appeal. We're in a world where the physics of our world do not apply. The appeal isn't to verisimilitude. It's more like opera, say Cosi Fan Tutte or Fidelio, where the plot and the characters are befuddled, but the foolishness is interrupted by great arias. In Shakespeare, you don't get great arias but rather great poetry. You can fuck up Shakespeare in a lot of ways, but you can't fuck up the poetry.

Critter said...

When this idiot explains why there is no "global majority" Shakespeare, I will listen. Otherwise, she is just an irritating mosquito on a hot night.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

William,

On the plus side, you can't argue with the fact that Shakespeare was way ahead of his time in promoting cross dressers.

Well, he and everyone else of his time in England. Women couldn't act.

But it's true: Everyone ought to applaud Shakespeare for his unparalleled introduction of cross-dressing into drama. Sometimes he even messed about further, with female characters (played by boys) pretending to be boys. Twisted, innit?

OK, it would suck for women to be locked out of female Shakespearean roles. But non-Black men have ceded Othello, and non-Jewish men have pretty well ceded Shylock. So all you women thinking of Portia or Desdemona or Regan or Goneril or Cordelia or Ophelia or Lady Macbeth or Margaret of Anjou: Quit it. Those roles belong to boys.

IamDevo said...

Wait! Am I to understand that I, a person of European descent, am now to be described as a member of "the global minority"? If so, where do I sign up for the "minority" set-asides? Not to mention that, as a male who identifies as male, I am also a member of the sexual "global minority," inasmuch as women outnumber men overall. Feels great to be intersectional!

Rabel said...

"...the Bard has a race problem. But that doesn’t mean we have to love him less."

Sorry, but it does mean exactly that in the view of proponents of modern theories on systemic racism. Racists and racism are societal failures and must be dealt with accordingly. Purge them or at a minimum call out and correct their evil influences.

Shakespeare has blood on his hands and it cannot be washed away.

Mark said...

Is there ANYTHING in this world that is not racist?

I mean, EVERYTHING is against Black folks.

n.n said...

Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, classicism) to sell handmade tales that spark nationwide insurrections for securing capital and control (i.e. redistributive change) in a democracy. #HateLovesAbortion

n.n said...

Black folks

People of Black (i.e. color bloc)
Colored people (i.e. color judgment)
African-American (i.e. 1/2 American)

Diversity, Indoctrination, Equivalence ("=") or DIE

Oh, back... black holes... whores, too. h/t NAACP

MadisonMan said...

I've wondered, sometimes, when this nonsense will invade APT in Spring Green. They do have that deaf actor playing Romeo this year, so R&J has been tweaked that way.

The Crack Emcee said...

Yinzer said...
Crack MC says whites should 'learn to shut the f**k up'. I don't think I will. Blacks were enslaving each other long before they met the first white person, and still do to this day. Maybe you should quit your bitching, we ain't buying it no more.

Yeah, well, you bought the mothafuckas and brought them home, so own that shit. Oh wait - you can't - and, like Louis CK says, that's the real reason why you bitch: your biggest problem is, you lost your slaves.

Who freed themselves by the way. Sorry, but what nobody's buying no more is you caring more than we did about our own freedom.

The Crack Emcee said...

Mark said...
Is there ANYTHING in this world that is not racist?

I mean, EVERYTHING is against Black folks.

In the 60s, the black movement finally broke through and white people made us the center of attention. Now they want out, which just shows how much commitment they had in the first place. It doesn't seem to dawn on them that this is the first time they've ever heard Black people speaking without them standing in the middle of what we say, so they really ought to listen - and think.

OK, we get some of it wrong sometimes, but big deal: we're gonna talk.

White people I've been talking uninterrupted for centuries.

The Crack Emcee said...

There has always been a small group of people agitating for things the larger group never considered, but can only be described as justice. Why, it's always a small group is a mystery, considering how wonderful y'all are.

Michael said...

If academics were more thorough they would have learned that William S was a member, founder., of the Klu Klux Klan.

Big Mike said...

“Sweetest nut hath sourest rind; Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find Must find love's prick, and Rosalind.“

— As You Like It

The Crack Emcee said...

I know Thomas Sowell has got you all fixated on this idea that slavery began before the United States started, like that's an unimpeachable fact that let's everybody off the hook, but what Sowell leaves out is, unlike the rest of the world, the US and Yurp practiced chattel slavery - slavery where you're thought of as an animal, or a piece of furniture, and it's a sentence for life - so that's one thing to consider when you bring up the buying and selling of people: claiming the Africans knew what whites were doing to us is dishonest. Chattel slavery was a whole different game (Plus Africans had nothing to do with reneging on the first bargain whites made with free blacks after slavery, AKA 40 acres and a mule, so I don't even know why they get brought up).

Slavery WAS going on long before the United States began. It went on for approximately 250 years here in the United States. A lot of stuff happened in the world without anybody's participation from that group. So I don't think it's so strange that people, descended from that history here and there, would have some ideas about what was going on, politically and artistically, when our kind were locked out. Do you seriously think Shakespeare is going to look the same way? And why not have a set design that lets black actors appear at their best, as opposed to having eyes and teeth floating around on stage in the dark (have you not learned anything from Spike Lee's films about how to light us yet)?

You'll owe us reparations just for making a stink every time anybody does anything, like you just expect everything is going to stay the same. It's not, and it shouldn't. The way it was done before was wrong.

So say the people formally held in cages.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"In the 60s, the black movement finally broke through and white people made us the center of attention. "

You. Are. Not. Black.

rehajm said...

MOTH-a-fuckas?

Rosalyn C. said...

Not every attempt at bringing racial justice is worth pursuing. Encouraging racism of any kind is ultimately counterproductive.

Michael K said...

Who freed themselves by the way. Sorry, but what nobody's buying no more is you caring more than we did about our own freedom.

So, those 600,000 white men just committed suicide? Get back on your meds, crack.

We don't have an issue with blacks talking. It's crime we care about.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

A race to recite Shakespeare.

link to video

Iman said...

“White people I've been talking uninterrupted for centuries.”

You some kind of vampire, Crack?

Iman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Iman said...

Nothing that a little twerking can’t fix!

Michael E. Lopez said...

I rather think it's SUPPOSED to feel like "empire."

One might even think that's the point of keeping it around.

Mason G said...

So... it's still "racism", is it? Wake me up in ten years when we're finally onto The Next New Thing.

Mikey NTH said...

Wow.

How tedious. Please, bring some moral vigilance against that late 16th early 17th century poet and playwright. And he will still survive the latest round of Bowdlerization.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

You haven't read Shakespeare until you've read it in the original Klingon.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

There is no global majority. What nonsense.

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K said...
Who freed themselves by the way. Sorry, but what nobody's buying no more is you caring more than we did about our own freedom.

So, those 600,000 white men just committed suicide?

Nope, but to claim they cared more than the slaves themselves defies logic and is an insane level of self-flattery.

The Crack Emcee said...

Free Manure While You Wait! said...
"In the 60s, the black movement finally broke through and white people made us the center of attention. "

You. Are. Not. Black.

Yes. I. Am.

William said...

Every generation gets the Shakespeare it deserves. When I was young, there was a theory, now discredited, that sex was fun and they made an effort to embrace the prurient interest in Shakespeare. I saw Dame Judi Dench in A Midsummer Night's Dream. She wore some kind of nude body suit with pasties that really let you see the tit in Titania.....That's the way it goes. Some generations play Shylock with a huge hooked nose. Some generations play King Lear with a happy ending. We play Shakespeare with Black Hamlets and Asian Ophelias. It's all good. The poetry endures.







black Hamlets





it was an affecting performance.




dream.









drea






she df

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K said...

We don't have an issue with blacks talking. It's crime we care about.

Yeah, but you care about it different than when it was the Irish, or the Italians, or the Chinese gangs operating out of Chinatowns across America - only we get brushed with the idea that crime is natural to us, and not a product of a capitalist system, inspired by dishonest white people trying to hold others back financially, and at arms length socially. You reap what you sow. America don't wanna pay reparations when she clearly owes it? Some people will take it. Righteously - and with interest. And nobody can say they shouldn't. Y'all have mixed up the ethics of this nation, to such an extent, that I wonder why you would think anyone else's matching yours could be expected? I repeat: America broke the first agreement made with free blacks after the war. What is the basis for your expectations now? Whatever it is, I guarantee you, it's tied up in some stupid myth about the American Dream that no one believes anymore, whether here or overseas, and mostly because of the nation's treatment of blacks.

So you keep on hating black crime, while the Biden family and more, in both parties, rips us off for billions, sending our money after Ukraine and wherever else, crying there's no money for blacks.

We've got your number.

Michael K said...

Blogger The Crack Emcee said...
I know Thomas Sowell has got you all fixated on this idea that slavery began before the United States started, like that's an unimpeachable fact that let's everybody off the hook, but what Sowell leaves out is, unlike the rest of the world, the US and Yurp practiced chattel slavery
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You really need to get back on your meds, crack. The Barbary pirates enslaved thousand of white men, and women too. They treated them worse than many blacks were treated in the South of the US. Slavery was a contentious issue in the 19th century. Finally it was outlawed by England but it continued in Arab states until nearly the present.

The history of slavery is nearly the history of mankind. Try to stop thinking you are special.

effinayright said...

Crack is off his meds again: chattel slavery was the RULE around the world. Serfs in Russia were bound to the land, the property of the landowner. Ditto the millions enslaved by the Arabs, who castrated their male slaves and sold the prettiest women and girls into sexual bondage.

And if he thinks Caribbean and Brazilian slaves were free to own anything, or to buy their freedom, he's hopelessly full of shit.

Bottom line: if you could be bought and sold as property, you were a chattel slave.

Bunkypotatohead said...

They can monkey with the cast and the lighting, but it won't draw in black customers. And once they've chased off the generally conservative types who have supported the arts in the past, they will find themselves going broke, by getting woke.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"The Cracker Emcee said..."

Nothing worth consideration.

rcocean said...

Shakespeare is too big to cancel. Yet.

So, they've decided to call him a racist. Subvert and decontruct. The actual cancellation will come later. Leftism on the march.

I have no idea why this early 17th century English playwright is supposed to appeal to "people of color" or people around the globe, and don't really care if he doesn't. I think he is Giant of the English Language and Literature.

And I'm American and was born in 1965. if you don't like him, fuck off. Go watch Star trek or "Yellowstone".

Mason G said...

"... crying there's no money for blacks."

There's not enough to satisfy the demand. And even if you confiscate every last penny in the world, in twenty years there'll be a new generation that wants to know where their check is.

rcocean said...

Why are you attacking "crack"?

He's playing the victim because that's good for black folks.

That just makes sense. Look at Jews. wealthiest most powerful group in the USA. And they play the victim and get away with it. Black folks just see what's going on, and want their piece of the action.

The problem isn't black folks cryin' about slavery. Its white people. Stop being such Goddamn gullible rubes.

rcocean said...

But yeah, i get it. YOu boomers never want to let go of that moral high when you told racist Granddad back in '69 that black folks were people too.

Moveon.org

Iman said...

“Nope, but to claim they cared more than the slaves themselves defies logic and is an insane level of self-flattery.”

I must’ve missed someone actually claiming that.

Michael K said...

Crack is an example of black Americans who labor under the delusion that they are being held down by white people. Hence the "White Supremacy" nonsense. I taught medical students for 15 years. About 1/3 of them were black. Most were immigrant blacks from the west indies or Africa. Those kids had no problems and most were middle class economically. I had two American blacks. One flunked out in spite of the efforts of the classmates to help. The other I suspected was schizophrenic until I learned that his parents were Black Panthers in Oakland. As a student, he was expected to interview white people as well as POCs. He did not know how to talk to whites. One patient in the university hospital threw him out of her room. I finally figured out what was going on and wrote up a script for him to use to take a medical history. He got along with white peers who probably knew what his problem was. With older whites he just had no idea.

The immigrant blacks know they are in the best place in the world to prosper. They don't understand American blacks.

Gahrie said...

They go to all the trouble of recreating the Globe theater to create an authentic Shakespearian experience, and then pull this bullshit. If I ran the Globe I wouldn't even use female actors.

Gahrie said...

You'll owe us reparations

If anybody owes Black people in America reparations it's the descendants of the African kings who sold their ancestors into slavery in the first place.

You've never been a slave Crack. Get over yourself.

Gahrie said...

Who freed themselves by the way. Sorry, but what nobody's buying no more is you caring more than we did about our own freedom.

Which is why Black Americans stopped voting Republican and started voting Democrat in the 1930's while the Democratic party was still enforcing Jim Crow on the South...right?

Gahrie said...

Who freed themselves by the way. Sorry, but what nobody's buying no more is you caring more than we did about our own freedom.

Which is why when a bunch of Republicans bought American slaves, freed them and sent them to Liberia, the first thing they did was enslave the local Africans...right?

glacial erratic said...

Why is it only white-majority countries that have to suffer the benefits of diversity?

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K said...

Try to stop thinking you are special.

After centuries of white people saying we're shit? Not a chance.

The Crack Emcee said...

effinayright said...

"Crack is off his meds again"

Here we go: the black guy doesn't know all of history, but don't blame the nation that put him in that situation, so white people can - and always will - still laugh at him, blame his meds. You got black people walking around, talking about they're descended from Egypt, but you feel no responsibility. No matter how many disadvantages you can see laid before you, in almost every black person you seem to encounter, you still wanna claim nothing is wrong, and it's all our fault - the United States has done nothing producing these broken, ill-informed, angry people who feel little connection to this place, don't like the anthem, don't trust the cops, and the rest of y'all make us sick. Some Doctors say that's a medical fact.

Y'all should pay us reparations just so we can get away from you

tim in vermont said...

UK deserves it for arming up and encouraging the same white supremacists in Kiev who inspired the Buffalo shooter to wear their symbols while he massacred black people in the US.

The Crack Emcee said...

Boy the way, "off his meds" must mean ignorant, which is always something to be amused about when it comes to your fellow man, in an existential crisis.

You guys are ugly.

effinayright said...

What a crock.

Imagine the play in the Globe theatre during the life of The Bard, and the stage hands saying,

"Othello, we're ready for your close-up. Oh wait! We'll need extra torches to light you properly. What racists we are!"

Old and slow said...

"Blogger The Crack Emcee said...
So say the people formally held in cages."

No white guy ever locked you in a cage Crack. "The people", much like "society", don't exist, and no one gets the right to speak on their behalf. Humans have short lives, and we only get to live our own. You might do better by concentrating your efforts more on the here and now than a past that is no more real to you than fairy tales. Oh, and your obsession with new age is tiresome and simplistic.

The Crack Emcee said...

Old and slow said...

Your obsession with new age is tiresome and simplistic.

So was Carl Sagan's

The Crack Emcee said...

rcocean said...

The problem isn't black folks cryin' about slavery. It's white people. Stop being such Goddamn gullible rubes.

I've traveled a lot of the world, and there is no place on the planet people think white Americans are too nice once they get home.

Gahrie said...

You guys are ugly.

Says the guy spouting racial animosity, lies, and hate.

Gahrie said...

Y'all should pay us reparations just so we can get away from you

That's the problem. It wouldn't get rid of you. You'd be back in five years after blowing it all on Hennessy, Kools, Cadillacs and Air Jordans saying "you can't buy your way out of guilt" and demanding more.

Old and slow said...

"Y'all should pay us reparations just so we can get away from you"

Oh wouldn't that be a fine thing! I'll say no more because I'm too polite.

The Crack Emcee said...

Gahrie said...
You guys are ugly.

Says the guy spouting racial animosity, lies, and hate.

Oh, I'm sorry: I should've been a redheaded white guy with a guitar to complain

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"You. Are. Not. Black.

Yes. I. Am."

No, you're a cracker in blackface. You're an act. In fairness, I learned long ago that do error on occasion, but until you introduce yourself to our hostess -- in person -- convincing her that the Black man in front of her is actually you and not a proxy, I'm not buying your schtick.

"I should've been a redheaded white guy"

Is that a tell?

Gahrie said...

Oh, I'm sorry: I should've been a redheaded white guy with a guitar to complain

Nope. You should complain about something that happened to you, instead of something that happened to everyone's ancestors at one time or another.

Rich said...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that Iago had “motiveless malignity”. He’s probably the most terrifying character in Shakespeare. I love the idea of ‘Iago’s career counselling service” though.

Ambrose said...

Maybe the real Shakespeare was a person of color - we don't really know.

GRW3 said...

The trans community should be arguing that they should get all the female parts because in Shakespear's time they were played by men in women's cloths.

Mikey NTH said...

"Iago is motiveless."

Which makes him terrifying. He is doing it just for kicks, if even that. Iago is The Joker.