From "African American mother says her 10-year-old was cast as an enslaved person in a school play" (WaPo).
The daughter, a 10 year old, sought the part of "Enslaved African 2." It was a Scholastic play, "A Triangle of Trade, The Colonial Slave Trade," published 20 years ago. I think it was the daughter who cried when she saw her mother wasn't happy for her. That's written ambiguously.
The mother, Carmen Black Parker, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, who is black, said "It was one of those surreal moments when you ask yourself if you’re understanding reality correctly. They sent my daughter home a slave."
According to Parker, the teacher explained that she had warned the class of potentially offensive material and said children were told they could say “ouch” if they felt sad, offended or hurt.The play was canceled and the teacher was put on leave (pending an investigation). Parker objects to "scapegoating" the teacher and wants the principal dismissed (for a failure of accountability).
“The children were supposed to have the insight to object,” Parker said.
Parker said the teacher also pointed out that the girl had volunteered for the role — which Parker asserted is beside the point. “No child should have the thought, ‘Oh, I think I’d make a great slave,’ ” she said....
From the comments at WaPo:
About every six months or so, there is a Washington Post article about a teacher doing a simulation about slavery. It never ends well.It probably is best only to read about slavery. (I'd skip those videos and whatever "etc." refers to.) But there will be people who see inequality in the demand that children learn through reading.
The problem is that teachers are often pressured to be "creative" and have "engaging" activities. This is one topic, however, where teachers should just stick with the basics: readings, videos, etc.
Posts
129 comments:
All these people—the mother, the teacher, the principal—are running around loose without supervision. This is what happens when you close state mental institutions.
an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale
All is explained.
6 Blogger fuckups so far.
Carmen Black Parker, an assistant professor of psychiatry
So, by definition; a Lunatic? Anyone Ever met an assistant professor of psychiatry that wasn't bats?
The children were supposed to have the insight to object,” Parker said.
So, the poor children didn't have 'the insight' to realize they were traumatized?
Good thing Moms was There To Help!
An easy fix would be to pretend that slavery never happened. It's worth a try. Others have been trying to remove the Holocaust. Sometimes, with success.
Serious Question
Would it have been RACIST, if they had told the girl:
"No, You're not allowed to play that part. You're a PoC, and PoC's aren't Allowed to!"
I guess the moral is:
We should NEVER, EVER talk about things like Slavery!
HOW, will we be able to repeat the mistakes of the past; if we keep letting people know about them?
Ignorance is Bliss
Freedom is Slavery
told her about the play after breakfast one day
12 Hours A Slave
@Michael K
Give it a rest. You've made your point. People don't want to read over and over again that you are frustrated. You could write your own blog on the subject, but I'm tired of reading about it.
Uh... it’s a play!
People were actually paid a living wage in the gulags.
They have conjugal visits in gulags.
Gulags were meant for re-education,
Some people in Virginia...
Got Free Room and Board!
They could NEVER be Fired
They had conjugal relations, and didn't have to fuss with all that 'marriage stuff"
They didn't have to go to school
And Best of All!
They didn't have to go to some church
It was WONDERFUL! And EVERYBODY LOVED IT... Until Abe Lincoln and those Damned Republicans!
Carmen Black Parker, an assistant professor of psychiatry
So, by definition; a Lunatic? Anyone Ever met an assistant professor of psychiatry that wasn't bats?
Gilbar beat me to it.
The kid didn't come home thinking she wanted to be a slave, she came home wanting to depict a slave in a play.
But are the books they supposed to read written by black people? If it's written by a white person, are they really learning anything?
Have there not been movies about slaves? Is it an affront to cast black people in the role of the slave? Of course, every stupid TV show has o cast all the characters as not what the role demands, as if this somehow makes things 'right'.
It worked out OK for Levar Burton. He did well for himself.
I received my doctorate in education when I was in Vietnam.
And then on Monday the school adopted the NYT's 1619 project curriculum.
Some chicks dig being slaves.
Include some historical perspective. Slavery was a good thing in hit-the-guy-and-take-his-stuff systems. Slavery is better all around that killing your defeated enemy.
The free market made a slave contribute more to society working in his own interest than in his maater's, so the system ended. Its death throes were marked by bad arguments ("naturally enslaved race") in its favor, the real argument having expired with progress.
They’re putting black people back into chains, starting with volunteers.
Joe Biden warned us.
"It was one of those surreal moments when you ask yourself if you’re understanding reality correctly. They sent my daughter home a slave."
No, you're really going out of your way to perpetuate your self-wallowing in pity. "They" (I guess the mother means by that "the man") didn't send your daughter home, and "they" for certain send her home "as a slave." Rather, the school day ended and your daughter came home as a routine matter.
It's a play, lady, a play. "Acting" is what actors do, Mom. Your daughter wanted to act. Wish granted. If an actor/actress doesn't want to fit the role, then they don't get the work and they continue to park cars or pump gas.*
*Lets hear from Dionne Warwick, a former slave who made it big,
L.A. is a great big freeway
Put a hundred down and buy a car
In a week, maybe two, they'll make you a star
Weeks turn into years. How quick they pass
And all the stars that never were
Are parking cars and pumping gas
I’m tired of being told that I’m supposed to kiss blacks’ asses.
Shit, I’m 70 and retired. I don’t have to kiss anybody’s ass.
The general theme this morning, both here and on my FB feed is that everybody is an annoying asshole.
Because it’s Thursday?
I guess everyone involved in the heralded mini-series "Roots" should be shunned.
As well as everyone involved in the recently highly regarded "12 Years a Slave".
Did you notice Yale is discontinuing their Introduction to Art History course?
Too many male white Europeans. Double-plus-ungood.
The madness advances thru our institutions of "higher" learning.
Related: Yale Med School To Stop Teaching Medicine Discovered By White Males
https://babylonbee.com/news/yale-med-school-will-stop-teaching-medicine-discovered-by-white-males
In the future, everyone will be fired for 15 minutes.
People don't want to read over and over again that you are frustrated. You could write your own blog on the subject, but I'm tired of reading about it.
What ? You don't like making fun of looney psychiatrists ? How many do you know? I know a lot of them.
Not a bad idea, actually. An idea for another post on Chicagoboyz. I'm tired of impeachment.
My mixed race son played Richard Nixon in a Parade of Presidents. For a while, Nixon was his favorite president. Nixon was the one.
"My mixed race son played Richard Nixon in a Parade of Presidents. For a while, Nixon was his favorite president. Nixon was the one."
In our 8th grade production of A Christmas Carol, Jacob Marley and the ghost of Christmas past were played by black kids exactly as Dickens intended.
So this Yale psycho probably has a lot of good conversations with her colleague Bandi, the one who's always on camera "diagnosing" Trump and his administration.
One teacher, one play, for education. In the specific context, it would be cultural appropriation otherwise. 1/2 Americans. Diversity breeds adversity. #HateLovesAbortion Progress.
Yes, reading about it is probably best. Having a classmate, a friend, play the role of a slave is obviously not a good way to bring alive the injustice of it./s
They sent my daughter home a slave.
They sent a child home to a histrionic person who imagines that her trivia is important in some way.
Carmen Black Parker
Here is a Parker Black Carmen Sleeveless Fitted Beaded Short Dress that doesn't say stupid stuff.
I can't understand why this is offensive. Were only black kids allowed to be slaves? If that were the case, it would be slightly offensive, but paid leave for a historical play? Nutty.
Yale is discontinuing their Introduction to Art History course? Too many male white Europeans.
There is a similar problem with "too many white girls from next door in the Olympics" h/t The Guardian. Denying individual dignity. Debasing human life. Political congruence. Conflating logical domains. A progressive path.
And if a white child had been cast as the slave, this woman would be in froth over the “cultural appropriation” of her trauma. It’s heads I win, tails you lose all the way down with the SJW mob. But somehow the odious 1619 project “needs” to be taught as gospel truth in the schools NOW!
"It was one of those surreal moments when you ask yourself if you’re understanding reality correctly. They sent my daughter home a slave."
Oh for Christ's sake. Get a grip lady.
If your daughter was cast as Tinkerbell, that doesn't make her an actual fairy.
Remember the fake news frenzy when Northam's wife gave students, some of them black, cotton and asked them to get the seeds out? Whatever happened to that narrative?
If your daughter was cast as Tinkerbell, that doesn't make her an actual fairy.
But if it was your son...;-)
Yale should stick to making locks. They aren't really cut out for this education thing.
Me If your daughter was cast as Tinkerbell, that doesn't make her an actual fairy.
Mockturtle.....But if it was your son...;-)
Well, then...be the best fairy you can be!!! Show them how it is DONE :-)
Educated men were some of the greatest conquerors in history.
Gaius Julius Caesar was not only the finest general of his age, but perhaps the leading intellectual of his time. And this was the golden age of Latin literature.
Alexander of Macedon, after whom a hundred cities were named, was, famously, Aristotles pupil.
Hernan Cortes was a lawyer, not a warrior.
You can go on if you like. Research a bit. Its fun.
Were only black kids allowed to be slaves?
The kid's not black.
They sent my daughter home a slave.
Presumably others were sent home as slave traders and owners?
At least they didn't have an Irish kid play a potato because he wouldn't need a costume.
I used to hate Black History Month, because it made my kids uncomfortable, because it provided shallow lessons about MLK that made all the white kids look at the black kids for a reaction. This type of activity is the new and improved version.
It was acting. In a play. sheesh
We really do seem to be engaged in a Burning of the Books. My sense is, the Progs like and benefit from this. Because destroying the “old” order is necessary to their taking power: very like Lenin’s people, the most organized and ruthless gang in a flattened landscape of stunned people who had been panicked and seduced to support, or simply not resist, the Burning.
Not optimistic.
Anybody note Ron Chernow's story about George Washington negotiating with his neighbor's slave about the conditions under which the slave would consent to be leased out to Washington to supervise the construction of Washington's planned improvements to the mansion?
I strongly suspect that Dr. Parker has often been rewarded in academia for pointing out the micro aggressions that African Americans suffer with. She is a perpetual and well rewarded victim.
Only one answer to this trauma: black face for all slaves on stage with trigger warnings on ads
Every clan, tribe, culture, and nation has some issues that are too taboo to be honestly discussed. Race is ours. Only the priests and shamen can broach these topics and even they must tread very, very carefully. Truly creative people can do so indirectly, however, through allegory, analogy, and other intellectual chicanery. In “Clockwork Orange” Anthony Burgess very cleverly was able to touch on taboo sex and violence issues by creating an argot for his characters to speak in that bypassed the censors of his day.
But it is very dangerous to tread the landmine-riddled ground and, speaking as a longtime public high school teacher, I would advise young teachers simply to avoid these topics as much as possible.
Here’s a black snowflake forwarding race relations and enhancing the popularity of her child. /Sarc. Just imagine the result if the daughter had come home in tears because she had begged to play the part and the teacher had said no.
Obviously a smart kid. Soon, she will be a teenager with good cause to rebel against maternal stupidity. Meanwhile, the academy and black leaders continue to provide evidence of their lunacy. This is a twofer.
"The Hemings of Monticello" is hard reading since the author has slavery on the brain and some variation on "slave" and "slavery" occurs in almost every paragraph. However, there still is much interesting information about some unusual individuals that much more could be written about. I especially wonder about James and Robert Hemings, Sally's half-brothers, roaming freely about the world and self-supporting, but still felt obliged to return to Jefferson and serve him whenever called upon.
Why? They certainly knew the did not have to.
One thing is,of course, that they were family and were treated as family, though they could never be publicly acknowledged as such, and Jefferson seems to have been a past master at laying guilt on people.
It is most curious and I would like to read more about this.
Of course, Jefferson's treatment of his field hands was quite a different matter as described by Joseph Ellis in his biography of Jefferson.
Education is a construct of the white patriarchy. Even when your 10-yr-old POC daughter wants to participate in it.
Althouse’s headline extols the daughter’s intelligence, talents, and accomplishments. As if there were no intelligent and talented individuals among those enslaved in Africa and transported to the United States.
Elementary school kids are mature enough to change their gender, but can't handle acting in a play?
Cry, bully, cry!
With the enhanced diversity casting of British crime dramas, all the bad guy roles are going to people of color. Lessons are now being learned.
Look, here are the rules, which were in place from about 1973 until recently in American schools of the type that Yale professors send their children to:
1. You never, ever let a black child play a slave in a classroom exercise.
2. You always have a white child play a slave if a white child is available for the role.
3. If no white children are available to play slaves, slaves are discussed but never impersonated.
4. Black children are allowed to play kindly but misguided slave owners and abolitionists. White children are allowed to play cruel slave owners and slave drivers.
What is so difficult about that?
Then again, what were the relations like between the Hemings and the field hands?
AllenS:
Thanks for your service, Eleven-Bravo. Respect.
When I was in college we used to joke about the psych majors being either nosy parkers or nut cases. Actually most were both. And most of them had no idea the fun that was had at their expense.
Or
The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 20% of Americans are walking around with diagnosable mental illnesses. I’m thinking maybe they are light in the pot.
I don't know anything about how Jefferson treated his slaves. Can you provide info?
Ummm...Michael K...Althouse is talking about your whining about Blogger.
I don’t think that is much of a topic for ChicagoBoyz.
"It was acting. In a play. sheesh"
The mother is also acting, but I'm not buying her victim act.
Did any of the children cast as slaves try to kill their "owners" or escape the classroom?
Because that would have been an AWESOME response to this role-playing idiocy.
I have a cousin who is 1/2 Mohawk Indian (Her Mom is full blooded). SHE hated Thanksgiving time because she always got cast as an Indian during the plays at that time of year. I, on the other hand would have LOVED to be cast as an Indian, but being blue eyed with blond hair it hardly ever happened for me. It's a play. Get over it.
I blame the mother. If her daughter wanted the part, what is the big deal?
Didnt she volunteer for it
Here is the bigger problem
https://mobile.twitter.com/VickiMcKenna/status/12228
10-year-old girl is thinking, "I'm playing an enslaved Wakandan princess at school!" Mom is thinking, "OMG, they think she's black!"
Educated men were some of the greatest conquerors in history.
Tamerlane would be one. He also killed an estimated 5% of the world population of that time.
Arent we told were on the verge of slavery anyways
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.researchgate.net/profile/Carmen_Parker/amp
Usa today was referencing parable of the sower
Educated men were some of the greatest conquerors in history.
Tamerlane would be one. He also killed an estimated 5% of the world population of that time.
The daughter, a 10 year old, sought the part of "Enslaved African 2."
Here's the play
It starts off with:
"ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL(to the audience): Hello. My name is Alexander Graham Bell. You should know right off the bat that I have absolutely nothing todo with the subject matter of this play, which is slave commerce in colonial America, also known as the triangle trade. In fact, I wasn’t even born until 1847.In this play I am the narrator and the telephone operator. Now I didn’t actually invent the telephone until the year 1876. The playwright has decided to use the telephone to help tell the story of the triangle trade and how it grew during the colonial period."
IOW, it's terrible. But wait! It gets worse!
"Our story begins with a man whose name you might know: Christopher Columbus.
ACT 1 SETTING:Spain and a Caribbean island, 1492
Christopher Columbus and Rodrigo enter.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS:We can set up camp right over there, Rodrigo.
Rodrigo’s cell phone rings. He looks at the caller ID.
RODRIGO:It’s Queen Isabella, sir.
COLUMBUS: What does she want now?
Columbus hits the Talk button."
Well, that certainly sounds educational.
Nah, use the Egyptians and the Israelites.
The Barbary Pirates. There are a lot to chose from.
Choose
The kid obviously goes to a private school where (most) teachers can be fired. If it were a public school, the teacher's union would prevent anyone being punished.
Thank you, Roughcoat.
Can you imagine going through life with nothing but bitterness and hatred? I feel sorry for her. I can see nothing but misery in her life. Too bad, life is too short for that shit.
Actual education on slavery is ugly stuff. Because slavery is as old as mankind on earth.It literally is the Sex Trade and the Hard Labor done by chain gangs of prisoners. All races participate in both sides of it it. The evil is the Overseers who use whips and other violent threats . Interestingly, the overseers usually steal the money reserved to feed the slaves.
Over the last 300 years the Cotton Plantation owners in the South were responsible for about 10 % of existing slavery. The other 90% was the British Empire's scam.
Gripe, gripe, gripe. She's likely employed at Yale based on AA.
Ummm...Michael K...Althouse is talking about your whining about Blogger.
I don’t think that is much of a topic for ChicagoBoyz.
Yeah, I finally figured that out. I'll lurk. Too much trouble to pst 10 times
Cant wait for the next one. Maybe sacrifice a few kids to the Gods.
All in good fun of course.
At our school they avoided this sort of thing and had us watch the entire Roots series instead. There you go.
No plays about slave markets in Libya in 2017. I wonder why?
The assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine made her daughter cry over something the daughter had proudly brought to her. Whatever else, this speaks ill of her psychiatric skills.
Let’s keep it current events: Boko Harum and UN peacekeepers.
"It was one of those surreal moments when you ask yourself if you’re understanding reality correctly."
I'm betting she has a lot of those moments.
Carmen Black Panther is a Yale professor, so that's impressive, but she's an "assistant professor of psychiatry", with no Dr. before her name, and no MD after it, so we can accurately assume her level of incompetence.
How exactly does the mother explain wanting the principal canned and not the teacher?
Levar Burton never existed.
Levar Burton never existed.
What about Reading Rainbow???
Not Sure wrote:
Mom is thinking, "OMG, they think she's black!"
Yes, this thought occurred to me, too, especially given how the mother referred to her daughter's ethnicity.
They killed off giordi he was on the mars base.
She should get what ever she requests. She black.
It seems new haven is possessed by bobby seale doesnt it, fifty years after the eackley trial
Trial of rackleys murderer, where kingman brewster played john roberts
"They killed off giordi he was on the mars base."
Bastards!!!
Fernandistein said...
"ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL(to the audience): Hello. My name is Alexander Graham Bell. You should know right off the bat that I have absolutely nothing todo with the subject matter of this play, which is slave commerce in colonial America, also known as the triangle trade. In fact, I wasn’t even born until 1847.In this play I am the narrator and the telephone operator. Now I didn’t actually invent the telephone until the year 1876. The playwright has decided to use the telephone to help tell the story of the triangle trade and how it grew during the colonial period."
Is just it me or does anyone else hear Phil Hartmann's voice when reading that?!
"Is just it me or does anyone else hear Phil Hartmann's voice when reading that?!"
"You kids might remember me from such educational films as Lead Paint: Delicious but Deadly and Here Comes the Metric System!"
The mother's a hysterical clown but, c'mon, what teacher in their right mind would cast a colored kid as a slave? Or even put on a play that's within barking distance of any racially sensitive subject?.
I played George III, Miles Standish, and The Ghost of Christmas Past in elementary school productions. I had a voice that could, um, project, so I got a lot of plum roles. The rest of the time I got yelled at.
In 2nd grade I played Felina in a stage depiction of Marty Robbins' "El Paso." I wore a black dress and a mantilla. I'm okay but thanks for your t's & p's.
The solution to the problem is to have only black teachers teaching black kids a separate curriculum about the black experience and how it relates to reading, writing, math, history, and science. That way white authors, scientists, historical figures, and philosophers can be avoided or demonized. Maybe do it in a separate classroom or maybe even a separate building. Oh, wait, wasn't there a landmark Supreme Court case that said all of the kids have to be taught the same thing in the same school with the same books and the same teachers? So let's just teach the kids to read. The sales receipts from CVS can be used for both reading and math. Then give them all an internet connection and a library card.
The solution is cultural appropriation and blackface. Perhaps Governor Blackface can volunteer. Also, diversity... rabid diversity to accelerate progress.
This is done all the time in movies and historical recreations. The problem seems to progress with the inclusion of Teenage-Americans and Adolescent-Americans.
The teacher is an obvious candidate for culturally congruent inclusion and best director of a historical play.
that doesn't solve the problem, so the white kids are slaves, the daughter seems more sensible than the mother, fwiw, it was a reality then, we're told it's the reality today, dr. parker is the female nat x,
when you make victimhood so rewarding and appealing, you grow more and more victims
Affirmative incentives for leaders and a casting couch for victims.
Then culturally appropriate a black role, make a white kid slave, with a painted on black face, perhaps?
Maybe sacrifice a few kids to the Gods.
God, no. The gods, some, yes. Mortals gods, a contemporary practice with inclusive demographics.
Seems like an overreaction by the Mother and the School administration. Kids are kids and by virtue of that they are all dumb. But that being said, it looked like the little girl was savvy enough to separate the fiction of the play with the reality of slavery. The sentimentalization of horrific events in the past does a disservice to the modern day stand-ins for those events. I'm not saying these events should be ignored, and certainly not minimized, but treating them in such a manner that merely dealing with a play that covers the events in modern days becomes a huge taboo isn't helpful. I think this problem exists for African Americans today in regards to slavery, to an extent for Jews today in regards to the holocaust, and I worry about the future with regards to Americans at large and 9-11. At some point even the most horrendous of events in history simply become history. And history can not become a big book of grudges that different groups of people carry with them for the remainder of time.
In my post sentimentalization should have been sacrementalization. Serves me right for blindly clicking the spell correct.
The Indian slave market at the Taos Pueblo did not die out until the 1930's.
Child Protective Services needs to be called on the dangerously irrational mother who drove her daughter to tears over a completely innocuous matter.
If the mother really wanted her daughter to understand what slavery is and how it made/could have made the slaves feel in the past.....the best answer would be to let her daughter play the part OF a slave. Get involved in the play. Feel the feelings of the character of a slave.
And then make a comparison to how life is today versus how it was in the past for "people of color".
A learning experience instead of just throwing a temper tantrum.
"They sent my daughter home a slave."
No, they sent her home to study for a part in a play that represents slavery - a part she requested to play.
Sounds like the mother cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy. Bizarre.
It's one thing if the mother and daughter talk it at home and then decided it was not a good idea, but it doesn't appear that happened here.
Several years ago I saw a re-creation of a slave auction performed at Colonial Williamsburg. The usual liberal complainers had tried to shut it down, but it was pre-cancel culture and they managed to go ahead with the project.
And it was soul-gripping in a way that no amount of reading could ever accomplish. One of the slaves being sold was an adult male, a house slave from the look of his coat and tricorn hat. The actor beautifully conveyed a man trying to keep his dignity intact while in the background his weeping wife, holding their baby, screamed “No! No! No!”
No number of books and no amount of reading could possibly convey the horrors of slavery to the extent that this short vignette did in just fifteen minutes or thereabouts.
"Seems like an overreaction by the Mother and the School administration. "
That's a funny way to spell "hate crime".
John Marshall owned a slave who was a rather flashy dresser and of a buoyant personality. When the two of them went to market the slave would often be in front with Marshall bringing up the rear and carrying most of the groceries so strangers sometimes mistook Marshall for being the slave's servant.
Marshall's wife was a nervous case and mostly an invalid, so when Marshall was absent on his duties - most notably in France for almost two years during the XYZ Affair - the slave was in total charge of the household, including the wife and children, and took care of all interactions with the outside world.
Martha Washington's favorite hair dresser ran away and the Washington's had her traced and found her living in Boston. They then wrote and asked what it would take to make her come back home. The girl answered that she missed her life at Mt. Vernon and she loved Mrs. Washington, but she valued her new freedom and thought she would just stay in Boston though the climate was horrible and the food hardly fit for human consumption.
Wait, did they *really* send her home a slave? Because that would be bad, probably illegal.
I played George III, Miles Standish, and The Ghost of Christmas Past in elementary school productions. I had a voice that could, um, project, so I got a lot of plum roles. The rest of the time I got yelled at.
I played Tiny Tim because I was short.
"God bless us, every one".
I've still got it!
The mother overreacted, but the teacher was very foolish for surprising the parents with this. We have done controversial plays with students, but always briefed both the students and the parents on what we were doing and why it was important material to learn. We did "Ragtime" which features vicious bigotry and a violent reaction, and had to talk all of them through the need for the students to use the N-word on stage. Everyone was uncomfortable with it, but by the end it was a powerful experience they won't soon forget. That would not have happened if they didn't understand what we were doing.
This reminds me of a charity campaign run by our local Safeway. It was one of thoes events where they locked up an employee in a cage and customers were encouraged to donate cash to the cause. Once the donations reached the goal amount the employee was let free.
Well. They had a young, 20-something African American male employee....locked in that cage. Oh this was in the Before Time - probaby 15 years ago. Too early for the Outrage Machine to have noticed. But apparently nobody made a fuss and nobody cared.
Bigotry (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrisy) is a hard problem in a pro-choice society.
The instances I quoted above obviously were at least a little out of the ordinary since they were remarked upon and we can read about them. However, they all seem to have been part of life at the time and not that big a deal. There are lots of other stories like them, just like there are stories about the bad stuff and the really bad stuff. Our ancestors lived with all of and there ought to be more studies and reports on how it all fitted together somehow and made up their world.
I have three biographies of James Madison - all quite boring, and that is a puzzlement since Wee Jemmy could not possibly have been a boring person.
I am still looking for someone to write a biography explaining how the "Architect of the Constitution" and major author of The Federalist Papers could then have turned around and joined Jefferson in trying to destroy that Constitution with the seditious Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, then coming back to his senses and Federalist convictions again.
Perhaps Jefferson really was a Svengali with mesmeric powers? The biographies do say Madison avoided seeing Jefferson in the later years.
Madison also seemed to really have believed "all men are created equal" including Negroes - it was not just a pious mouthing with him - yet there does not seem to be any evidence that he ever acted on that principle with regard to his own slaves.
Madison was an honest man and rather introspective, so why is there nothing in his writings about this?
There is a reason someone gets a PhD in psychiatry.
One of several things that struck me about this story was the name of the character: "Enslaved African 2." We appear to have successfully replaced the term "slave" with "enslaved person," which (in contrast to many Newspeak terms) I use myself as I think it properly conveys the primacy of personhood over condition. Yet Mom negates even this piece of progress by declaring, "They sent my daughter home a slave." Sigh.
I was trying to think of an analogy. Maybe this: Mary Magdalene's role in "Jesus Christ Superstar" - a part that is *clearly* implied to be that of a prostitute (historical considerations aside), which, today, might be described as "woman forced into sex work by economic injustice and the patriarchy." A role that also expresses the ambiguity with which Jesus' followers might have seen him, and the transgressive nature of all the disciples' relationships with him. And Mom could cry, "My daughter is a whore!"
Stupid, limiting, retrogressive denial of the purpose of art.
Not to say that a school play is necessarily "art"...
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