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| re: Question re: Once On This Island revival - a white Daniel? | |
| Posted by: ntjvy 09:06 pm EST 02/07/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Question re: Once On This Island revival - a white Daniel? - Chazwaza 08:38 pm EST 02/07/18 | |
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| I think there's some faulty thinking in this, but I think that the first paragraph is the root of our different perspectives. I could not disagree more. In the context of race relations today, it most certainly is not the color that is visible to the naked eye that matters in terms of oppression. I'm actually a little floored by that statement and I think that you are really simplifying the issue. I'm having a really hard time with the idea that you think that racism today is based on skin tone, and trying to figure out how to best communicate it. . . Racism isn't something that is experienced only on a one-on-one basis. It is so much bigger than the "n" word and being followed around in stores and even than police brutality. Institutional racism is a real thing. It is generational and the effects of it pass down generations. (And I might add also, that there are elements of race that go beyond skin tone, including hair texture and facial features. An albino black individual is often still recognizable black, but I digress.) Racism isn't just about discrimination in a personal sense. It's about access to education, wealth, economic opportunity, housing, job opportunities etc and those things are often based upon your parents access and their parents access. In a sense, it's inherited and will continue to be until the government takes *effective* action in leveling the playing field that literally centuries of direct oppression have created and not just eliminating the technicalities that allowed for the oppression. Primary black communities in our country have less access to these things that I metnion than primary white communities (there are outliers, always outliers). It doesn't matter how light skinned a person is, if they haven't had access to these things, due to their race, not their skin color, but their race, than they are experiencing racism. This isn't unusual. Access was denied to the suburbs for black folks for decades through redlining and housing discrimination creating segregated living conditions. It's not by chance that primarily black neighborhoods, that were created due to this discrimination, have lesser quality schools. Doesn't matter what your pigmentation is, if you are forced into a lower quality school because you live in a "black" neighborhood because that's where your family has roots because they were marginalized to it through redlining, you're experiencing racism. If you're very light but you have a "black sounding" name, you're less likely to get called in for a job interview. There are a million examples of this. Of course there's also the flip side if positive culture that can be inherited regardless of your pigmentation also. And what I'm saying is NO, we should not have to look up Powell's background in order to understand. Perhaps we can let his representation of the character, and Arden's choice of it, and the book, guide us into reconsidering our own limited thinking around race, class and colorism. |
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| re: Question re: Once On This Island revival - a white Daniel? | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 09:24 pm EST 02/07/18 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 09:21 pm EST 02/07/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Question re: Once On This Island revival - a white Daniel? - ntjvy 09:06 pm EST 02/07/18 | |
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| I think you're being a bit myopic in how you're reading what I've written... or perhaps I was unclear, but I was speaking specifically about the way someone is treated based on what race they appear to be. Of course racism is systemic and it and culture are passed down through generations, and effect all those categories of life and existing in society that you detailed. I'm talking specifically about how, for example, a bi-racial person who passes as white could be treated differently in all situations (work application, education, dating, walking down the street, apply for a lease, access to everything etc etc) than a person who appears to be identifiably black. And yes, hair and shape of features, and name... all these and more can be put under the umbrella of "racial appearance" that can signal to a person what to assume your racial or class background might be. Yes, I was simplifying the issue very much - no need to be floored - but I think we have to acknowledge that Once On This Island also simplifies the issues it deals with, and personally I think Arden's casting and aspects of the concept he laid onto the show only serve to further simplify. I think actually we are on the same page except about whether or not Powell's casting gives us a chance reconsider our limited thinking around race, class and colorism (your take on it) or that it reverts back to a commonly portrayed conflict that simplifies and therefor limits the show from telling the story it meant to tell, at least to a degree (my take). But it's quite possible I'm wrong, or that the degree to which i'm right is worth changing or sacrificing for what it might gain otherwise? |
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| re: Question re: Once On This Island revival - a white Daniel? | |
| Posted by: ntjvy 09:33 pm EST 02/07/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Question re: Once On This Island revival - a white Daniel? - Chazwaza 09:21 pm EST 02/07/18 | |
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| If I was myopic it was unintentional. I much prefer what you wrote here than what I understood from your last post, although I still don't agree with it all. Once again, appreciate the dialog. | |
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