London : Theatregoers White Folk Not Welcome, Black only night
 

[West End play tells white theatregoers they
aren't welcome as it hosts all-black audience
nights at Kit Harington production to 'protect'
ticketholders from 'the white gaze'
Two evenings will be left open to an
'all-Black identifying audience']


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...hite-gaze.html

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/02...9109743575.jpg

wtf...I mean okay but this is not diversity and inclusion but if that is the hill they want to die on...

how black does one have to be to qualify?

Is there a doorman there with a colour scale?

:hehe:

Will dark brown do?

Bit condescending: "you poor black folx, you don't have to watch our play while whites are here!!".

Why don't they go the whole hog and offer lower prices?

They do not want You
staring at them

Yes you are White
bugger off LT

:fist:

I take a good tan in the summer

Just identify as black on the night.:shrug:

it's racial discrimination

Can you imagine if the tables were turned....

I think its totally wrong.

It’s so-totally not wrong.

This already happened at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Last year they put on performances for black only audiences. This is all so they can enjoy the show without being under "white gaze".

Of course it's illegal to refuse any group of people admission.

Tbh it's the best marketing they could hope for, no-one would care about or have heard of their little play without this.

How so?

It's probably advisory and requested rather than enforced. So of course, groups of whites should book up the tickets for those performances :laugh:

Anyone wishing to avoid The White gaze" should just watch TV adverts every night

:/

why is it not wrong, would you accept white only nights at the theatre, its going backwards

Stratford east...white folk staring at black folk.. in Stratford???

Surely its the other way round there

Are you a historically oppressed minority in this part of the world who needs a certain degree of racial protection and spaces where one common cultural marker for group solidarity can exist in a fully safe space? Why are you bothered about that as a white person?

Certain black experiences (and don’t tell me you’ve experienced exactly that same level or type of racism) are unique to black people and black people alone and they should have the right to feel protected in certain spaces and able to have a sounding board for things that pertain mostly to black people. You can flip the tables for reverse-neutrality’s sake but the bottom and top line is white people don’t need it. Understand it, don’t understand it. It doesn’t change anything.

yes I am Irish


what the hell is all that supposed to mean?

Okay we will have whites only nights to protect ourselves from the black gaze, dont complain now

fully safe space lol....

Irish people have historically had their struggles and you’re more than welcome to set up Irish-exclusive spaces for a night (of course) but so have black people. So have Jews. So have all sorts of marginalised groups across the world. It’s not everyone outside of a particular demographic who’ll understand the extent of their struggles and need for a certain degree of solidarity in cohesion (there’s a difference between having a theoretical knowledge of something and actually experiencing it yourself) but that doesn’t invalidate every individual group’s right for communal protection like that. You can turn around and say that Somali women’s support groups shouldn’t be a thing but at the end of the day unless you’re a domestically abused refugee from Mogadishu you’re only going to be theorising from the outside looking in, not knowing how it really feels. “But I want to eat bariis too” is neither here nor there. Go to a Somali restaurant, then. What are you looking for in a support-group set up specifically for Somali women other than a space to extend reverse-inclusivity and not let them have a place just for them? What are you scared they might do or say left to themselves?

We’re at the point where we love to pretend that racial history counts for nothing and it might as well have been white people who were enslaved in spades and raped for 400 solid years, hunted by KKK equivalents and still subject to a lot of racism (covert and overt) to this day but that’s not how it is. Racial history’s there in print and there’s no changing that but it can be acknowledged and used for solidarity-marking points to at least a certain extent. Maybe you do belong to a historically marginalised group (and I 100% respect Irish history and what they’ve had to experience) but that’s different. If you’re white Irish and treated differently or discriminated against, it ain’t because of the colour of your skin specifically. That’s just a rock-hard fact.

People can set out to do whatever they want for one night so long as it’s not directly hurting anyone else. I’m not the one who’s gonna complain. I respect Irish history, gypsy history, Jewish history and yada-yada but I also respect black history. And I detest misplaced colour-blindness. You see colour and it doesn’t count for nothing. Especially not to the people directly impacted. So let’s just not even try to make this about white people.

We are supposed to be moving forward….if the situation was reversed no doubt you would be on here saying just how wrong it is.

Read my above post. If you still want to argue, let’s talk it out.

Honestly I think it is regressive, it does not make black people equal to have 'their own night' in my view it is patronising and non inclusive, we should all be equal, black people should not be bothered by a white persons gaze and vice versa, just my take on it, what do you actually think is going to happen in a theatre? are black people actually going to feel unsafe in a mixed group....its just divisive shiz, as Oliver said a great advertising tool for a show

It’s not really about what you think when it comes to what black people know when it comes to guarding spaces that are just for them and not stereotypically negatively so.

I don’t care what Ollie’s saying about great advertising tools or whatever other line from the book of neutral, colour-blind objectives he wants to roll out. Everything he says about race is by the book of unwavering neutrality and race is more complex and real than that. It doesn’t shoot to acknowledge it and stop pretending like we’ve all experienced the same level of prejudice and historical discrimination based just off the colour of our skin specifically. We might all be equal as people but none of us are equal historically (and even if they are they’re still different) and that continues to affect people, for good and bad. When it’s for good, let it blossom. Let black people themselves be the judge of what’s patronising to them and what isn’t. Is women getting together to talk about motherhood and breast-feeding in women-only spaces regressive to you?

Whoever came up with that idea deserves to be fired from their job, and put in a Mental Ward.

What about Asian people? Or Hispanics? This Theatre is saying it only wants black audiences.

I 100% agree with you Cherie.

it would be if it were just say white women or black women, and you are comparing apples with oranges, not all of the human race can breast feed, but theatre goers come in all shapes and sizes, they sit in a darkened theatre alongside whoever they travelled with, they watch the show, and then they go home, they don't really interact with the strangers around them, look if you are happy with this good on you but dont go complaining about whites only gatherings should there be any (hopefully not) in the future, you really can't have it both ways

Not often we agree Mock :laugh:

Women are the only people who can breastfeed and be mothers, while people of all races have historically been slaves or slave owners at some point.

While modern day slavery is a thing, they're unlikely to be going to see plays.

You don't inherit memories from your ancestors, so history doesn't mean a whole lot on an individual basis.

…I’ve read all of the reasoning of ‘Theatre Black Out…’ performances and as was said earlier in the thread…this isn’t a first, I think that 2019 was the first one so 4 years ago…?…anyway, this is a ‘black story’ written by a ‘black playwright’ and ‘addressing a black audience’ for that input dynamic…?….and because it’s felt that Theatre goers are ‘predominantly white’ audience, this is intended to create or balance that…?…to encourage a black audience into the theatre/theatres…?…so addressing an ‘imbalance’ as perceived, if you like …by creating and deepening an imbalance…by making that imbalance into a divide and divisive thing…?…as well intentioned as it may be, it’s surely very misguided and was obviously always going to be perceived as ‘extreme’…there were ways to do this that weren’t going to pull against any positives it hoped to achieve…many tickets could have been given to black clubs and organisations …it could be looked at as to whether the production could become ‘mobile’ and taken out to those communities also…?…there are ways that would have kept it all ‘about the arts’ and not just fuelling already highly fuelled culture wars that are present in in our modern day world….but this, I think…will just add to a divide that is already extremely concerning….this isn’t addressing, surely…?…it’s aggravating, whether unintentional or not…that was always going to be what we see…

Absolutely, if you want to attract more black people to the theatre then advertise in places that your intended audience will see it, I don't see cinemas having to have only black audiences for films like 10 years a slave, so personally I do think this is more of an extreme advertising gimmick than truly offering black people 'a safe space' to watch some theatre, obviously I bow to Redway as a black person to have his own opinion on this but on this occasion I feel black people are being targeted and not in a nice way

what next a muslim play with big banners saying

NO JEWS

Oh, didn't you hear? Palestinians are the only people to ever have been invaded. And that somehow affects muslims who've never been and have no relatives from there.

Unbelievable.

For one night, Mock. They’re welcome to do an Asian or Hispanic night some other time but that’s just not what this is about.

Which part don't you believe?

The part about only women being able to be mothers? The grim reality that slavery still exists, even in the UK? Or that memories can't magically be handed down from one person to another?

Your attitude and unwavering neutrality’s unbelievable. You being the debater you are will find something to argue about but I’ve said my own. I will never, ever, ever agree with you on subjects like this and I’m cool with that. Our experiences and perspectives are incompatible here. But do you.