[arista]

[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

[Cherie]

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

[Crimson Dynamo]

how black does one have to be to qualify?

Is there a doorman there with a colour scale?

[rusticgal]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

how black does one have to be to qualify?

Is there a doorman there with a colour scale?

[thesheriff443]

Will dark brown do?

[Oliver_W]

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?

[arista]

Originally Posted by Cherie

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

They do not want You
staring at them

[arista]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

how black does one have to be to qualify?

Is there a doorman there with a colour scale?

Yes you are White
bugger off LT

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by arista

Yes you are White
bugger off LT

I take a good tan in the summer

[Beso]

Just identify as black on the night.

[bots]

it's racial discrimination

[rusticgal]

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

I think its totally wrong.

[Redway]

Originally Posted by rusticgal

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

I think its totally wrong.

It’s so-totally not wrong.

[Livia]

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.

[Oliver_W]

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

Originally Posted by Redway

It’s so-totally not wrong.

How so?

Originally Posted by Livia

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.

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

[Crimson Dynamo]

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

:/

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Redway

It’s so-totally not wrong.

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

[Beso]

Originally Posted by Livia

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.

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

Surely its the other way round there

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Cherie

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

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?

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

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

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.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Redway

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?

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....

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Cherie

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

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.

[rusticgal]

Originally Posted by Redway

It’s so-totally not wrong.

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.

[Redway]

Originally Posted by rusticgal

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.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Redway

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.

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