Do you find this offensive?

What @AAAAABBBBBCCCCC says.

Eloquently put, @AAAAABBBBBCCCCC, and makes absolute sense to me.

Also, I'm not a person of colour, but I have read what people who are have said, here and elsewhere, and watched the news, and it isn't hard to understand and empathise with people who have suffered racism, nor to realise that they need different things to me. And them having those different things isn't excluding me - not that I have ever thought that I HAVE to be included in everything anyway - I know I can't and won't be included in everything, and that is fine.

From my point of view, and thisvis just MY experience: if any white person is confused about what the 'white gaze' is. Search on YouTube #whilst black. Examples: shopping whilst black, driving whilst black, bbqing whilst black, wearing natural hair whilst black, dating whilst black, jogging whilst black.

The list goes on.

Please don't be under any illusion that the WG is staring at a person of colour for longer than needed. In my opinion, it starts with harmful stereotypes and extends as far as police brutality against 'minorities'.

I'm waiting for people to tell me I have a chip on my shoulder (classic gaslighting response). I don't. But when you ask me why you should, as a white person, be offended because I want to be around people that have never posed a threat to me, well, there is your answer.

And it works the other way around, too. Look at Brexit. People were getting uncomfortable with the thought of more immigrants on this land that didn't look like them. They didn't want them moving next door to them.

I have heard the comment, so many times, that England is becoming a Third World country.

I could argue that SA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand are now, primarily, European countries but nobody wants to have that conversation.

It goes a lot deeper than most people are willing to dig and that's excluding the historic atrocities, that were 'lawful' that my ancestors had to deal with.

So, in conclusion, we are ALL wary of anything which has made us afraid.

I don't. Not everything has to be for me.

Can you explain why a white person in an audience would make you feel less comfortable? What is it? You think they are looking at you and judging your reactions to the play? ( As some previous poster alluded to) I really dont understand this.

It's called familiarity and also the fact that I have never suffered prejudice from my own race. And let's not forget my childhood; beaten up and racially abused for just being me.

And, if you think, as an adults that these memories diminish, you are willfully ignorant.

@HeartBrokenWife No I wasn't being insincere, I was giving the benefit of the doubt that even though you were clearly game playing earlier, and have done everything to avoid a simple answer it might just be because no one had asked the right question broken down, that a simple answer could be given to, but it was becoming increasingly unlikely.

The question about Maori people doing the same thing was a simple yes or no answer, as was the last one. My question was clear enough and your consistent evasion tactics are clear.

Trying to say it would be ok but not profitable if all those who were of those races came on different nights from each other, seriously? If you where genuine, you'd have said it was fine, because it was no longer about the idea that people defining as one color were asking people of others to consider booking a different night, as opposed to people of a group of races asking those of others races the same thing.

I was giving the possibility that your issue was with the request being based on skin color, as you keep insisting, rather than races of that color, as you claim anyone desiring to talk to each other about shared issues is fine as long as it's not color based. But you've one again gone for flimflammery and now it's about how grant money is spent.

it May be sailing close to the wind, depending on how they advertise it. If it were ‘Black only’, then that wouldn’t be acceptable. However, if it was made clear that all performances were open to:all, that would be better, but encouraging black youth groups etc on certain nights, that wouldn’t be so bad.

@HeartBrokenWife No, I'm really not interested in your academic qualifications, although I certainly would question them based on your posts, which tell an altogether different story.

Are you trying to deny who I am? To deny my humanity? You should believe who I say I am because I am writing from my own lived experience and no-one can deny my truth ...

This is the sort of childish, goady shite people like Laurence Fox come out with. But thankfully most folk on here don't button up the back and can see right through you.

My objection to a publicly funded play, put on in a public venue excluding anyone based on the colour of their skin still remains though.

#AllLivesMatter.

Enjoy your purity spirals everyone and I hope you all sleep smugly (sic) tonight!!

That's not the correct usage of 'sic'. I'm surprised you don't know that, what with your extensive academic qualifications.

What about trans women using women's only spaces?

I would go to the play with my daughter's on another night. They are not segregating themselves. You sound upset about something that doesn't affect you. You won't be told you can't buy a house because the area doesn't want people of colour to live there in modern day Britain. My neighbour said to my partner if he knew we lived here he would never have bought the house and he was glad that we didn't play that music. There's racism in our police force, fire brigade, care workers and schools.

Ok, having just seen that you are also being insincere AtchinTan I rescind my thanks 😟 I suspected you were just baiting me and virtue signalling for all you were worth and now I know. Shame, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, unlike most of the sheeple people. Enjoy your purity spirals everyone and I hope you all sleep smugly (sic) tonight!!

Firstly, for practical reasons I think that a play that only opened once per night for small, discrete racial demographics would struggle to make any money and wouldn't actually stand a chance of breaking even, certainly in this country.

That having been said, it's good to be a bit more in nuanced one's arguments and I have had to think about my answer to your question before typing out my full response. I wouldn't have a problem with a privately funded play being open to any single given demographic and excluding others, no. I also wouldn't see it as problematic if a particular audience segment who'd been viewing a public performance went to a private venue (excluding others) to discuss the play afterwards. My objection to a publicly funded play, put on in a public venue excluding anyone based on the colour of their skin still remains though.

It's been good discussing this with some of you, not all of you, but some of you. I'm bowing out for this evening at least because I'm going out now.

I just hate, with a passion, the thought of a colour bar for public performances. I have no objection to anyone with various religious beliefs gathering in a church, mosque or temple, or lesbians wanting to socialise in bars or clubs with other lesbians, or pupils attending faith schools and so on, but I genuinely don't want to see the re-introduction of the colour bar where people are refused entry to public events due to skin colour. It truly horrifies me.

So gay people voluntarily grouping, making straight people the minority is fine. And religious people voluntarily grouping, making other/non-religious people the minority is fine. But if POC want to voluntarily group, making white people the minority, this is not fine and shouldn't be allowed and horrifies you. Yet you have no objections with white people grouping, which make (some) POC not want to see this show.

You don't care that it is the POC who will miss out as long as no one tries to make it fair.

But you're not racist, apparently.

@BodgerLovesMashedPotato

@Catchasingmewithspiders

I'm giving one last chance to clarify if there is anything genuine in amongst the game playing, but yeah...

Yep, same

Why do you think only statutory oppression matters?

People of colour have faced racism in this country, just as gay people have faced homophobia. Why does the fact that the latter was statutory give rise to greater acceptability of gay spaces?

And if we take your point to its natural conclusion, then spaces for gay men would be ok but not for lesbians. After all, lesbians did not experience statutory oppression.

Do you object to lesbians having their own spaces?

@HeartBrokenWife "It is ridiculously simple to understand what I am saying." It isn't actually because of what else you've said, and I'm asking a true/false question that would remove all doubt and clarify a lot.

To avoid all possibility of confusion: So if the request was redefined to ask those races who aren't Caribbean, African, Oceanic, etc, etc, to consider coming a different night, you wouldn't have an issue? Is that True or False?

So let’s get it clear.

You're fine with a ‘religion bar’. You’re fine with a ‘ ‘sexuality bar’ but not with a ‘colour bar’.

Of course this is not a colour bar, just as people of the same faith gathering isn’t a religion bar and gay people gathering isn’t a sexuality bar. But you’ve still not explained why you think racial minorities in particular should not have the sort of spaces you have no problems with religious or sexual minorities having.

As a South Asian I regularly attend South Asian only club nights, one of the reasons I attend them is because I can guarantee I won’t be racially abused. When I attend mixed clubs I would say I experience racism at least 50% of the time. If we didn’t have South Asian nights I wouldn’t go out a great deal as funnily enough being racially abused doesn’t make for a great or safe night out.

Due to the historical oppression of gay people through the statue book, which black people have had to face in America but not in this country, and therefore to remain consistent with Critical Race Theory premises.

Really? I’ve no idea what you mean but good for you anyway 👍🏻

Ok, so are the black voices who don’t agree with you wrong?

But there’s still inconsistency.

You think that spaces for black people perpetuate racism, but don’t have the same view about spaces for gay people perpetuating homophobia.

Why is the latter ok but not the former?

I see what you are doing here. I see you.

Yes this , good comparison.

I think the original concept of Black Out as it was done in America was much better. Rather than having a public performance but maybe it clear non-Black's were implicitly not welcome, they had a private performance and sent invitations to community groups, college and university societies which represented the people they wanted there. It feels to me a much better way of achieving the same result. It just feels less about exclusion and more about inclusion.