Do you find this offensive?

[Meeting]

The Theatre Royal Stratford East is putting on a show and have blocked out 2 dates as "Blackout" nights where they encourage (but I don't think plan to enforce) that only black people may attend these performances.

I saw them discussing it on Piers Morgan and neither of the guests advocating for it were able to convince me that this type of segregation was at all beneficial.

Does anybody think this is a good idea? Personally I think segregation based on skin colour has no place in society, no matter who benefits from it. But I'm interested to hear from others who might away it differently?

I don't think it's any more offensive than putting on special matinées for schools, or prioritising 14-18 year olds for discounted tickets. Or any of the other many strategies theatres use to widen audiences, bring in new audiences, and play to their local communities.

TR Stratford East has a long history of engagement with its local community, ever since the amazing Joan Littlewood found the almost derelict theatre in bombed out East London. She, as a lifelong socialists, pioneered community engagement and - I hope - would have been right behind this initiative to bring in the local kids.

TR Stratford East and Joan Littlewood started so many careers for so many now famous actors - just one example, Barbara Windsor. TR Stratford East is the original "EastEnders"!

My friend and I go to the theatre regularly and we always notice how white the audience is. More than once we’ve been the only POC there, for the smaller plays. At the ballet I saw one other black family and my mother and I talked about how inaccessible the arts can be to people of color either because it’s expensive, or the audience is hostile to anyone they think is too low class to be there, or because the content is so white focused that we don’t relate to it. You “don’t pay attention” because you’re one of them. I suspect you’d notice when walking into a place with only men there, however.

Im not offended - I mean, no one’s ever been racist to me and it seems a small price to pay.

Mind you, I can’t help feeling expressions the organisers used like Black History and Black Community are a bit rude. How would most of 🇬🇧 like it if we were taught White History? What’s that? Very reductive and dismissive. And 99 per cent wrong.

Do you believe segregation doesn't exist in Britain today and why?

I can tell you why it does but can you tell me why it doesn't.

Sorry Hadjab, are you asking me or SparklyBlackKitten? Just checking you haven't misunderstood my post. I don't want to be lumped in with the likes of SBK!

Here's the wonderful beautiful Murray Melvin on Theatre Royal Stratford East & Joan Littlewood

And from the British Library's further info about Stratford East:

Theatre Royal Stratford East boasts an impressive roster of previous artists and collaborators including Meera Syal, Barbara Windsor, Don Warrington, Sheila Hancock, Indhu Rubasingham, Tanika Gupta, Roy Williams, Clint Dyer, Cynthia Erivo and Sir Lenny Henry.

I am white and it doesn't offend me.

As I understand it, the play is about something which affects black people, and the experience of seeing it as part of a black audience is likely to be more powerful (or at the very least, very different). So non-black people are being asked to let them have this moment as a community, and come on another day.

That doesn't sound discriminatory to me. It sounds like a proportionate means to a legitimate end.

No I don't know that very well at all, and you should not presume to speak on my behalf. I don't presume to understand totally what the needs of the Black community might be in this regard, but I can certainly understand the need to encourage their participation in theatre and the arts that have historically been the domain of White people. As for why not the reverse, if you don't know the answer to that question, I can't help you.

My instinctive reaction is that this to me has undertones of “separate but equal” however well intentioned. The whole public argument for USA segregation was that blacks and whites had the same things (in theory not in practice) but not together because it was more “comfortable” for the groups not to mix.

So it reads to me that if black people are specifically welcomed on this particular night (as as pp say made to feel it’s a safe space) then they are not feeling welcomed on the other nights. The theatre needs to have a long hard look at why black people don’t feel comfortable attending the standard performances and why they don’t feel safe doing so - if that is to do with particular other audiences members (who may well be white) then the theatre need to deal with that. Black people should feel equally safe and comfortable at all performances, a step to black audiences only performances for their comfort is a step towards segregation.

I'm not offended, and even I was, it shouldn't matter.

But whites have been lambasted ever since (and rightly so) despite it being 'different times'. Now society has accepted it is unacceptable why is it ok for it to be promoted for only blacks? AFAIA it is so blacks can enjoy theatre 'free from white gaze'. Whatever the fuck that means.

I am black, I have three black sons and a black husband
We are regular theatre goers.
Both London shows and local ones in smaller theatres nearer us. Including the opera and Ballet.

I agree there is more white people but no one has ever been hostile to us. No one ever looks down on us, makes comments, stares because they perceive we are poor.
I have never experienced anything similar to what you are referring.

They are a noisy minority. Check how many have voted YANBU. As so often the sensible majority won't put their heads above the parapet

How do they define 'black'? It's a surprisingly imprecise word.

@IClaudine definitely not you 😁

I think it's moving in the wrong direction

I see. Then I assumed about you and I was mistaken. My apologies.

But as always, just because it hasn’t been your experience, doesn’t mean it isn’t a common problem. The attitudes on this thread display it quite nicely. For a website that has women complaining that non-parents are here and an infamous feminism section that talks about the importance of women only spaces, it’s hilariously predictable that there’s all this outrage at the idea of being excluded based on whiteness. A group that can’t understand not wanting to talk about pregnancy/childbirth/their bodies/their sex based trauma in front of men should be able to understand black people not wanting to do the same in front of white people. And yet here we are and suddenly it’s “segregation” and everyone should be included all the time. Until the next trans woman wins a sport, of course.

@Meeting I cant believe someone would post such a clickbait Daily mail thread. 🙄

Those posters who think it's BU ... can you really not see why this positive discrimination is still necessary? Jeezus

Exactly this 👏

I honestly cannot figure out how I feel about this, and I can see everyone's point of view. I grew up largely in apartheid era South Africa, though, and that experience may be influencing the fact that I feel rather uncomfortable about the suggestion/reminder of segregation, even though that is not actually what is happening (although is that discomfort actually part of the intended effect of the creator/s of the work, to provoke thought about this?).

I do not think the comparisons with women-only spaces is really fully apt. I understand that black people may, even in modern Britain, have many negative experiences caused by the presence/actions of white people, but actual overt racist violence is thankfully relatively rare, whereas women wanting (i.e. needing) their own spaces for reasons of physical safety and dignity is absolutely standard everyday experience.

Why?

So I’m not offended as a white person not to be invited but I am concerned that if this night is perceived to be a success then it may catch on with more venues offering “x race only nights” so everyone feels “comfortable”

this would then lead to less ethnic diversity and more racism at general events with a “well if you don’t like it attend an x race only event” attitude. So white people get 99% of the shows to continue to be racist aresholes in and black people get 1% to attend - that’s not equal

and then where does it end - blacks only schools because that’s more “comfortable”, maybe blacks and whites should sit on different bits of public transport?

people are going to say but that’s different to what America did because white people are being excluded not black people, but the USA excluded white kids from black schools and public toilets etc. and somehow (racism) the black facilities were rubbish and the white ones good. It’s not like this show is doing 50% black nights and 50% everyone (read white) nights is it.

separate but equal did not and will not work

White people aren’t banned though.