Jeremy O. Harris is definitely having a moment. The 30-year-old gay, Black playwright’s Slave Play is one of the hottest shows on Broadway. It’s also one of the most controversial.
The play follows three interracial couples as they navigate their sex lives and participate in an Antebellum master-slave role-playing therapy workshop in an effort to fix their issues.
Last week, Harris was participating in a Q&A following performance of Slave Play when a woman in the crowd stood up without being called upon and accused him of being “racist against white people.”
The outburst was caught on tape and quickly shared on social media.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Just saw the amazing @SlavePlayBway by @jeremyoharris after which a white audience member jumped up and accused him of being “racist against white people.” The confrontation proceeded from there. Clips in this thread. #slaveplay pic.twitter.com/KiXbo0rdcC
— Adam B. Kushner (@AdamBKushner) November 30, 2019
In several videos, the woman is seen pointing her finger in Harris’ direction while shouting about how she “doesn’t want to hear that white people are the f*cking plague all the time.”
Which begs the question: Why the hell did she buy tickets to see Slave Play?
She then goes on to say she has been the victim of rape, false arrests, having her children taken away, and “being told as a single woman I’m not good enough to f*cking raise them.”
“How the f*ck am I not a f*cking marginalized member of this goddamn society?” she hollered.
When she was finished, Harris calmly replied, “I never said you aren’t. I never once said that you as a white woman were not a marginalized person. But if you heard that in my play, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps read it or see it again.”
Evidently, this didn’t satisfy the woman, because she just kept on shouting about how she was sick and tired of hearing a “whole bunch of stuff about how white people don’t get how racist they are,” and about a time “300 years ago.”
Which once again begs the question: Why the hell did she buy tickets to see Slave Play?
Harris kept his cool and responded, “This isn’t every white person. This play is about eight specific people and if you don’t see yourself up here, that’s great. You aren’t one of them…these are eight specific people that are in a play, which is a metaphor for our country.”
Imma tell my kids this was The Blind Side pic.twitter.com/lAbc9D8KuP
— Jeremy O. Harris (@jeremyoharris) November 30, 2019
“She just freaked out,” a witness tells Buzzfeed. “The videos don’t do it justice. She went off on him…she was screaming at the top of her lungs. She could not handle her own guilt or responsibility in her own feelings and she demanded that Jeremy help explain and handle her feelings.”
Speaking to the Washington Post, Harris says he allowed the woman to scream out her frustrations at him because, “It would have been hypocritical of me as someone who said from the beginning, I wanted this to be a play that sparked conversations.”
“Rage is a necessarily lubricant to discourse,” he said.
Related: Playwright Jeremy O. Harris is “the queer black savior the theater world needs”
Chrisk
I’d have to see the play to understand the issue but I imagine her anger is about the controversial side of it. We should never tolerate racism no matter where it comes from though. Queerty as usual is being very one sided.
Cam
So you haven’t seen it, but feel free to read the woman’s mind and excuse the behavior for responding to the “Controversial” parts of a play…..that you haven’t seen.
Chrisk
…or we could just attack this women as a loony tunes as Queerty has already done without even knowing the substance of her complaint. It is a Q&A btw where people are encouraged to participate so she did.
Cam
@Chrisk
Interesting, there’s a link to the video yet you claim not to know the “Substance of her complaint”. Well…you know….you could have actually watched the thing before making up reasons to defend her.
GlobeTrotter
So, first of all, I’m a black American, and I completely empathize with that white woman in the audience. This is something I’ve been grappling with ever since I went to college – too many black Americans revel in the victimhood card and use it to make all types of excuses for why they/we aren’t moving forward. I remember feeling a lot of peer pressure to join the Black Student Union at college, but I refused as I couldn’t bring myself to subscribe to their ideology of blacks being permanent victims and oppressed individuals. I wasn’t brought up to see myself as a victim or an oppressed person by my parents, so it was a shock to me when I left home and went to college that a majority of black Americans actually subscribe to this ideology.
When I preferred hanging out with the Asians, Jews and Whites, I was stigmatized by other black people for “selling out”. I couldn’t care less what type of background, culture or skin color you were, I just wanted to hang out with intelligent people who didn’t think the whole world was out to get them. But hanging out with people from a different cultural background really opened my eyes to their struggles and challenges, which we in the black community never acknowledge because of our obsession with our past. Hanging out with white friends, I got to understand that yes, the majority of them also have it hard, i.e. difficult upbringing, alcoholic father, selfish mother, some being too poor to afford a lot of things I took for granted as a child (I owe all this to a single mom that worked three jobs so I didn’t have to go without!!). When my poor mother bought me a car in my sophomore year, I was the envy of all my friends, White and Asian alike. Little did they know how hard she had to work to afford a $4000 used car.
So yeah, I do kinda empathize with this lady, since meeting people from other cultural backgrounds exposed me to the real struggles many non-black Americans go through on a daily basis. None of the White people I know are racist, but they’re all tired of being branded racists and of black Americans always playing the race card.
My first job out of college was with a major insurance company at their corporate office. Our department had 3 secretaries, one of which was always mean to me. I had no idea why, but she never answered me when I said “good morning” and always seemed to have some sarcastic remark at hand. So I naturally assumed she was a racist bigot that had a problem with the only African-American employee in the department. After a few weeks of observation however, I realized that she was rude to EVERYONE, not just me! That really opened my eyes, for there I was judging her and calling her racist, when in actuality she was just a very unhappy individual, an equal opportunity grouch. This led me to realize that a lot of what black Americans think is racism is simply unhappy individuals that are rude to everyone.
Just the other day Will i Am announced that he was racially abused on a flight because the flight attendant spoke to him “in a rude manner”. I’d be willing to bet that it had nothing to do with his skin color and everything to do with that flight attendant probably just having a bad day. But NOOOOO, according to the black community and according to the black student union, she was racist. This is the type of groupthink that I just can’t get behind. Lots of people get yelled at by flight attendants – that doesn’t mean the flight attendant is racist! Lots of people are poor, lots of people are disadvantaged, lots of people had a terrible childhood, lots of people had unfit parents, lots of people had to go to bed without a meal, lots of people grew up in bad neighborhoods – not just black Americans. I can’t speak for that lady in the video, but I’d imagine that that’s the point she was trying to make. And just because she’s white, it doesn’t mean she was born into privilege or that she’s racist.
Just my two cents.
Cam
Brand new account starts off with “First of all, I’m a black………”.
Interesting how similar that is to the anti-LGBT troll accounts who com on here and say things like “I”m gay but…..” “I”m a lesbian but…” “I”m trans but…..” “I’m bi but…..” Before going off on some rant attacking the very group they’re pretending to be a part of.
I can’t believe you’re still doing the same routine.
Chrisk
Actually Globetrotter has been posting for the last year. Hardly new.
Cam
@Chrisk
Two accounts, post at the same time, and you seem to have tracked the other accounts time on here? How…….coincidental.
Heywood Jablowme
Oh Cam give it a rest.
Btw Cam – WHAT DID YOU DO TO DC GUY??? Did you push him into the Reichenbach Falls with Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty? – lol
Apolodorus
Just because you are black doesn’t mean you understand the mechanics of oppression. Look at Kanye.
Your parroting of alt right tropes on racism doesn’t make the arguments more valid.
GlobeTrotter
@Apolodorus
Pray tell, who is being oppressed in 21st century United States of America? And by whom?
dmanhart
Very well said sir. When someone is an asshole to me, I don’t automatically think it is because I am gay. I just assume the person is an asshole.
Kangol2
You should utterly mentally colonized. It’s your right, of course, to stay that way, but in a society with over 400 years of racial oppression, legal and de facto racism and white supremacy, and with ongoing systemic, structural and interpersonal racism, if you are buying into this alt-right/right-wing “victimhood” narrative, man, all I can say is good luck!
Polaro
A long, well’written position…that the PC police will hate. They will snipe at it with little one-sentence pearl clutching.
Rock-N-RollHS
Saw the play and Harris ain’t great with white or straight characters. His black female lead and effeminate black gay character are most developed and interesting. His white and straight (black and white) characters more like one-dimensional ideas.
OhNoYouDont
Marginalized bad mother with mental instability issues buys ticket to see a new play “Don’t Touch the Stove , It’s Hot”. Furious at the end of the show to find out its about a hot stove. Pandemonium for those needing attention.
Curtispsf
The JURY has ruled: You win THE INTERNET today /|\
theafricanwiththemouth
Thank you
Kangol2
He is a huge fan of white men and white folks so I’m surprised she was so shaken–shook!–but you know, sometimes art makes you confront yourself and it can be painful. He did the right thing by letting her rant and not shutting her down, though.
Polaro
I too am getting exhausted with the victimhood. I too am getting tired of everything a white person says is attacked. This snowflake overreach of victimhood is not good for blacks, or the LGBT community for that matter.
Kangol2
Yet you sound just like someone gripped by snowflakery and victimhood yourself. “I too am getting tired of everything a white person says is attacked”–what fantasy world are you living in? Most of the comments by White people on here or elsewhere are not only NOT attacked, but they’re considered the standard. I mean, let go of the hysteria and victimhood yourself, and maybe think about your own hypersensitivity and fragility a bit more too.
rustyiam
@kang you poor thing , always the victim of the evil white man , I cannot imagine going through life with that mindset!
Kangol2
@rustybussy, always chiming in with some inane racist BS, I cannot imagine going through life with that mindset! Get help, girl, because I’m no one’s victim but I can see you are always sour as a day-old sponge, so please find something other than trolling that makes you happy!