Chi-Raq is a work of agitprop—preachy, strident, sentimental, even sacramental.
Racism
Stage Interview: Dramatist Jacqui Parker Talks About How Black Lives Matter: “A Crack in the Blue Wall”
“Theater producers do not want to make their audience members uncomfortable and talking about race makes folks uncomfortable.”
Theater Review: “appropriate” — Southern Gothic, Entertainingly Deconstructed
In appropriate, a talented young playwright turns mischievous literary homage into a work of exhilarating entertainment.
Music Commentary Series: Jazz and the Piano Concerto — The Zebra in the Room
Much more work could be done fertilizing the fields of cross-cultural music, sowing seeds collected from the great touchstones of American culture – innovation, integration, risk, reward.
Book Review: “Shame” — Racism and the Sins of Paternalistic Liberalism
According to Shelby Steele, white liberals “dissociate” themselves from the past sins of white America by subscribing to the “poetic truth” that the United States is “characterologically evil.”
Theater Commentary: The Irrelevance of ‘Relevant’ Theater
Where are the theaters that are bold enough to stage challenging and risky dramas about race? Not just talk the talk.
Visual Arts Review: “Figures of Empire” — When Racism and Art Meet
Some fifty-five objects trace a legacy of casual brutality and white hegemony that is at the heart of Yale University’s—and this nation’s—founding.