Michael R Jackson goes after #weseeyou, Griffin Matthews on Twitter

[DaveyG]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 4:44pm

Posted on @thelivingMJ: 

https://twitter.com/TheLivingMJ/status/1271890087018672132?s=20

“And just so there’s no confusion, I think this letter is ****ing STUPID, INANE, RECKLESS, DISGRACEFUL, DISGUSTING, EMBARRASSING, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, CHILDISH, DISINGENUOUS, MCCARTHYIST, TRAUMA PORNOGRAPHIC, BREXITish, TRUMP-Like, AMY COOPERISH, and every other negative, degrading ****-eating adjective you can think of. I ****ing hate and loathe it more than Madonna loathes hydrangeas. Theatre is supposed to bring people together and this horrible, horrible letter does nothing but tear people apart. SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

 

Followed up with this:

 https://twitter.com/TheLivingMJ/status/1271920557848698880?s=20

”I also want to say that while I don’t apologize for my post, it was written from a place of deep anger, frustration and pain. Writing to the “American White Theatre” is by proxy writing to me. I worked very hard to put my show up after years and years of struggle and uncertainty in collaboration with people (many of whom were white but not all) who did everything to make sure my black, queer story got out there and that I had full agency while putting it up. 

I’m not interested in being more divisive and if I have been, then I have failed and I am sorry. But there has been no public debate about “we see you” and the seeming total consensus around it’s and Griffin’s video (when for example, Griffin himself acted like a complete and total “Amy Cooper-like” asshole to me at a talkback for A Strange Loop when he made insulting insinuations about me, my show, my artistic and professional choices in the same tone as the white male reporter who essentially threatened to call me a c**n in a major publication yesterday) and many of these online testimonies is deeply frightening to me. It has been suggested to me that this is all “kitchen table talk” but how do you have a kitchen table talk when the house is on fire? Anyway I said what I said. I’m not exhausted from letting my rage go free and I guess I’ll see what the Drama Desks have to say tonight. Thanks for listening.”

Updated On: 6/14/20 at 04:44 PM

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 5:23pm

I do agree with MRJ that it doesn't seem like there's really been public discourse around this letter/petition (or if there has, I haven't seen it), and while I don't think it's as negative as he makes it out to be, I'm a bit confused at what it's trying to achieve besides just saying how much BIPOC people have been undermined in theater, which is already something being discussed a lot through other channels anyway.  The Opening Night discussion that NYT did seemed to be the most that it's actually been discussed in terms of why people might or might not sign the petition but I still don't really see what the petition is trying to spur people to do in terms of concrete actions.  I do think that some of the people who sign it will take a deeper look at their own past actions (particularly if they're white) but for the most part, I don't know what signing this accomplishes.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 5:32pm

Can you paste a link? Or did he delete this? I went to his twitter and FB and didn't see either post.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 5:37pm

LizzieCurry said: "Can you paste a link? Or did he delete this? I went to his twitter and FB and didn't see either post."

 

Here is the first Tweet:

https://twitter.com/TheLivingMJ/status/1271890087018672132?s=20

And here is the 2nd:

https://twitter.com/TheLivingMJ/status/1271920557848698880?s=20

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 5:39pm

Thanks! I was searching for his username + "Griffin" and hadn't realized the posts were images.

[joevitus]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 9:50pm

Glad to see some sanity around the discussion.

Updated On: 6/14/20 at 09:50 PM

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 10:50pm

he supported Marianne Williamson during that primaries...that about sums him up

[A Director]

Posted: 6/15/20 at 2:37am

I knew this was going to happen. It did not take long. When the BIPOC community says, writes or posts something that upsets white people, they run and find a someone from the community who disagrees with the original comment. They do this because they don't what to hear it.

You are using Michael R Jackson's disagreement with #weseeyou and Griffin Matthews in an attempt to dismiss  the We See You White American Theater letter.  You probably don't care about Michael R. Jackson or Griffin Matthews.  You enjoy pitting one black man against another black man.

You use the word sanity to imply that the letter is insane.  I've read the letter several times and find it clear and powerful.

Writing things down is the first step to healing and change.  Writing things down show others there are people who have had the same/similar experiences and you are not alone. Writing things down and having over 300 sign the letter shows there is strength in numbers. Writing things down causes some signers to look inward and discover he or she has been complicit. Writing things down takes away the power to gaslight.

The letter is a FIRST STEP. The letter says CHANGE BEGINS NOW!  To those who say, "I've seen this before and things will never change," the letter says, STEP OUT OF THE WAY.

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 6/15/20 at 4:16am

A Director said: "When the BIPOC community says, writes or posts something that upsets white people, they run and find a someone from the community who disagrees with the original comment. They do this because they don't what to hear it.
"

Or, you know, BIPOC is not a community of 100% homogeneity as is evidenced by Jeremy Harris's perceived threat of Young Jean Lee and his attempt to frame it as "anti-blackness" without zero evidence to prove the connection between his experience and the term him haphazardly purported to be the case. 

I have the same feeling about the "gay community" as well. I'm not denying it has made marvelous progress in advancing rights of LGBTQ+ persons, but as a "community" it is building itself into a bubble that shuts out any dissenting voice and keeps out people who don't pass their "purity test." 

As a person who's supposed to belong in both communities, I find it taxing and sometimes incredibly dehumanizing to try to fit myself in.

[LarryD2]

Posted: 6/15/20 at 4:56am

I respect Michael for taking a public stand that is probably not going to win him many friends. As a half-Black, half-Korean person of color who has worked in the entertainment industry (primarily theater) for almost 30 years, I've seen and experienced casual and systemic racism firsthand. That said, I found the tone and tenor of the "Dear White American Theater" letter very off-putting, largely because it lacks fundamental self-awareness of the ways that many of its signatories have promoted and perpetuated the very systems it critiques. Many of the prominent voices lending their names to this "movement" have happily upheld systems of inequality so long as they personally benefited from them. 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 6/15/20 at 6:12pm

Well said, LarryD2. I hope it has been clear that some of us who have asked for a little specificity in charges of racism are not doubting that racism exists in the theater. (On the contrary, I don't believe anyone in American culture who claims to have never had a prejudiced thought.)

I for one have just been saying that supporting one's self in the theater is an arduous journey for almost everyone; the mere existence of obstacles is not in itself proof that those particular obstacles stem from racism.