Thoughts on Cynthia Erivo — Page 4

Dave28282 said: "bossbear062 said: "You don't get cured of cancer just by not talking about it."

But you might live a happier life if you don't mention it to everyone, every sentence, every day all day. Beinig treated like a victim everywhere you go. But focus on other things too and reach beyond it.

It's not like anyone helped the situation or gained any form of respect by accusing random strangers on Twitter of racism because they didn't mention you in the role you preferred in a fan fiction dreamcasting game.


I'm talking about finding a universal cure not someone's personal. That is not achieved by simply not talking about it. Like I said name be a story in a history of societal science and consequences that race did not play a factor in.

As a "person of color" myself (I hate that term), I find a lot of the current rhetoric around race greatly cheapens and undermines the actual struggle against racism. Racism exists and is certainly something that deserves to be taken seriously and discussed seriously. However, the current vapidity and lack of historical perspective, knee-jerk reactionary identity politics, and (honestly) the bad faith I've witnessed seep into the rhetoric of the left does more of a disservice to that discourse than anything. I have seen people of color leverage race to gain a rhetorical advantage in arguments or situations in which it is not relevant. This is, IMO, what happened with the Great Comet nonsense. This reflects poor faith and is intellectually dishonest. Likewise, the idea that racial minorities cannot be "racist" is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that ironically alienates and dehumanizes the majority/"dominant" racial cohort and renders it a faceless monolith ("the other" )w hile conveniently absolving racial minorities of taking responsibility for their own feelings and actions. It does both sides of the interface a disservice and turns them into mindlessly adversarial factions.



Not to mention, I think a lot of the rhetoric has taken the completely wrong tact with regard to the discussion of race. The best approach, IMO, is a scientific one, in which the very idea of race is dismantled as a social construct -- not a scientific concept. Instead, I constantly see people use the language of racism itself to try and "counter" racism: they don't even question the scientifically arbitrary and biologically ambiguous nature of "race" (which I think would be far more effective and is actually far more representative of where most intelligent people progress in terms of thinking about race) and instead buy wholesale into race as a concept. The discourse, thus, only remains skin deep.



That said, I kind of saw Erivo's point about the Muses in Hercules. I understand that they were a reworking of Greek chorus from ancient Greek drama, but the "sassy streetwise black girls with big voices commenting on the action" was a trope Menkin recycled from Little Shop of Horrors with the street urchins. I think Erivo was simply irked by the sort of unquestioned trope/stereotype that the Muses represent, and that fans kind of go with unquestioningly. People have raised similar concerns about Disney's films from a feminist perspective as well.

Updated On: 8/6/17 at 01:11 PM

"Likewise, the idea that racial minorities cannot be "racist" is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that ironically alienates and dehumanizes the majority/"dominant" racial cohort and renders it a faceless monolith ("the other" )w hile conveniently absolving racial minorities of taking responsibility for their own feelings and actions. It does both sides of the interface a disservice and turns them into mindlessly adversarial factions."

It's not a slight of hand to point out that black people can't be racist. It's just going off of history. Like I clearly said: Black people can be prejudice and bigoted. But racism is a different thing, that's why it's a separate word. That's why racism works in a system. A system used to discriminate against one's race and then use the discrimination to benefit in culture and in society. So much so that the benefits are still being used today. There has never been an instance where black people have used discrimination based off of someone's race to elevated not just as individuals but their whole society. So much so that it can last generations. There is nothing nor there has there ever been anything to gain for black people not liking someone based off of their skin color to elevate themselves. However white people have been doing that for centuries. Hence why racism is indeed when prejudice meets power.

That is not absolving black people of any kind of civil discourse/feelings or behavior. But societal science and western history has showed us hatred has only elevated one group of people to superiority.

I know this a new way of thinking in today's day and age but we have to be more enlightened and nuance when it comes to these things and I don't get mad if folks disagree. I use to think that anyone is indeed capable of racism until I read and studied and looked at race relation as a historical/societal science. Start asking "why" instead of being so quick to say "no" or wrong"

Updated On: 8/6/17 at 01:31 PM

bossbear062 said: ""Likewise, the idea that racial minorities cannot be "racist" is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that ironically alienates and dehumanizes the majority/"dominant" racial cohort and renders it a faceless monolith ("the other" )w hile conveniently absolving racial minorities of taking responsibility for their own feelings and actions. It does both sides of the interface a disservice and turns them into mindlessly adversarial factions."

It's not a slight of hand to point out that black people can't be racist. It's just going off of history. Like I clearly said: Black people can be prejudice and bigoted. But racism is a different thing, that's why it's a separate word. That's why racism works in a system. A system used to discriminate against one's race and then use the discrimination to benefit in culture and in society. So much so that the benefits are still being used today. There has never been an instance where black people have used discrimination based off of someone's race to elevated not just as individuals but their whole society. So much so that it can last generations. There is nothing nor there has there ever been anything to gain for black people not liking someone based off of their skin color to elevate themselves. However white people have been doing that for centuries. Hence why racism is indeed when prejudice meets power.

That is not absolving black people of any kind of civil discourse/feelings or behavior. But societal science and western history has showed us hatred has only elevated one group of people to superiority.

I know this a new way of thinking in today's day and age but we have to be more enlightened and nuance when it comes to these things and I don't get mad if folks disagree. I use to think that anyone is indeed capable of racism until I read and studied and looked at race relation as a historical/societal science. Start asking "why" instead of being so quick to say "no" or wrong" "



Your argument lacks self-awareness, IMO. You do not understand the ramifications of what you're talking about. The words we use are important. The arguments we make have real and sometimes devastating fallout. I fully appreciate the existence of systemic power structures, entrenched racial prejudice, and violent bigotry. My parents come from a lower caste in India. Do you think I don't understand how horrific systematic power structures can become? The caste system has been in existence for thousands of years. People got murdered or maimed if their shadow fell on the body of someone of a higher caste. Talk to me about generational trauma.

But the argument you are making is contextually invalid, IMO. It is arguing cheap semantics, but ignoring the effect that argument has in the ecology of public discourse. Put more simply, you're alienating people. You're villifying people. You're perpetuating the unscientific concept of race. You're solidifying identities around that unscientific concept, when the softening and dissolving defensive identity is what leads to harmony vs. strife. You say you are arguing for social justice when you are actually perpetuating injustice. One of the things I studied in graduate school to become a psychotherapist is something called relational frame theory. It's a behavioral theory of human language. It's interesting if you're ever interested in going deep into how the words you use shape human experience and behavior. I don't think you realize how the argument you're making does more harm than good. It solves nothing.

And, to the contrary, that is not a "new way of thinking." What you write has been around since at least the 1960s. It is an old way of thinking. This rhetoric has only recently entered the mainstream discourse in the age of the Internet, but it has long been a common sight in academia. The backlash began as far back as the 1980s when the term "politically correct" was coined. Such rhetoric led nowhere constructive then, and it's not leading to any constructive end now. I would go as far to say that what I am saying would represent a radically new way of thinking for you, but you would need to forgo your defensive attachment to the old way of thinking to fully understand it.

Updated On: 8/6/17 at 02:10 PM

Double post

Updated On: 8/6/17 at 02:14 PM

Guys, let me reiterate: the minute Cynthia Erivo steps offstage is the minute she has no further obligations to her audience. She is just an ordinary civilian and she's entitled to have a social media that expresses her viewpoints and personality. If you don't like that personality, unfollow her. If she writes to a fan and it's sort of rude, well, she might have lost a fan but again, her life, her career. She is not a politician (unlike our POTUS) whose words can have a real effect on large masses of people. She is not a religious leader who should uphold the tenets of that religion. She does not market herself to be a role model of any kind. She's just like you and me. This whole brouhaha is placing a burden on her that doesn't need to be there.

And, to the contrary, that is not a "new way of thinking." What you write has been around since at least the 1960s. It is an old way of thinking. This rhetoric has only recently entered the mainstream discourse in the age of the Internet, but it has long been a common sight in academia. The backlash began as far back as the 1980s when the term "politically correct" was coined. Such rhetoric led nowhere constructive then, and it's not leading to any constructive end now. I would go as far to say that what I am saying would represent a radically new way of thinking for you, but you would need to forgo your defensive attachment to the old way of thinking to fully understand it.

The 1960's and 80's were not that long ago. So when it comes to race and society what I have bout up it is indeed a new way of thinking. Civil rights movement, jim crow, slavery where not that long ago.

Like I believe you once posted, this is a science. And we know that science is always evolving.



"

Updated On: 8/6/17 at 02:32 PM

bossbear062 said: "You're villifying people.

I will be more clear. Anytime I refer to some one as racist I am not saying they are bad people. We need to stop being so afraid of the word racist or racism. Yes it has caused harm but there is more to it. So there need be no fear of ramifications if we speak honestly. Especially in modern day history. If you can see where I'm coming from with that you will understand what I'm saying. There is nothing "cheap" about talking about oppression no matter what form it is.

Your argument lacks self-awareness, IMO

With all due respect, you do not know me. So how much of my self awareness can you tell from my post, when I have left myself out of anything I have posted and spoke specifically of culture and society. I am as self aware as I can be at this moment and I'm trying to grow more. I appreciate you continuing the conversation put please really pay attention to the words I'm saying. I'm not absolving anybody of anything. Calling black people racist is the same argument used to prove that "reverse racism" is a thing and that has indeed been de bunked.

But I would like to know what you would consider or what word would you use to describe the superiority complex based on race in western society that historically white people created? I simply call it racism."

Fair enough. Believe it or not, I have actually said the same exact thing you're saying at one point or another over the years. There is a term (I think coined by Robin DiAngelo) called "white fragility' which points to the defensiveness with which white Americans react to any accusation that some aspect of their speech or behavior might indeed be racist. While I find that term a bit problematic, I have seen that in action (even here on this very forum). So, I agree, in order to have a frank and productive discourse about racism, we need to be less squeamish about confronting our own racism, unflinchingly.

Now, the definition of racism you're using (the one in which power and dominance is intrinsic) is a specific definition that comes, I believe, from critical race theory which came into prominence in the 1970s. (hork in this thread attributed to Patricia Bidol and may be correct.) If that's the lens through which you want to study racism as it plays out in America, fair enough. However, to then claim that Bidol's definition of racism suddenly and totally supercedes and cancels out the more common, everyday definition is, IMO, misguided. My biggest concern is that the CRT definition of racism enlists race as a proxy for discussing what we're fast discovering in a globalized world to be a much more complicated reality. Thus, that definition of "racism" obscures subtle phenomena like class antagonism, economic resentment, sexual politics, capitalism, education deficits, etc.

My other concern is that the argument for this particular definition of racism outside of critical race theory is beside the point. People who aren't aware that that is an instrumental definition used in a specific academic context will likely use it to absolve responsibility for racist (under the common definition) thinking. Furthermore, advancing that definition to the exclusion of the everyday definition of racism obscures the underlying human psychology that is present in all people that leads to racism. We all have implicit biases. Those biases are likely a combination of the human mind's penchant for making quick judgments combined with subtle (and not-so-subtle) social conditioning. To go back to "fragility", if the kneeejerk response to accusing a person of color of racial bias (whatever you call it) is "I can't be racist", that prematurely stunts the discourse and then sidesteps it. It doesn't really matter if you want to call it racism. The behavioral scientists call it implicit bias. But the important thing is to recognize that the underlying impulses that coalesce in institutional racism are present in all of us. To use semantics to render this basic underlying potentiality opaque or non-negotiable as a topic for discourse is misguided.

Also, I didn't mean that you, as a person, lack self-awareness. I said your argument is not aware of its effect in context. That is, what effect does this particular argument have, in actuality, on the public discourse about race? Is it ACTUALLY leading to any real progress, or is it simply getting people entangled in rhetorical irrelevancies, sowing resentment and further objectification, and obscuring a more precise and accurate understanding of both individual situations (like The Great Comet stuff or this stuff with Cynthia Erivo) and larger, systemic manifestations? I have argued in this thread it is the latter. There may be a place for wedding power and prejudice in a specific academic argument, but there must be room to discuss things that fall outside that very narrow framing.

Updated On: 8/6/17 at 03:06 PM

"Stop right there. Any person can be racist. Many black people are racist."

Thank you. Like, is that person serious?

I really loved her performance in The Color Purple but it seems that fame has gone to her head, and I told her on Twitter that I agreed with her statement about The Great Comet, but then it was almost like she was trying to incite a riot regarding the show on social media, and she just kept going on and on about it. Viewing everything as "is this racist or not" must be a miserable way to live. I liked her before she won the Tony.

bossbear062 said: "
Historically now it does. Racism is racism no matter what color you are.



That's not true. As time has gone on and true historical studies that have happened we are starting to learn what racism truly is. There is only one group of people that has ever benefited off of being prejudice to someone else's skin color. That is racism. When prejudice meets power.





"

Except that racism is not a case where prejudice meets power but rather one where power grows from learned prejudice. People see colors, and there's nothing wrong about it. However, what is is that different colors of skin are given unwarranted meanings and implications, which allows one to rise above the others. Truth is racism was socially constructed. It might be the product of colonialism, but the project behind it is nothing time-specific and its effect is real and immediate. People have been trying to find ways to fight racism or raise the public's awareness of it, but very few discussions on what is "race" go on outside of the academia. People take "race" for granted and use it and "ethnicity" interchangeably without realizing that "race" doesn't exist outside of its given context (which is almost everywhere, but it's important to acknowledge its existence) and has nothing to do with science. "Race" is a concept that was constructed only to justify a power structure that benefits lives on its existence. The same applies to gender, sexuality, religion, capitalism, age, body type, etc.

The reality is, it's much easier to understand "race" and racism than to solve the problem because we live in a system built up of, and therefore consciously and unconsciously defending, these social constructs that are interconnected and benefit from each other.

Some of this discussion has been thoughtful and interesting. Just checking one thing - are we saying that race is 100% a social construct? Not sure how we are defining race and ethnicity but of course there are meaningful genetic and phenotypic differences between races or ethnicities that show there is something biological about different races or ethnicities. Of course these differences are so minor and there is much more variation within than between racial groups that there isn't much value to note them.

And thank you re: the discussion of whether certain people can or cannot be racist. We are just talking semantics here and definitions. In the common sense of the word everyone can be racist. Whether or not that aligns with a different definition of academic racism is irrelevant in this context (I personally don't know enough about Cynthia to make a claim about whether she is 'racist' though).

I think that Cynthia Erivo is jaw droppingly talented and I can't wait to see more of the glorious career she has ahead of her.

I'm not going to get into what is and isn't racism on this message board because that is...stressful.

Regardless, Cynthia Erivo isnt racist. That's ridiculous.

I follow her on Twitter, and I've seen the discourse. Cynthia Erivo simply speaks her mind and there's nothing wrong with that because like everyone else, she's a human being with agency. People are constantly sliding into her mentions with foolishness, and I don't blame her for addressing them every now and then. Once they decide to @ her, they open themselves up for her to @ them. It's how Twitter works.



At the end of the day, Cynthia Erivo is a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy award winning performer, and her career is only going up.