{"id":974,"date":"2019-11-03T17:49:43","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T21:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/?p=974"},"modified":"2019-11-03T22:35:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T02:35:00","slug":"censorship-in-the-name-of-political-correctness-isnt-the-role-of-theater-play-artists-to-play-roles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/2019\/11\/03\/censorship-in-the-name-of-political-correctness-isnt-the-role-of-theater-play-artists-to-play-roles\/","title":{"rendered":"Censorship in the name of political correctness: Isn\u2019t the role of theater play artists to play roles?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A 22-year-old social justice hardcore activist, called Maisaloon Al-Ashkar<\/a> (https:\/\/checkyourhead.org\/people\/maisaloon-al-ashkar\/<\/a>) and her peers, calling themselves \u201cNo Blackfaces in Vancouver<\/em>\u201d protested against a theater play in Surrey. The school hosting the production decided to cancel it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/bc.ctvnews.ca\/video?clipId=1819727&jwsource=cl<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funny, how these cultural \u201cterrorists\u201d (killing any form of arts they find offending) did not pick up on a man playing the role of \u201cIm Hussein\u201d or another lady (\u201cIm or Om Hussein\u201d refers to his mom in Arabic). They did not start a whole saga around gender appropriateness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe they tried? Who knows? Arab-Americans do not seem to see themselves as victims to that degree that Bambi calls \u201cacute victimhood\u201d (she usually uses the term in French, \u201cvictimite aigu\u00eb<\/em>\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Bambi is saying this and she is 100% against\ndisrespect to any person or any group in our society, from any origins (African,\nHaitian, Chinese, Arabs, French-Canadians, Anglophones, Iranians, Jews,\nMuslims, tall folks, short people, and what have you).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the context of arts, painting one\u2019s skin or wearing a mask or pretending to be a black person or an Arab or whatever else is NOT blackface in the true sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is simply art, even if artists would be satirically imitating someone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arts is all about free creativity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we do not like this sort of art, we do not have to purchase a ticket. Plus, how about learning to grow a thicker skin for once, whether its colour is yellow, black, or white?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists may choose to pretend to be a chair, if they wish, or even an insect (e.g., \u201cGreta\u2019s\u201d new insect, if they like; yes there is a species now called Greta as tribute). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They may imitate a Moose or even God, if they wish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

P.S: This is clearly different from the blackface\nmeant to make fun or humiliate black people (a hate act).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are we allowing this form of censorship of arts to\ntake place again and again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And who gets to decide what is morally acceptable or\nmorally worthy of censorship?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bambi does not know this theater company (from the States, it seems). She was curious and googled it. She also listened to its artistic director, Mr. Aziz Al-Sharabati. He seems like a reasonable man. He uses art to combat prejudice and racism, it seems. How ironic all this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a waste of time, money, and oil (he was on the airplane on his way to Vancouver when the decision of the school came out; https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/surrey-double-trouble-1.5345465<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of this illuminated young radical activist and her peers, there has been more pollution in the skies and less art in Vancouver schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the school that took the decision to cancel the\nshow, it is sad to see no push back to silliness in our society, not even an\nopportunity to have a clever discussion on where to draw the line between freedom\nof expression and what may seem to be offensive like this sort of costume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking about costumes, this brings Bambi to Mr.\nTrudeau. Of course, he is not racist (just hypocritically incompetent, although\nwell-intentioned). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, Canadian voters seem to have forgotten and forgiven him for his stories of blackface and other costumes abroad. They voted for him, even if this time with a minority government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We forgave and re-elected him. However, we are\/remain too harsh with each other and\u2026 with our guests? Our media even called this theater play \u201cracist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this a form of double-standard (apartheid?) in the\naccusations of racism?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 22-year-old social justice hardcore activist, called Maisaloon Al-Ashkar (https:\/\/checkyourhead.org\/people\/maisaloon-al-ashkar\/) and her peers, calling themselves \u201cNo Blackfaces in Vancouver\u201d protested against a theater play in Surrey. The school hosting the production decided to cancel it: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":992,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}