Texas Wesleyan University has canceled a planned presentation of a play written by a black playwright after the university’s Black Student Association complained that the opening scene depicts a white person saying the N-word.
Carlyle Brown, who is black, wrote Down in Mississippi, which depicts themes from the South during the Jim Crow era prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The play was set to be performed by the theater group at Texas Wesleyan University through the beginning of October.
CORNELL RESTORES LINCOLN BUST AFTER REMOVAL PROMPTED COMPLAINTS
But last week, the group abruptly canceled the play after students led by the Black Student Association threatened to boycott the performance because the opening scene depicts a white person calling a black person, who is seeking to help register black voters, the N-word.
In an Instagram post, the association claimed that “BIPOC,” or “black, indigenous, and people of color,” students were “deeply disturbed” at the scene and requested it to be removed.
“Because of the current sensitive campus climate & the slow to action on the Administration’s part since the demonstrations, this play being shown will further hurt Black students and possibly students from other marginalized communities,” the group said. “Although this play is written by a Black playwright, the production should not be shown if they can not change/remove this racial slur from the script; our campus (a Minority-Serving Institution) is not ready for a play of this magnitude.”
According to the Rambler, the campus student newspaper, Brown defended his work in a video call with students, saying he didn’t write the play to trigger them and that he was sad and insulted by the students’ assumption that he was “dismissive of black people.”
“You young people are the ones who need to take the mantle,” Brown said. “And so maybe you should be less fragile and try to listen to what your former generations are trying to teach you for the well good being of all of us.”
Several students who spoke at the discussion with Brown said they felt the school community was “not culturally mature enough” to handle the play properly.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We don’t need to hear the words to understand the impact in history,” one student said. “We talked multiple times about the things that happened to black people, Native Americans, Hispanics in this country, and we didn’t use any language like that.”
