[QUOTE=amarinth]
I don’t think it would be received well. I would guess something like the plantation tour guide comments, but worse.)
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On a tangentially related note, for anybody interested I’d recommend the Ask A Slave series on YouTube. It’s based on the true experiences of a woman who portrayed one of Martha Washington’s slaves at Mount Vernon and ranges from hysterical to jaw-dropping.
It’s not like they don’t already have perfectly valid reasons for that now. It’s not like black people don’t know their ancestors were enslaved. If it would be eye opening for anybody, it would be white people, but white people are often so goddamned defensive about racism that any attempt to honor the experiences/lives/trauma of people of color are immediately taken as a personal attack all about white people, so it might be pointless anyway.
I think it could be an excellent educational opportunity, but I wouldn’t want this done willy nilly by some organization trying to get money or publicity. It should be used as a tool of education and treated as the sobering subject that it is.
You want to re-enact a slave auction in the middle of a Southern town’s biggest party in 200 years? That’s simply insane. Such a re-enactment at Williamsburg is a fine idea, and might be a fine idea in your town at any other time. I know that historic anniversaries seem like a great time for some education, and it must pain you, as a scholar, to see history reduced to flags, beer, and yahoos, but people will be expecting entertainment, and the best you can hope for in this situation is to disappoint them. The worst…your colleagues are correct – incendiary is the word.
It certainly is incendiary. It reminds me of the atheists who want to put a statue of Satan next to the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn.
That’s why I support your crazy idea.
I voted tasteless and disrespectful.
What’s the point, especially if you’re not even having the balls to show an accurate depiction but some bowdlerised version? You can’t claim it’s a historical representation. Might as well have black auctioneers and white slaves, then…
Maybe afterwards, the crowd can stay for a minstrel show, I mean, those are historically accurate too…
Sampiro, have you approached your local NAACP chapter, or other black-led civil rights organizations? I would recommending proposing it to them, but deferring to their judgment.
In my middle school English class (late 90’s), we did a unit on slavery, which culminated in watching Roots during class for a few week, along with a “slave auction”. Half the class were slaves, the other half were buyers, with varying resources. There were quite a few restrictions on what your “slave” could do, but there was definitely a sense of humiliation involved, and this was in the rural Midwest.
A live re-enactment? Have fun, but I won’t be there.
As a white Southerner, I think it could be done very well and should be done. However, I’d worry about how my black neighbors would feel watching it; I think their feelings are a lot more important than mine. (I’ve seen plenty of reenactments of bad things and watched them in historical interest; I know a lot of people get very upset, though, about things like mock slave auctions in schools.)
I would also recommend, if this is a thing that’s to be done, that it be run by the black community.
A “toned-down,” sanitized version would indeed be disrespectful to the memory of those who endured the reality.
My random reactions have already been said-
Not for a town’s bicentennial celebration. Perhaps some other time.
As far as deterring Rebel Flag use, it might have a short-term effect but not for long. Heck, I never in my life wanted a Rebel Flag except for last Summer when they were being banned everywhere.
Too much risk of some trolls fubaring it.
Run the idea past your black friends & acquaintances.
They were never banned - state houses just decided to take them down.
And in Williamsburg people are there expecting historical reenactments. Doing this in an open area of the city means people there for the celebration will just wander up to see what the commotion is about. Putting it in advertisements for the event would make it seem like part of the entertainment. “Come to the 200th anniversary celebration! Food trucks! Face painting! Slave auction!”
The world should be colorblind but it’s not. Such an event run by a middle aged white guy is doomed to failure.
Not necessarily. The project I linked earlier was run by a white guy. Black participants and visitors for the most part seemed to find it a powerful statement about/against racism.
I don’t mean the state houses taking them down- and “banning” was too extreme a word, but when they became so taboo that “Dukes of Hazzard” episodes were no longer run, General Lee auto models would no longer included the Rebel Flag, and eBay & Amazon refused to carry them. (Btw, I have no idea if these were enacted to the degree they were announced or if they’ve snuck the flag back in.)
[QUOTE=Peremensoe]
A “toned-down,” sanitized version would indeed be disrespectful to the memory of those who endured the reality.
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Toning it down is not a testicular lacking but a concession to modern law: not to tone it down would require frontal nudity, which is illegal in most jurisdictions where kids might be in attendance.
I’ve been to several reenactments of minstrel shows, actually, done for several reasons. Hell, at risk of torpedoing any credibility I’ll concede that I read and sang the role of Mister Interlocutor in a reading of the Kander-Ebb musical The Scottsboro Boys (a play in which two white Jews retold the story of a racial horror as a minstrel show). The Shakespeare Festival I live walking distance to did a particularly great play about African-American blackface performer Bert Williams (with a cast that included white actors in black face).
While I acknowledge their offensiveness, I would not call them horrifying and I don’t think they ever destroyed multiple lives on a weekly basis while good Christians watched and participated, so I’m not really seeing the similarity. There are many good arguments as to why the slave auction is not a good idea, but personlly I find comparing an auction to a minstrel show in terms of horror the most disrespectful and misguided thing in the thread. YMMV.
Instead of doing a live auction why not do an exhibit like was done on Bones. The episode was about the finding of a sunk slave ship. Angela did facial reconstructions and then made portraits of the slaves (why, yes, she could whip up 40 or so oil or maybe it was colored pencil portraits in no time). They were able to put a name to most of the slaves due to a bill of lading. Cam could possibly have been related to one of the female slaves (unusual name was shared with her great-grandmother). As they read off the bill of lading they lit up each portrait. I was bawling by the end of the episode.
Sensitive would be using pix of people who have traced their genealogy to a slave. Maybe a modern dressed photo with their tree in red and black on the right side. Putting a face to the idea, so to speak. Dressing them up in old timey clothes just doesn’t set right, to me.
Then don’t admit kids.
No just no, but Hell No. How about you realistically re-enact a lynching while you’re at it? A nice cross burning as well? This is not history so ancient that there’s no longer any repercussions, emotional or otherwise, for the descendants. We’re still dealing with enough racism-based bullshit today. This might be one of the worst ideas ever floated on the Dope, and I’m a little surprised at the poll numbers suggesting that many of you think this would be a good idea.
I have a better suggestion. If you want to impress upon people the horror of a slave auction why don’t you make it an audience engagement thing. Grab a nice tourist family from Boise. Put em up on that stage, snatch the children from their parents, strip the parents naked (so the can be inspected for health, of course). It’ll be an experience they’ll never forget, if that’s what you are going for.