Once again, the solution proposed for past racial discrimination is present racial discrimination. The Detroit music festival AfroFuture Fest, scheduled for August 3-4, is charging lower ticket prices for “people of color” than “non-people of color.” (That should be “people of non-color,” you idiots.) The festival’s explanation for its racism is even worse that its English and proofreading skills:
WHY DO WE HAVE POC(PEOPLE OF COLOR) AND NONPOC(WHITE PEOPLE) TICKETS? I’M GLAD YOU ASKED!
EQUALITY MEANS TREATING EVERYONE THE SAME
EQUITY IS INSURING EVERYONE HAS WHAT THEY NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL
OUR TICKET STRUCTURE WAS BUILT TO INSURE THAT THE MOST MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES (PEOPLE OF COLOR) ARE PROVIDED WITH AN EQUITABLE CHANCE AT ENJOYING EVENTS IN THEIR OWN COMMUNITY (BLACK DETROIT).
AFFORDING JOY AND PLEASURE IS UNFORTUNATELY STILL A PRIVILEGE IN OUR SOCIETY FOR POC AND WE BELIEVE EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE ACCESS TO RECEIVING SUCH.
WE’VE SEEN TOO MANY TIMES ORGASMIC EVENTS HAPPENING IN DETROIT AND OTHER POC POPULATED CITIES AND WHAT CONSISTENTLY HAPPENS IS PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF THE COMMUNITY BENEFITING MOST FROM AFFORDABLE TICKET PRICES BECAUSE OF THEIR PROXIMITY TO WEALTH.
THIS CYCLE DISPROPORTIONATELY DISPLACES BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE FROM ENJOYING ENTERTAINMENT IN THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES.
AS AN AFROFUTURIST YOUTH LEAD INITIATIVE THE VOICES OF OUR YOUTH INFORM OUR RESISTANCE.
HERE’S WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY
” IF YOU DON’T SEE MY BLACKNESS, YOU DON’T SEE ME. PERIODT!”
I wonder how they pronounced “periodt”?
This is, of course, illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title II states: “All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.” That includes “any motion picture house, theatre, concert hall, sports arena, stadium or other place of exhibition or entertainment.”
It’s hard to take the complaints and declarations of tribal advocacy groups seriously when their leaders show such ignorance of basic ethical principles as fairness and equality, as well as the law of the land and the concept of racism itself.
Mitigating this embarrassment is rapper Tiny Jag, whose real name is Jillian Graham, She was scheduled to perform at the AfroFuture Fest event, but when she learned about the ticket discrimination based on race, she announced that she was dropping out, saying,
“I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial,” Graham told the Detroit Metro Times. “I have family members that would have, under those circumstances, been subjected to something that I would not ever want them to be in … especially not because of anything that I have going on.”
OK, she’s not the most articulate or clever individual either, but at least she’s refusing to ally herself with hypocritical racists. Maybe just one -half of her is, I suppose. (They would still be wrong, and you should still be enraged, if you weren’t bi-racial, Tiny, but never mind.)
Ethics Alarms 
Went to school in the ‘hood. None of my classmates, regardless of color, would do something as stupid as this. This is what free public indoctrination instead of education gets you. The final statement is nearly the opposite of Dr. King’s content of character line. Dumbfounding. Horrifying, but somewhat predictable.
Any odds that the AfroFuture Fest promoters, and any guilt-inundated White Lefties stupid…I mean…WOKE enough to participate would be absolutely horrified, replete with spittle-flecked, slobbering social media/twitter hounds-from-hell mobs unleashed, were an Affirmative Action Bake Sale to set up camp near by?
I have several non-persons of color living with me, but I don’t think they would have been interested in the music. The white non-persons probably wouldn’t have been welcome, especially since some of them go around in blackface.
‘non-persons’
Like, what progressives call any baby up to two seconds before birth?
Of course, the whole event (like one recently held by Essessence magazine, and attended by Michelle Obama) falls into that substantial category of things that require tortured explanations of why they are not unacceptably discriminatory and divisive, but would be so if the word “white” were substituted for “black” (or an equivalent pair of terms).
And excoriate me for my insensitivity if you wish, but I can’t resist:
“I wonder how they pronounced “periodt”?”
I don’t know; why don’t you aks them?
In my defense:
That was perfectly acceptable Popeye-Speak. Come to think of it, “periodt” may be too…
Consider this, from the San Antonio Express’s coverage:
Yeah, well, good for her, lady. She can always make a donation. But charging unequal amounts based on race is illegal in this country, not to mention exactly the type of behavior Martin Luther King worked hard to end.
Seems appropriate.
You know, I have about three outlines for books and haven’t been able to get out of my own way enough to finish them. Then I read about published authors whose statements prove they are dumber than dirt. Makes me want to plotz.
Heh. What was that quote again about “… speak[ing] and remove[ing] all doubt?”
I think I might… need that.
Yeah. Blake was a hack!
That’s funny, assuming that you knew I wasn’t referring to Blake.
In Afrofuture’s defense, this seems to be an “initiative” set up and run by Black high school kids for Black high school kids in Detroit, so I will cut them some slack. It may just be a few students running the entire thing. However, there are website links to fund raising, tax exempt status, and other community organizing activities which seem fairly sophisticated for high school students, so there may be community organizers in the background pulling the strings.
I read some of the posts on their websites and these gems popped out at me:
“Afrofuture Youth is a Detroit based youth program centering the experiences of black youth in Detroit through allowing them to lead the way in co-creating a new world through the lens of Afrofuturism. It involves the implementation of a curriculum which involves healing modalities, Political Education sessions facilitated by fellow youth and adult community members, and youth mobilizing to empower youth to develop soultion oriented responses to social inequities. The result equips youth with the tools and start of an developing analysis to envision and create a future where lives of African descent can not only survive, but thrive. ” and
“Not only do not many spaces exist that encourage youth to build this world, but the spaces that exist don’t always allow youth to lead through solution oriented aproaches with healing as the foundation, have autonomy respected, or develop an analysis of social inequties that create the issues.”
The website is filled with what adults would consider nonsense or what Mel Brooks would call Authentic Frontier Gibberish. Here is the website with links to Twitter and Facebook:
https://www.ioby.org/project/afrofuture-youth
I think I know what “afrofuture” is but the term is not defined on their site.
The site does beg the question, though: Is this how Black youth see themselves? Has the US education system completely set up an Us v. Them belief system that encourages “people of color” to see themselves as second class citizens or worse? If that is the case, then it is no wonder that whole generations of people and genders see themselves as “otherized” or disenfranchised. I mean, Megan Rapinoe, the Captain of the US Women’s Soccer Team in the Women’s World Cup, openly ridiculed the President and rejected the US in the closing ceremonies in France yesterday, on some strange belief that she is oppressed under Trump’s presidency.* Then, there are the new breed of Democrats in Congress who see everything through race, gender, class, and religion (see, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and Omar). There are candidates running for the presidency who refused to condemn Rapinoe’s ingratitude or Ocasio-Cortez’s hysterical preenings after visiting detention centers last week. Likewise, the Texas Representative who replaced Former Furry Rep. O’Rourke has sent her team into Mexico to teach “asylum seekers” how to navigate the US immigration system, with no response in opposition from any of the braintrust on the Democrat ticket running for president.
I wonder if the Republic can be saved. It does not look encouraging.
jvb
*Ed. Note: That is something of a curiosity to me: how is it that she, an elite athlete playing a sport at the international level in France, is oppressed? Because her lifestyle was not valid or validated until St. Barack came to save us from ourselves? In response to the US victory, she now demands that women should be paid DOUBLE what male soccer players are paid. Not equal. DOUBLE. OK, Megan.
Mrs. OB and I, at her urging, rooted for “The Lionesses” (Evidently every women’s soccer team is so named in countries with monarchies?), the Dutch team. We spent almost three years there. Nineteen million vs. over three hundred million. The Dutch girls were simply over matched and worn out.
Plus, is there any acknowledgement of the beneficial impact of Title IX on the USWT? Certainly not from lovely Megan. It seemed as if almost all the girls on all the teams had played at US undergraduate institutions. (Why do we even have college athletics? For another day.) In any event, if Megan hasn’t noticed, the reason US women’s soccer is so dominant is Title IX. And as soon as the TV rights payed for the women’s world cup is increased by something along the lines of ten times, then she can bitch about her salary. Plus, it’s not a very interesting style of game. At the highest level, the men’s game is fun to watch. At the US men’s team or MLS level, it’s nothing to write home about.
” IF YOU DON’T SEE MY BLACKNESS, YOU DON’T SEE ME. PERIODT!”
This one just got me. Not the grammar-challenged part, but the “blackness” part.
I remember when African-Americans, among them Martin Luther King Jr., were calling on America to be color-blind.
What the hell happened to that? Now I’m supposed to “see your blackness” or you are somehow invisible? Why? Is your skin color so damned important that the content of your character can’t be measured without it? Is your pigmentation truly who you are, and not simply how you look?
MLK called for race-neutral policies — “color-blindness.” Now, activists are calling “color-blindness” a form of racism.
Does that not, by extension, make MLK racist? More likely, it makes people like the idiot quoted above stupid by comparison.
“Periodt” may be correct Ebonics.
I’m sure I don’t know. 🙂
I can’t improve in this.
IF YOU DON’T SEE MY BLACKNESS, YOU DON’T SEE ME. PERIODT!
I admit I wanted to see Morgan Freeman.
“Afrofuture Youth is a Detroit based youth program centering the experiences of black youth in Detroit through allowing them to lead the way in co-creating a new world through the lens of Afrofuturism.”
I’d have thought they would WANT people of different ethnicity and culture to see their program, rather than try to drive them away?
“Afrofuture Youth is a Detroit based youth program centering the experiences of black youth in Detroit through allowing them to lead the way in co-creating a new world through the lens of
Afrofuturism.”
It’s an ambitious program. I’ve heard at least one of the steps requires getting some vibranium.
I have questions about the ticket policy. Do Jews count as persons of color? Asians are wealthier than non-persons of color; do they still get a discount? How much of a discount does a fully African-American person receive? Maybe…3/5ths of a full-price ticket? Can the disadvantaged POC also get a separate doorway into the show? Maybe in the back so they can have backstage access? Can they get private bathrooms back there too? These all seem like the right kind of steps to tak to reverse our history of racist discrimination.
I liked this contribution to the discussion…
Regarding “people of non-color,” I prefer to think of myself as a “person of pallor”.
pink is a color…