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SMITH: And I think Ayanna’s point about skepticism then ties neatly into that point. That is, we need to be far more skeptical about the way we think we can very, sort of easily, tell Othello’s story. We learn from behavioral psychologists, who have done these sort of studies recently, that as a country in the United States, we’re still… 75 percent of us are more likely to be biased towards whiteness. So, if that’s true, then Shakespeare’s argument where he says, well, can we tell stories across sort of racial divides? The data I just cited would suggest to us that that is a kind of very problematic, but also, at the same time, exciting undertaking. a b Filice, Eric; Raffoul, Amanda; Meyer, Samantha B.; Neiterman, Elena (2019-07-05). "The Impact of Social Media on Body Image Perceptions and Bodily Practices among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Critical Review of the Literature and Extension of Theory". Sex Roles. 82 (7–8): 387–410. doi: 10.1007/s11199-019-01063-7. ISSN 1573-2762. S2CID 198629523. O'Donnell, Ian (9 November 2017). Justice, Mercy, and Caprice: Clemency and the Death Penalty in Ireland. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-251943-6– via Google Books.
This podcast, “Teach Him How To Tell My Story,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Tobey Shreiner at WAMU-FM in Washington, DC, Neil Hever at radio station WDIY in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Jeff Peters at Marketplace in Los Angeles. But I wonder if it it really works, or if the baggage that Shakespeare’s name brings with it, which is almost always positive… It’s hard to think of any negative baggage that comes along with Shakespeare’s name in our cultural climate. But I wonder if that kind of force of the positivity of his reputation gets in the way of having real, productive conversations about race. Ian, I’m curious what you think about that.While we celebrate 50 years of Pride this year, Metro.co.uk is shining a light on two charities that offer life saving support to the LGBTQ+ community - and asking readers to please donate whatever you can to help them both continue to help others. There was no single authoritative standard for the code. This table is drawn from Larry Townsend's The Leatherman's Handbook II (the 1983 second edition; the 1972 first edition did not include this list) and is generally considered authoritative. Implicit in this list is the concept of left/right polarity, left as usual indicating the top, dominant, or active partner; right the bottom, submissive, or passive partner. Townsend noted that discussion with a prospective partner was still important because, people may wear a given color "only because the idea of the hankie turns them on" or "may not even know what it means". [8] Color SMITH: Yes, that actually is a quote from Adrienne Rich. And, not just the person’s view on talking about Othello in this way, but also the experience of others in that room for whom that kind of approach to talking about race has a definite impact. That is to say, when somebody sits or stands in a room and makes that sort of declaration, there are intended consequences. Some of us in the room are quite unsettled by that sort of statement, right? A writer, Tim Wise, talks about white privilege and power, and to quote him, he says, “That which keeps people of color off balance in a racist society is that which keeps whites in control.” Also known as flagging, the handkerchief code involves wearing a hankie or bandana in a specific colour to nonverbally communicate.
That is, he now recognizes everything that has gone wrong and he says essentially, I want someone to tell my story. But he makes it very clear that he wants that story to be told in a just, fair way. And so we ask ourselves, why does he pause to make that kind of distinction? And then, for me, it became clear, especially if you put this play side-by-side with Hamlet. Hamlet’s dying. He has a friend, Horatio, and, he says, tell my story when I die, and Horatio in that play is the just man. And he knows that he’ll have someone to tell his story; Othello doesn’t. SMITH: Yes, I think on two grounds. One, he thought that perhaps, historically, people weren’t interested in seeing the play in that way in Shakespeare’s time, which, as you just suggested, is really sort of startling, because of the very clear and numerous derogatory references to skin color in the play. And, the second thing I thought that he was trying to do, too, was something perhaps a little bit more powerful and dangerous. That is, he was suggesting that race was not something that people thought about in Shakespeare’s time, and the term “race” itself, he was suggesting, didn’t have the kind of force that it has for us until the 18th century or so, that somehow we were misusing a term that was anachronistic. And so, he was correcting us and saying that we should not be deploying a term in such a careless fashion. Fischer, Hal (1977). Gay Semiotics ♂. San Francisco: NFS Press. ISBN 0-917986-03-2. Archived from the original on 2019-10-18 . Retrieved 2017-06-23. In San Francisco, the signs began appearing around 1971. The Trading Post, a department store specializing in erotic merchandise, began promoting handkerchiefs in the store and printing cards with their meanings. The red and blue handkerchiefs and their significance were already in existence, and meanings were assigned to other colors as well. BOGAEV: And a corrective in that, people talk about Othello being about race, obviously. There are a lot of references to race or to color, and he was going to correct this simplistic reading?
The shoes
What is astounding to me is that that sort of very narrow thinking somehow did not and does not give due credence to the fact that there are patterns of behavior and sort of practices that Shakespeare was clearly calling attention to, to which we may give the term “race.” But, the patterns of behavior are still very much recognizable. And so, to quibble over the term “race” itself in that very narrow way, I think, is to try to use historical accuracy as a kind of moral high ground from which to really delegitimize race work and to silence others from doing that kind of work.
Eddie witnesses Chrissy Cunningham's death and is the last person to see her alive, so it makes sense why he becomes a wanted man. Granted, those outside the core group aren't aware of the terrors that reside under Hawkins. Chrissy's boyfriend, Jason, leads the charge to find "Eddie the Freak," believing his connection to Dungeons & Dragons is the cause of the deaths in town. With the help of Dustin, Steve, and the others, Eddie stays hidden until he officially joins the group in investigating Vecna. BARBARA BOGAEV: Ian, I’d like to start with a story that you tell about the time you were on a panel at a Shakespeare conference and it was about Othello, and one of your fellow panelists kept insisting that Othello is not about race. So, tell us about that and your reaction to that. Far later, in 1970s New York, it was common practice for men to wear their keys on the left or right to signify if they were a ‘top’ or ‘bottom’. A writer for the Village Voice joked about using different-coloured hankies to display their sexual preferences, and the idea caught on.And why is that? Because he also understands that at that moment his immediate audience is all white, and that for them to tell his story is a much more treacherous adventure on their part, than it might otherwise be, if he were able to tell it himself or if he had a reliable friend who could tell the story, too. And so, to assume that it means something very negative, I think, is by definition a sort of curious resistance to confronting and facing a history of relationships. Which, by virtue of what Ayanna is saying, Shakespeare gives us a wide audience, gives us a sort of wide playing field, in which multiple constituents might come together. And, instead, what we find is this real fear to not have that verbal play, that intellectual play. SMITH: Whereas I see the play as making a point for a modern audience about raising the question about, “How can we tell stories?” Shakespeare himself puts it in a racialized context. That is, he says, how can we, now, as modern day audiences, how can we tell Othello’s story when Othello himself is very anxious about how that story’s going to be told? When I talk about Othello essentially saying, Well, who’s going to tell my story? I think the sort of meta dimension of that is about us as audiences and critics. How do we tell that story?
BOGAEV: Ayanna, jump in here. Is this your experience as well of Shakespeare in academia or in circles where you’re talking about Othello? That if we are aware that we as a culture, and a culture of critics, and a culture of audiences, etcetera, and readers and students, if we have this sort of bias that still dominates what we do, how we think, how we read race in American culture, then the end of Othello really makes a demand in us to then be much more conscious and humble at the same time, when we say we want to talk about Othello, or make declarations like, “ Othello is not about race.” But it makes us think about, “Well, how reliable are we? And what is the basis of our saying that?” I think that’s important. And I said, “Oh, you’re not comfortable talking about race in a mixed environment, are you?” And I saw 60 heads nod in unison. And I said, “Okay, listen. You’ve been talking about rape. You’ve been talking about violence, you know, killing people in ‘Beowulf.’ You’ve been talking about a lot of hot button issues. We can get through this together, if you’re willing to, you know, be willing to say something, and be willing to make a mistake, and we can learn from that together. But, we’re not going to learn anything, if you’re going to sit there silently.” And finally, they started opening up. “I think this is a racist play.” And, “I love Shakespeare, but this seems racist to me.” You know, like, they were all over the map with their very emotive reactions to Othello. THOMPSON: And so, while I agree and think that we’ve got to diversify the Shakespearean world to have more voices included, we also need people who already exist in the field who are willing to say, “I’m skeptical of the narrative you’re telling me. Actually, this is about race. Actually, this is about power. Actually, they’re related.” I wish that more of our colleagues would be willing to be those kinds of listeners and readers, instead of the ones who react violently or aggressively to information that seems to go against what they already know.The question for me, really, is whether Shakespeare, the cultural weight of Shakespeare’s fame, gets in the way of talking about race in a productive fashion. And I think this is something that’s been hard to have a real conversation about with other Shakespeareans and with practitioners, with actors and directors, because they all want to make it very relevant and make it meaningful for their audiences, whether your audience is a student, a fellow scholar, or, you know, actual theater audiences. And, in a real sense, in that kind of discussion, when somebody makes that kind of declaration, there’s an attempt to coopt the conversation, there’s an attempt to control the conversation, and there’s an attempt to silence those who would want to produce a sort of progressive argument about race and similar topics. And so, that is why I then referred to Adrienne Rich, where it is about a sort of view then, that would rather perpetuate the idea that we live in a world in which we think or we imagine or we speak as if whiteness is the totality of experience and knowledge. BOGAEV: Well, a call to be open about and to challenge our assumptions, that is such a wonderful place to end. Thank you so much. It’s been wonderful talking with both of you. Metro.co.uk appreciates that the cost of living has impacted everyone and money may be tight, but if you are able to make a donation and help change someone’s life both here and in Ukraine, you can do so here.
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