Wait, You Can’t Talk About Race That Way!

The often awkward, sometimes deliberate, booming silence – it saturates our ears and throats to the point of drowning. It is the silence of thought and the silence of interruption. Silence before the exclamation that we “talk about race” and the break after we realize that we cannot talk about it – at least not in that way.

How to start a conversation about race?

In addition to having a end goal in mind for the conversation, art helps me move the discussion. Pictures, paintings, music, dance, and performance challenge. The subsequent arguments, listening, lectures, discussions, verbal play, remixes, analysis, perspectives, stories, and off-hand conversations help me to understand.

Here’s an invitation to conversation. Kirsten Greenidge’s Baltimore is about the conversation on race playing out – or not – within a college or university setting.  The play is real; it’s troubling; it’s multi-racial; it asks questions about generational perspectives; it’s multi-racial in scope; and, it’s beautiful. Baltimore is free for Boston University students and features post-show discussions (disclosure: I am a panelist a for a few of the discussions). Go to a show but try to be deliberate about sitting in the room with someone with whom you’ve never discussed race.  (Better yet, organize as student clubs and associations in conjunction with other student clubs and associations with whom you don’t usually interact – I might spring for the bus to take you to the show.)

Go to a show and hope a serious discussion breaks out. Let art do what it knows how – give you a start to new conversations. Hope to see you at the show.

Peace.