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      Review: Martha Washington, Hilariously Haunted by Her Slaves

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      James Ijames’s amusingly cynical and eclectic new play, “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington,” is at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival through July 30.On an evening train back from the Hudson Valley last weekend, I overheard two drunken friends — one white, one Indian American — having a loud, expletive-ridden debate two rows behind me.History was irrelevant, the white friend was saying. Between Cold Spring and Yonkers, they argued about police brutality, institutional racism and citizenship, but they kept circling back to the topic of reparations. “If my grandfather was a serial killer, why do I have to pay for his crimes?” he asked. He said history was being used against him. The past is the past — so why should he suffer?That this experience followed a performance of James Ijames’s stunning new play, “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington,” directed by Taylor Reynolds at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, was an event of stage-worthy irony. The theater gods certainly have a sense of humor.And so does Ijames (“Fat Ham,” “TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever”), though his is laced with a brutal sense of cynicism. I say that as a compliment: What else could be more appropriate to the obscene joke that is this country’s treatment of its Black residents? In “Miz Martha Washington,” George Washington is dead and his wife, Martha (played by Nance Williamson), seems about ready to follow him to the grave. Ann Dandridge (a sharp Britney Simpson) — her slave and also her half sister, who is unfortunately tangled up in Martha’s line of ancestry — tends to the former first lady while raising her own son, William (a perfectly jejune Tyler Fauntleroy).Martha is weak and feverish, talking nonsense and having hallucinations while Ann and the rest of her slaves — the Washingtons held hundreds, historically — continue to cook her food, clean her floors, chop her wood and polish her silverware, as they’ve done her whole life. But now they’re antsy and less accommodating: In his will, Washington offered the slaves freedom upon his wife’s death.In a series of hallucinations, her slaves appear as lawyers, prosecutors and historical figures who try to show her how accountable she is in a system of oppression. Her fever dreams include chats with Abigail Adams, Betsy Ross and Thomas Jefferson, all of them Black; a game show hosted by a Black King George and Queen Charlotte; and a “People’s Court”-style trial. She should just do the right thing and free her slaves while she’s still alive, but it’s hard to be ethical when you’re accustomed to a certain lifestyle.“Miz Martha Washington” bears the signature of Ijames’s clever wit: He writes the slaves as more than docile stereotypes; these slaves have personality to spare, and they joke and sing with a threatening jocularity. You know how baring one’s teeth can be a sign of joy or hostility? Ijames does.Two female slaves, Doll (Cyndii Johnson) and Priscilla (Claudia Logan), act as twin jesters in the play, clowning and gossiping at Martha’s expense — as when Priscilla acts out what she hopes will be Martha’s “death rattle,” a hilariously odd sound that falls somewhere between a groan and a screech. They don’t talk purely in the expected dialect of stage slaves, but in an anachronistic mix of that with modern Black American vernacular.All of the elements of the production have a bit of this playful mash-up approach (which recalls the style of other great Black playwrights like George C. Wolfe, Adrienne Kennedy and Suzan-Lori Parks). In terms of plot, the play recalls, of all things, “A Christmas Carol,” as Martha is haunted by her wrongs. But “Miz Martha Washington” is never as procedural as that; scenes set in the real world are broken up by dance interludes with disco lights and by surreal fantasies like a reverse auction in which the slaves, posed as owners, examine and bid on Martha.Even the costumes, by Hahnji Jang, are sportively eclectic, with clashing patterns and colors — along with additional anachronistic details, like hoop earrings and sneakers. Under Reynolds’s puckish direction, the tone, too, whips from exaggerated sitcom-style humor (hammy facial reactions, quick comedic beats) to poetic surrealism (a young slave boy’s prophetic monologue) to tragedy (accounts of abuse, sexual assault).Cyndii Johnson, foreground center, plays a slave who also serves as a kind of jester, joking and gossiping at Martha’s expense.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWhen the slaves sing and dance and drum around poor, sick Martha’s bed, it looks like a dark sacrificial ritual or an exorcism of America’s evils. And when one slave laughs, and the sound is joined by an offstage chorus of laughter from other slaves, the thunder is spirited at first but then quickly becomes unnerving. As Ijames notes in his script, “Laughter is a weapon.”And yet Martha isn’t a meek, quivering pupil to the slaves’ lessons on the debts America owes to its Black people; Williamson pivots from pleas to commands, fear to rage, declaring herself America’s mother, a woman who “did right” by her slaves, and refusing to be spooked into more righteous behavior.Behind the simple staging of Martha’s bed on a sandy patch of ground, an opening in the tent on the beautiful lawn of the Boscobel House and Gardens, in Garrison, N.Y., revealed a backdrop of mountains and a hazy blue sky. This view, which dimmed over time into the buzzing, uninterrupted darkness of the evening, for me recalled the ways our American mythos is tied to grand landscapes — “amber waves” and “purple mountain majesties” for white explorers and white landowners. All fitting for a show confronting questions about freedom, inheritance and birthright. (“Miz Martha Washington” is part of the festival’s 34th and final season before it moves to a new location.)I couldn’t help but imagine how much greater the show would be on a big Broadway stage with all the fixings, so to speak. After all, Ijames’s revisionism works, in many ways, as the inverse to “Hamilton.” “Hamilton” uses its Black and brown actors to reclaim history as a story of hope for immigrants, minorities, the disenfranchised. It’s a rebranding of the American dream. “Miz Martha Washington” uses its Black actors to expose the blights of the American dream and the hypocrisies of our historical narratives.And so the hilarious Brandon St. Clair is the obliging slave Davy as well as a very Black — and priceless — George Washington, resurrected from the dead. And another slave, Sucky Boy (Ralph Adriel Johnson), appears as a humorously tactless Black Thomas Jefferson.Does the play have a happy, inspirational ending? Well, let me just say that despite Ijames’s antic fabrications, he is ultimately tethered to the tragedy that is America. And we all know how that story goes.On the train after the show, the conversation between the two friends seemed to stretch on forever. When the white friend got off, after saying he had enjoyed the “discourse,” a fresh silence took over. Infuriated by the ignorant, racist statements I had been hearing, I walked over and spoke to the Indian American man, a lawyer named Ash.“You’re totally right on everything,” I said. “I’m not sure you should bother.” He gave me a fist bump and said that he still wanted to try.About halfway through the play, Priscilla says to Doll, “Hard work openin’ folks’ eyes,” to which Doll responds, “Huh … you can say that again.”But are we all accountable for our fellow citizens who are, if not explicitly racist, at least complicit in the systems and institutions that degrade and oppress? Does Ijames consider his work educational, a corrective? I would wager not. History has taught us that even our most high-minded foundational ideals — “all men are created equal” — can be interpreted to a single group’s advantage or be a basis of manipulation. You can’t teach a person humanity if it’s a lesson they don’t want to learn.In the fairy tale version of our country’s racial politics, we all learn about justice and skip happily toward the future. I, for one, am done with fairy tales as history — and patient explanations. Give me the harder truth of Ijames’s fantastical version any day.The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha WashingtonThrough July 30 at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Garrison, N.Y.; 845-265-9575, hvshakespeare.org. More

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      in Music

      ‘Summer of Soul’ Review: In 1969 Harlem, a Music Festival Stuns

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      Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and others shine in a documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival from Questlove.There’s no shortage of system shocks in “Summer of Soul.” This is a concert movie that basically opens with a 19-year-old, pre-imperial-era Stevie Wonder getting behind a drum kit and whomping away — sitting, standing, kicking, possessed. It’s a movie that nears its end with Nina Simone doing “Backlash Blues” in a boxing match with the keys of her piano, her hair indistinguishable from the conical art piece affixed to her head.The movie’s got Sly and the Family Stone and B.B. King and Ray Barretto and Gladys Knight & the Pips, in top, electric form. But no jolt compares to what happens in the middle of this thing, which is simply — though far from merely — footage from the 1969 edition of the Harlem Cultural Festival, footage that Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, has rescued and assembled into nearly two-hours of outrageous poignancy. It’s all been cooking before this midway moment. But it’s once you’re there, engulfed in it, that you trust Thompson’s strategy.Sometimes these archival-footage documentaries don’t know what they’ve got. The footage has been found, but the movie’s been lost. Too much cutting away from the good stuff, too much talking over images that can speak just fine for themselves, never knowing — in concert films — how to use a crowd. The haphazard discovery blots out all the delight. Not here. Here, the discovery becomes the delight. Nothing feels haphazard.After the energetic asides about Mayor John Lindsay’s earnest support of the festival and Maxwell House’s sponsorship; after an exuberant montage of the outfits and stage patter of the festival’s charismatic and, it must be said, dashing mastermind, Tony Lawrence; after a poignant, illuminating passage on the overlooked, much fretted over quintet the Fifth Dimension, Thompson plunks us down in the middle of a meaty gospel passage.The Edwin Hawkins Singers kick it off with their rendition of “Oh Happy Day,” which at the time was a massive hit. Then the Staple Singers — Pops and his daughters Cleotha, Yvonne and Mavis — come on and dress “Help Me Jesus” in rockabilly robes. Not far behind is the pulpit dervish Clara Walker, whose exhortative way with a tune doubles as furnace and fan.Now, these performances took place over six summer Sundays. So I don’t know what any particular day’s official, chronological lineup was, but Thompson and his editor, Joshua L. Pearson, have done some mighty hefty truncation. Minutes after Walker and her Gospel Redeemers, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson appears, looking as beatifically beatnik as he’d ever get. Backing him is the Breadbasket Orchestra and Choir, and he begins to tell the many Harlemites densely packed before him that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last words were to the Breadbasket’s leader, Ben Branch. King told him that he wanted him to play the gospel pillar “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” And here now to grant that wish is Mahalia Jackson, who many a time sang it at King’s request.Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson, performing at the festival, which took place over six summer Sundays.Searchlight PicturesIt’s important to note, that during this passage, Mavis Staples and Reverend Jackson have also been narrating the scene from the present. Speaking today, using her front-porch husk, Staples remembers that Mahalia Jackson, her idol, leaned over and asked for her accompaniment. Mavis Staples was around 30; Mahalia Jackson was in her late 50s and wasn’t feeling well.Staples goes first, alone and a-blast. Jackson follows her with equal force and in defiance of whatever had been ailing her. Then together — Jackson refulgent in a fuchsia gown with a gold diamond emblazoned below her bosom; Staples in something short, lacy, belted and white — they embark on the single most astounding duet I’ve ever heard, seen or felt. They share the microphone. They pass it between them. Howling, moaning, wailing, hopping, but well within the song’s generous contours and, somehow, in control of themselves. My tears weren’t jerked as I watched. The ducts simply gave way, and the mask I wore at the theater where I sat was eventually covered in runny, viscous salt.They’re singing for the festival’s attendees. They’re mourning all of the death — of leaders, of followers, of troops and civilians. They are, if you’re willing to see it this way, lamenting what is obviously a generational transition from one phase of Black political expression to another, from resolve to anger, from the grandiloquence of Jackson’s pile of hair to Staples’s blunter Afro. They are singing this cherished classic of bereavement in order to mourn the present and the past. Listening to them now, in the summer of 2021, plumb earth and scrape sky, you weep, not only for the raw beauty of their voices but because it feels as if these two instruments of God were also mourning the future.I don’t remember how long this performance lasts. It doesn’t really even have an ending, per se. It just simply concludes, with each woman heading back to Reverend Jackson, into the band. But when it’s over you don’t know what to do — well, besides never forget it. It’s an extraordinary event not just of musical history. It’s a mind-blowing moment of American history. And for five decades, the footage of it apparently just sat in a basement, waiting for someone like Thompson to give it its due.The whole movie is dues-giving. It’s true that nothing matches the high of Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples. Yet nothing that surrounds them feels puny or like an afterthought. Thompson has an assortment of people watch footage from the festival — attendees who were kids and teenagers at the time, performers who were there, folks like Sheila E., who learned her craft from some of these artists. And I was almost as devastated by the sight of Marilyn McCoo’s putting her hands to her face as she watches her younger self with the rest of the Fifth Dimension, recounting how in-between they felt as Black artists who Black people didn’t always think were Black enough. Their sound was light and round and reliant upon strings and harmonies that were commercial for 1969 but not cool. In this film, among Simone and Max Roach and Hugh Masekela, the Fifth Dimension don’t at all seem like outsiders. They seem like family.Throughout this thing, Thompson is dropping explanatory information and montages that are crosscut with more information. A passage about the national climate of ’69, for instance, is mixed in with the Chambers Brothers’ festival performance. And you’re sitting there in awe at how the film hasn’t lost you. It’s got its own rhythm. The images, the music, the news, the reminiscences, the commentary often come at you at once. And with another director what you’d be left with is noise, with mess. This is certainly where Thompson’s being a bandleader — a band-leading drummer; a band-leading drummer who D.J.s — matters. The onslaught operates differently here. The chaos is an idea.On one hand, this is just cinema. On the other, there’s something about the way that the editing keeps time with the music, the way the talking is enhancing what’s onstage rather than upstaging it. In many of these passages, facts, gyration, jive and comedy are cut across one another yet in equilibrium. So, yeah: cinema, obviously. But also something that feels rarer: syncopation.This festival took place the same summer that Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon. The movie deftly accounts for the dissonance between the two events. It’s the answer to the brief, shrewd passage in Damien Chazelle’s “First Man” that intercuts the landing with Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon.” These two movies would make a searing double feature of the same moment in American progress, on the ground and up in space. Of course, it’s hard not to leave this movie fully aware that, at that point, in 1969, with the country convulsed by war, racism and Richard Nixon, the power of those artists assembled in New York right then makes a firm case that Harlem was the moon.But the movie’s sense of politics isn’t so despondent. Thompson winds things down with Sly and the Family Stone doing “Higher.” That band was male and female, Black and white — weird, rubbery, ecstatic, yet tight, hailing from no appreciable tradition, inventing one instead. It’s been more than half a century, and I still don’t know where these cats came from. They simply seem sent from an American future that no one has to mourn.Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)Rated PG-13 (some cursing and lustiness, lots of spirit catching). Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters. More

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      in Theater

      With New Show, a Broadway Rarity: Season Has 7 Plays by Black Writers

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      “Chicken & Biscuits,” a new comedy by Douglas Lyons, will star Norm Lewis and Michael Urie. Performances will begin on Sept. 23.Plays by Black writers have been few and far between on Broadway over the years. The coming season will feature at least seven.The latest entrant is “Chicken & Biscuits,” a new comedy that last year ran for two weeks at Queens Theater before the pandemic forced it to close.Much of the creative and producing team will be in leadership roles for the first time on Broadway — the playwright, Douglas Lyons, was previously in the ensemble of “Beautiful” and “The Book of Mormon,” while the director, Zhailon Levingston, is an assistant director of “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.”Onstage, there will be some familiar faces: Norm Lewis and Michael Urie, both well-known and well-liked by theater audiences. Lewis, a Tony nominee for “Porgy and Bess,” is best known as a singer, and this will be his first Broadway play; Urie is on more familiar ground as a comedic actor, and he was featured in a virtual reading of the play during the pandemic.Three of the show’s lead producers, Pamela Ross, E. Clayton Cornelious and Leah Michalos, are in that role for the first time. A fourth, Hunter Arnold, has producing credits on 29 shows, and is one of the lead producers of “Hadestown.”These plays arrive at a time of intensified attention on racial inequity in many corners of society, including the theater industry. Lyons founded the Next Wave Initiative, a scholarship program for Black theater artists; Lewis is a founding member of Black Theater United; and Levingston is the director of industry initiatives for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition. The coalition will be recognized with a special Tony Award this fall.“Chicken & Biscuits,” which is about a family that gathers for a funeral and is forced to reckon with a secret, is scheduled to start performances Sept. 23 and to open Oct. 10 at the Circle in the Square Theater. The play will be the first to move to Broadway from Queens Theater, a nonprofit performing arts center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.“This show was the one that Covid-19 interrupted for us,” said the theater’s executive director, Taryn Sacramone. “To go from that moment — abrupt shutdown — to now seeing ‘Chicken & Biscuits’ move to Broadway in this moment of reopening for the city — this feels incredibly meaningful.”The other plays by Black writers scheduled to run next season are “Pass Over,” by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu; “Lackawanna Blues,” by Ruben Santiago-Hudson; “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” by Keenan Scott II; “Trouble in Mind,” by Alice Childress; “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage; and “Skeleton Crew,” by Dominique Morisseau. More

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      in Movies

      ‘In the Heights’ y el colorismo: lo que se pierde cuando se borra a los afrolatinos

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      La película, ambientada en un barrio neoyorquino conocido como la Pequeña República Dominicana, no incluyó a latinos de piel oscura en los papeles principales. Críticos y reporteros del Times analizan cómo repercute esa ausencia.In the Heights, la muy postergada adaptación de Hollywood del musical de Broadway, se presentó como un avance para la representación latina en Hollywood, pero ha suscitado una conversación sobre el colorismo y el reparto de la película.El barrio neoyorquino en el que se desarrolla la historia, Washington Heights, es predominantemente afrodominicano. En una entrevista, Felice León, productora de video para The Root, le preguntó a Jon M. Chu, el director, y a algunas de las estrellas sobre la falta de protagonistas de piel oscura en la película: “Como mujer negra de ascendencia cubana, específicamente de la ciudad de Nueva York”, le dijo, “sería negligente por mi parte no reconocer el hecho de que la mayoría de sus actores principales son personas latinas de piel clara o blanca”. Chu dijo que se trataba de una conversación pendiente y de algo sobre lo que necesitaba educarse. Al final, dijo, trataron “de conseguir a la gente que era mejor para esos papeles”.Lin-Manuel Miranda, integrante del equipo creativo de la película, que incluye a la escritora Quiara Alegría Hudes, abordó las críticas la semana pasada en un comunicado en Twitter. Se disculpó por quedarse corto al “intentar pintar un mosaico de esta comunidad”. Varios latinos destacados salieron en defensa de Miranda, incluida la pionera actriz latina Rita Moreno, que más tarde se retractó de sus comentarios. No es la primera vez que Chu tiene que responder a cuestionamientos de identidad. Su éxito de taquilla Crazy Rich Asians también tuvo que enfrentarse a cuestiones similares en lo que respecta al elenco de asiáticos y asiáticoestadounidenses en la película. (El actor principal de esa película, Henry Golding, es birracial).Pedí a cinco críticos y reporteros del Times que opinaran sobre las críticas y lo que significa para la representación en las artes. Estos son extractos editados de la conversación. MAIRA GARCIAEl equipo creativo de la película, en el que participan Jon M. Chu, a la izquierda, y Lin-Manuel Miranda, enfrenta acusaciones de colorismo.Macall Polay/Warner Bros.Mi primera ida al cine desde que comenzó la pandemia, como la de muchas personas, fue para ver In the Heights en la gran pantalla. Fue un momento de gozo, después de un año lleno de cosas sin alegría. Era emocionante ver cuerpos morenos cantando y bailando en la ciudad que ha sido mi hogar durante casi una década.Durante mucho tiempo ha habido una falta de representación latina en Hollywood, e In the Heights pretendía ser un avance para rectificar. Sin embargo, la entrevista de León planteó importantes cuestiones sobre el colorismo en el reparto de la película, que se centra en un barrio que tiene una gran población afrolatina. ¿Hizo el equipo creativo lo suficiente en lo que respecta a la representación?CONCEPCIÓN DE LEÓN En mi opinión, no. Desde que salió el tráiler me preocupaba el tema del colorismo en la película. Aparte de Leslie Grace, la actriz dominicanoestadounidense que interpreta a Nina, una estudiante universitaria puertorriqueña que tiene dificultades para encajar en la comunidad de la Universidad de Stanford, ninguno de los papeles principales lo interpreta un afrolatino. Hollywood lleva mucho tiempo valorando y destacando a los latinos de piel clara por encima de los afrolatinos, negándoles a menudo papeles que reflejan su cultura. Es una representación limitada e inexacta de los latinos, que son diversos en cultura y aspecto.Pero lo que hace que estas decisiones de reparto sean especialmente indignantes es que la película está ambientada en Heights, una zona que se conoce como la Pequeña República Dominicana. Al menos el 90 por ciento de los dominicanos somos afrodescendientes, según un reciente estudio de población. Entonces, ¿por qué no aparecemos de forma destacada? En cuanto a lo que el equipo podría haber hecho de forma distinta, parece sencillo. Podrían haber contratado a más actores negros y latinos, no para llenar una cuota de diversidad, sino porque eso habría reflejado la realidad del barrio. O, al menos, podrían haber sido más claros y decir que esta película no pretendía representarlos.SANDRA E. GARCIA Los dominicanos son afrodescendientes, son un pueblo negro y no vi que eso se representara. Los latinos que vi eran del tipo que Hollywood siempre ha favorecido: latinos que se parecen a Jennifer López y Sofía Vergara. Los latinos como yo, en los que no hay ambigüedad sobre su negritud, los que llevan su negritud en la cara, apenas pasan el corte en alguna producción, ya sea de Hollywood o de Univisión. Hay una razón por la que mi madre sabe los nombres de todos los presentadores de noticias de piel oscura en Telemundo y es porque es raro verlos en los reflectores. In the Heights continúa con el gaslighting o manipulación que los negros latinos han soportado desde que tengo memoria. Tenemos una cultura hermosa, tenemos una música es hermosa, pero no somos lo suficientemente dignos para que se nos destaque junto con ellas. Todo lo que creamos, como el salchichón y el mangú que se muestran en la película, o el merengue y la bachata, son dignos de celebración, pero nosotros no.Varias banderas aparecen en la escena del ‘Carnaval del Barrio’, pero no muchos rostros negros.Warner Bros.MAYA PHILLIPS Debo reconocer que no lo noté al principio; mis ojos estaban demasiado encandilados por la felicidad de ver un gran y brillante musical en una pantalla grande. Pero sí empecé a notar la ausencia: por ejemplo, en el número del Carnaval del Barrio (que está muy bien coreografiado, por cierto), hay una parte en la que la cámara se desplaza para mostrar a diferentes grupos de residentes que llevan varias banderas, y me di cuenta de la falta de rostros negros. Y Benny me llamó la atención porque aparentemente era el único personaje de piel oscura ¡en todo el barrio! A veces, mi madre y yo vemos una película o una obra de teatro, o simplemente estamos en algún lugar del mundo y jugamos a un juego llamado “Encuentra a los negros”, como “¿Dónde está Waldo?”, pero menos divertido, ja. Parece que muchas artes y reuniones públicas hacen como si los negros no existieran.Me pasa lo mismo, Maya. Soy una gran aficionada a los musicales y a la música latina, así que creo esto en parte nubla la realidad de este barrio: que es predominantemente afrolatino y que la falta de rostros negros se ha convertido en una omisión más flagrante.ISABELIA HERRERA He visto justificaciones que dicen que In the Heights no es un documental y no pretende representar al verdadero barrio dominicano de Washington Heights sino que se trata de un barrio latino de fantasía. Claro que entendemos que se trata de un musical, una historia con elementos surrealistas y fantásticos. Incluso si aceptamos la opinión de que una fantasía no tiene que ser representativa, ese argumento supone que de todos modos, los latinos negros no pertenecen a estos mundos imaginarios. Al mismo tiempo, el director, los actores y los productores han utilizado el lenguaje de la celebración comunitaria y la historia cultural del barrio real de Washington Heights para comercializar la película. Esto parece una contradicción, y una que para mí resulta muy reveladora.¿Qué significa el colorismo en la comunidad latina y cuáles son las formas en que se manifiesta? ¿Qué perdemos al no tener un amplio espectro de representación en las artes?DE LEÓN El colorismo en la comunidad latina se manifiesta de forma parecida a como sucede en la comunidad negra estadounidense: cuanto más clara es tu piel, más hermosa y deseable se te percibe. Mi complexión era siempre un tema de conversación cuando era niña, y a mis primas que son más oscuras que yo les iba peor, a menudo ridiculizadas con palabras denigrantes como “mona”, que están normalizadas pero tienen un trasfondo racista.En República Dominicana y en otros lugares existe el concepto de “mejorar la raza” al salir con blancos, para blanquear el linaje. Es una noción que tiene sus raíces en la colonización, cuando España implantó un sistema de castas en la isla de La Española, que la República Dominicana comparte con Haití, donde se situaba a las personas de ascendencia europea o mestiza más arriba en la escala social y se les permitía más oportunidades de progreso. Aunque este sistema ya no existe, todavía hay rastros de él en la forma en que se ve y se trata a los latinos negros. Son más pobres y tienen menos acceso a educación de calidad, vivienda o salud que los latinos de piel clara. Al borrarlos en la pantalla, estamos perpetuando este daño y fomentando la narrativa de que solo lo blanco es adecuado.En mi familia (soy mexicanoestadounidense), soy de piel más oscura que algunos de mis parientes y eso me ganó el apodo de “Prieta”. Tengo hermanos y primos que son más blancos que yo, incluso que pasan por blancos. Aunque algunos podrían considerar que palabras como prieta son términos cariñosos, también pueden ser muy perjudiciales, ya que transmiten una diferencia: no eres la norma, es decir, blanco.GARCIA Como alguien que ha existido como latina de piel negra toda la vida, el colorismo está en todas partes en la Latinidad, un término académico que dice que los latinos comparten hilos comunes de identidad. Las cicatrices de la colonización y de un dictador que se ponía polvos en la piel para parecer más claro siguen siendo visibles en la cultura dominicana. Para la gente como yo, esas cicatrices todavía se viven de forma muy visceral. Creo que los dominicanos están despertando a una negritud que se les ha enseñado a evitar, y creo que ahora más que nunca hay más espacio para los dominicanos de piel oscura. Dicho esto, el statu quo es que los latinos de piel más clara son mejores y mucha gente no está dispuesta a renunciar a eso, por la razón que sea.A.O. SCOTT Ese parece ser el caso de gran parte del cine y la televisión latinoamericanos. Es raro ver protagonistas negros o indígenas en las películas del Caribe o de Brasil, y más raro aún encontrar directores de esos orígenes.PHILLIPS Creo que todo esto refleja la visión terriblemente estrecha que tiene nuestra sociedad de la representación racial, que una persona latina debe tener un aspecto muy específico y una persona negra debe tener un aspecto muy específico, y que esas identidades no pueden cruzarse. Es como si existiera miedo a que tener ese amplio espectro de representación pueda ser confuso.Leslie Grace, a la derecha, es la única afrolatina entre los protagonistas de “In the Heights”, entre los que se encuentra Gregory Diaz IV como un ‘dreamer’.Warner Bros.La película no contaba con grandes estrellas en los papeles principales porque el equipo creativo quería arriesgarse con nuevos talentos. Parece que podría haber sido la oportunidad perfecta para evitar los problemas de colorismo. Chu dijo que seleccionaron a los mejores actores para los papeles. ¿Qué le pareció su respuesta? More

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      in Music

      A Race ‘Report Card’ Measures Whether the Music Industry Changed

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      The Black Music Action Coalition issued a 37-page report examining if powerful companies followed through on diversity commitments made last summer.A new “report card” on race in the music business takes many of the industry’s most powerful companies to task, urging them to follow through on diversity commitments made last summer amid nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd.The 37-page “Music Industry Action Report Card,” by the Black Music Action Coalition, was issued over the weekend to coincide with the Juneteenth holiday. The group took its hardest look at the three major record companies, which announced large financial donations last year — Sony and Warner Music each pledged $100 million, and Universal $25 million — and doled out middling-to-poor grades to them.Only a portion of those donation pledges has been paid out so far, and in its report the coalition — a group of artist managers, lawyers and others in the business that was formed a year ago — pressed the companies to hire more people of color in top executive jobs.The report graded the labels in four categories, including their initial commitments and subsequent follow-through, and the companies mostly got B’s and C’s. None earned an A, and one, Warner, even got a D in the category of representation at the executive level.Last week, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California released a detailed report of its own, noting that, among 4,060 executives at 119 music companies of various kinds, 7.5 percent were Black. (At record companies, that number was 14.4 percent.)“Our hope is that the MIA Report Card, especially coming on the heels of the Annenberg study, will spur more conversations and efforts towards, in some cases, disruptive change,” Naima Cochrane, a journalist and former label executive who was the author of the Black Music Action Coalition’s study, wrote.Most companies named in the report, including each of the three major record conglomerates, declined to comment about it. But some within the industry privately complained that the study was inconsistent or incomplete.A total of 18 companies were examined in the report. While record labels were given letter grades, other types of companies, like streaming services, talent agencies and concert promoters, were rated on whether their efforts were “satisfactory.” Whole areas of the business, including radio and artist management, were not addressed. The coalition said the study would be expanded in coming years.“Our data is only as good as the record industry’s willingness to cooperate in providing information,” Binta Niambi Brown, the coalition’s co-chairman, said in a statement.Pandora, the internet radio giant that is owned by SiriusXM, was one of the few whose efforts were deemed “unsatisfactory,” although scant reasons were given for that rating. “Because Pandora has traded on its familiarity with Black and Latinx listeners and their impact on culture,” the report said, “we expected a more significant commitment from them.”In response, Nicole Hughey, the head of diversity and inclusion at SiriusXM, said the company has given money to organizations and pursued specific campaigns against racism in the audio business.“We support BMAC’s mission, but were disappointed and surprised by the Unsatisfactory rating given to Pandora in their recent report card, given our strong passion and commitment to fighting racism and promoting racial equality,” Ms. Hughey said in a statement.“There is always more work to be done, within our company and across the music industry,” she added, “and we will continue that work tirelessly.” More

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      in Music

      Juneteenth: 7 Events for Celebrating the Holiday in New York

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      On Saturday, many of the city’s cultural venues are holding performances and parties to mark the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.As New York reopens, its cultural rhythms are creeping back in, with museums and music venues filling up and outdoor concerts popping up in parks. The city is emerging just in time for Juneteenth on Saturday.The holiday — a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth” — began on June 19, 1865. More than two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, union troops arrived in Galveston, Tex., to notify enslaved African Americans there that the Civil War had ended — and that they were free.On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to recognize Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day, as a federal holiday. Opal Lee — the 94-year-old Texan activist known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth” — has no doubt that June 19 will become a national holiday, and soon.“So, the 4th of July? Slaves weren’t free. You know that, don’t you?” Lee told The Times in 2020. “I suggest that if we’re going to do some celebrating of freedom, that we have our festival, our educational components, our music, from June the 19th — Juneteenth — to the 4th of July. Now that would be celebrating freedom.”Here’s a selection of events — both in-person and virtual — for New Yorkers to celebrate that freedom this year.‘Summer of Soul’ in the ParkThe hip-hop musician Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson directed the documentary “Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” which releases in theaters on July 2. Part music film, part historical record, the film captures the previously untold story of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which took place in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). Stars like Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone and Sly and the Family Stone performed in the six-week festival celebrating Black history, culture and fashion. On Saturday at 5 p.m., New Yorkers can see the award-winning film in the park where much of it was filmed. Free tickets are required for entry.An Alvin Ailey Workshop West African Class at the Ailey Extension in Manhattan.Kyle FromanThe Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater emerged in 1958, when its founder, Alvin Ailey, recognized the power of dance as a tool for social change. Ailey described African-American cultural heritage as “sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful,” viewing it as one of America’s richest treasures. On Saturday, 12-1:15 p.m., the choreographer Maguette Camara will host a free, virtual dance class featuring live drumming, teaching the basics of traditional West African dance and rhythms.A Community Choir at the ShedTroy Anthony rehearsing “The Revival: It Is Our Duty,” his commission for the Shed in Manhattan. Mari UchidaIt’s not a performance. It’s a service. The composer, director and actor Troy Anthony made sure to clarify the difference for “The Revival: It Is Our Duty,” his commission for the Shed in Manhattan. “Juneteenth is not about Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves. It’s not about Black people finding out that they were free late,” Anthony said. “It’s about the fact that Black people found a path to liberate themselves.” The gospel musical event, includes a community choir and band, is part of The Shed’s “Open Call” series, “The Revival” starts on Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are free online.Soulfolk ExperienceSoulfolk Experience, from left, V. Jeffrey Smith, Maritri Garrett and David Pilgrim.Julie AtwellFrom MTV star to hip-hop guru to international ambassador, Kevin Powell has seen it all. And he’ll bring that experience to Brower Park in Brooklyn on Saturday, performing an original poetry suite. The rock-jazz-folk band the Soulfolk Experience composed and arranged music to accompany Powell’s performance at 12 p.m. behind the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. The event, presented by the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, is in partnership with the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and part of the Friends of Brower Park’s free Juneteenth celebration. Instrument making and other activities will accompany the music, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. The event is free.Culinary RootsOn the hit Netflix show “High on the Hog,” the food writer Stephen Satterfield traces African American cuisine from Benin to the Deep South. The show is based on a book by the same name by food historian Jessica B. Harris, who will appear at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn on Saturday. The virtual event, “Meals as Collective Memory,” 12:30-4 p.m., explores Black foodways in New York and beyond. The schedule includes learning to make a delicious family dinner at home and a lesson on food deserts; sessions are free online — just be sure to RSVP.After Parties and After-After PartiesThe Bell House in Brooklyn will host its third annual “Emancipation After Party” on Saturday at 6 p.m. — a stacked deck of music and comedy. Hosted by Chinisha S., a self-proclaimed “certified Prince super-fan, nerd/geek-girl, and cheerful nihilist,” the lineup includes DJ Monday Blue; the sketch-comedy team To Karen, With Love; and the comedians Alex English, Aminah Imani, Dave Lester and Jatty Robinson ($18.65 for tickets). Stick around for the after-after party: Brandon Collins and Gordon Baker-Bone will host a Juneteenth edition of their interactive show, “Black Drunk History,” also at the Bell House ($20 for advance tickets).‘Juneteenth in Queens’Come for the jerk chicken and waffles food truck. Stay for the Black beauty bazaar. “Juneteenth in Queens” was planned by Assemblywoman Alicia Hyndman, who also sponsored the legislation that made Juneteenth a state holiday in New York. The festival, which includes a virtual panel series this week, culminates with an in-person event on Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., in Roy Wilkins Park in Queens. Start your day with yoga for Black liberation, check out the Black art party and try an African dance master class in the afternoon. Register for the event and activities on Eventbrite. More

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      in Movies

      Lin-Manuel Miranda responde a las críticas sobre el elenco de ‘In the Heights’

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      La película generó malestar por presentar actores latinos de piel clara en los papeles principales, a pesar de la prevalencia de latinos de piel oscura en el barrio donde se rodó.Lin-Manuel Miranda reconoció las críticas de que la adaptación cinematográfica de su musical In the Heights no había representado adecuadamente a la población afrolatina de piel oscura de Washington Heights, el barrio del Alto Manhattan en el que está ambientado, y también se ha disculpado por quedarse corto al “intentar pintar un mosaico de esta comunidad”.La película, adaptación del musical de Broadway, ganador de un Tony por mejor guion, sobre el propietario de una bodega que sueña con volver a República Dominicana, se estrenó en los cines y en HBO Max la semana pasada, obteniendo críticas positivas y elogios por todo lo alto.Sin embargo, la película también suscitó críticas en internet por la decisión de los cineastas de seleccionar actores latinos de piel clara para los papeles principales, a pesar de la prevalencia de latinos de piel oscura en el barrio donde se rodó la película.Miranda, que formó parte del equipo creativo de la película, dijo en su declaración que estaba prestando atención a las opiniones en línea, incluidas las muestras de pesar y frustración por el colorismo y por “sentirse aún invisibles” en la película.“Empecé a escribir In the Heights porque no me sentía visto”, escribió Miranda en un comunicado publicado en Twitter el lunes por la noche. “Y durante los últimos 20 años todo lo que quería era que nosotros —TODOS nosotros— nos sintiéramos vistos”.“He oído que sin suficiente representación de afrolatinos de piel oscura”, continuó, “la obra se siente explotadora de la comunidad que tanto queríamos representar con orgullo y alegría”.“En los comentarios puedo escuchar el pesar y la frustración por el colorismo, por sentirse aún invisibles”, dijo en el comunicado.La película, un proyecto que tardó una década y que tuvo un presupuesto de 55 millones de dólares, fue protagonizada por Anthony Ramos como el dueño de la bodega, Melissa Barrera como una aspirante a diseñadora de moda y Leslie Grace como Nina, una estudiante de Stanford en dificultades.En una entrevista reciente, la guionista de la película, Quiara Alegría Hudes, habló de la decisión de hacer de Nina un personaje afrolatino en la versión cinematográfica. “Quería hacer conscientemente que Nina fuera afrolatina en esta versión de In the Heights. Desde que estrenamos el espectáculo en Broadway, se ha producido esta conversación nacional en torno a las microagresiones y cosas realmente interesantes que siento que serían aplicables a la situación de Nina”.Corey Hawkins, que interpreta al interés amoroso de Nina y empleado del servicio de taxis de su padre, es negro, pero no latino (algunos también criticaron a los realizadores por eliminar un punto de la trama, que había existido en el musical, en el que el personaje de Hawkins dice que el padre de Nina no cree que sea lo suficientemente bueno para ella). More

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      in Music

      New Report Paints Bleak Picture of Diversity in the Music Industry

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      The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative examined 4,060 executives at six types of companies, and found 19.8 percent were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.A year ago, as protests spread across the country following the murder of George Floyd, the music industry promised to change.Major record labels, streaming platforms and broadcasters pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable donations. The diversity of the music industry itself — a business that relies heavily on the creative labor of Black artists — came under scrutiny, with calls to hire more people of color and to elevate women and minorities into management and decision-making positions.But how diverse is the music business? The answer, according to a new study: not very.A report by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California, released Tuesday, examined the makeup of 4,060 executives, at the vice president level and above, at 119 companies of six types: corporate music groups, record labels, music publishers, radio broadcasters, streaming services and live music companies.Among those executives, 19.8 percent were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, including 7.5 percent who were Black. Women made up 35.3 percent of the total.Delving deeper into the numbers, the authors of the 25-page report, led by Stacy L. Smith and Carmen Lee, found that the representation of women and minorities seemed to shrink as they looked higher up music companies’ organization charts.After filtering out subsidiaries, the researchers looked at the uppermost leadership positions — chief executives, chairmen and presidents — in a subset of 70 major and independent companies, and found that 86.1 percent of those people were both white and male. The 10 people of color who held those positions were all at independents, and just two were women: Desiree Perez, a longtime associate of Jay-Z who leads his company Roc Nation, and Golnar Khosrowshahi, the founder of Reservoir, which owns music rights.The report includes some stark findings. For example, among the 4,060 people in the study’s sample, the researchers found 17.7 white male executives for every Black female one.“Underrepresented and Black artists are dominating the charts, but the C-suite is a ‘diversity desert,’” Dr. Smith said in a statement. “The profile of top artists may give some in the industry the illusion that music is an inclusive business, but the numbers at the top tell a different story.”Each year since 2018, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has tracked the artists, songwriters and producers behind the biggest hits. Again and again, it has found that women are far outnumbered by men, yet revealed some encouraging numbers for underrepresented groups: People of color have made up about 47 percent of the credited artists behind 900 top pop songs since 2012.Yet the group’s new report, called “Inclusion in the Music Business: Gender & Race/Ethnicity Across Executives, Artists & Talent Teams,” and sponsored by Universal Music Group, shows that women and people of color are poorly represented in the power structure of the industry itself.The variation across different job levels and industry sectors is notable. Black executives fared best within record labels, making up 14.4 percent of all positions, and 21.2 percent of artist-and-repertoire, or A&R, roles, which tend to work most closely with artists. Black people hold just 4 percent of executive jobs in radio, and 3.3 percent in live music.According to U.S. census data, 13.4 percent of Americans identify as Black.Women posted their highest executive numbers in the live music business, holding 39.1 percent of positions. But drilling down, the study found, most of those women were white. Even at record labels, where Black executives were best represented, Black women held only 5.3 percent of executive jobs.The U.S.C. report is one of a number of efforts underway to examine the music industry and evaluate its progress in reaching stated goals of diversity and inclusion. This week, the Black Music Action Coalition, a group of artist managers, lawyers and other insiders, is expected to release a “report card” on how well the industry has met its own commitments to change.Much of the data used in the U.S.C. report, the researchers said, came from publicly available sources, like company websites. The report suggests that a lack of participation in the study by music companies was a reason.“Companies were given the opportunity to participate and confirm information, especially of senior management teams,” the report says. “Roughly a dozen companies did so. The vast majority did not.”The authors of the report, who also include Marc Choueiti, Katherine Pieper, Zoe Moore, Dana Dinh and Artur Tofan, said they want to spur the industry toward change. The report recommends a number of steps that companies can take to make their executive ranks more diverse, including making career pathways more flexible and “fast tracking” leaders with support and mentoring.“Our hope,” Dr. Lee said, “is that the industry will come together to tackle this problem in a way that creates meaningful progress.” More