Progressives Now Scouring Shakespeare for Linguistic Racism
“Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in Shakespeare: A Field Guide”
Nothing is sacred and this lunacy is going to continue for as long as it is allowed to continue.
The College Fix reports:
‘Dismantling anti-black linguistic racism in Shakespeare’ guide earns support from academia
A Chicago-based director is leading an effort to dismantle “anti-black language” in the plays of William Shakespeare, a worthwhile effort, several college professors told The College Fix.
“I kept seeing people bump up against words … and not know what to do,” Lavina Jadhwani told The College Fix in a telephone interview.
Jadhwani, the South-Asian director leading the effort, has created a guide that lists a number of “problematic words” in Shakespeare’s plays.
She states in the document she is not calling for Shakespeare to be canceled, writing his works “contain poetry and truths and stories that I believe are still worth telling,” but that the guide offers suggestions and options on how to avoid using offensive words.
The guide contains words such as “black,” “master,” “slave,” “minstrel” and “Ethiope.”
Called the “Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in Shakespeare: A Field Guide,” it notes that: “Black lives matter. And words matter. Words can do harm. It is time we stop harming Black people with our words.”
Jadhwani told The Fix one example in her guide is “the word that starts with an ‘N’ but means miserly.”
The word she is referring to is “niggardly,” which can describe one who is cheap or ungenerous, such as Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge.
Jadhwani said many object to the use of this word because it sounds like the n-word.
“I’m not a person who believes in absolutes,” Jadhwani said. She clarified that, while she would not want to say the word, if a black actor believed that there was “some power in using it,” she would not discourage that person.
this is a resource that I've been working on for the last month; please read and feel free to share as you see fit! https://t.co/YQsZtws1aL
— Lavina Jadhwani (@LavinaJadhwani) July 2, 2020
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Comments
What moor can one say?
Let us not ignore the graycism of Edgar tricking his aged, blinded father into jumping from a “cliff.”
And what of the blatant fatscism of all the jokes about Falstaff’s weight?
Oh, and those forced “love matches” (MSND) and suppressed same-gender attraction (AWTEW;TWT)
Are we okay with killing the capitalists? “My daughter, oh my ducats, oh my daughter!”
Personally, I think Willy Shakes’ “rivalry” with Kit Marlow was some sort of reaction to attraction; however, while the moors, er, mores of his time allowed unfettererd breasts, philia was frowned upon (executed, really) when taken beyond measure.
What moor can one say?
I LOLed.
Variation: How about a psychiology class called “Shakespeare as an Expression of the Male Patriarchy*”
Name the Shakespearean plays with these Freudian clues!
3”
6”
9”
Wet
Dry
Much Ado about Nothing
As You Like it
The Taming of the Shrew
Midsummer Night’s Dream
Twelfth Night
*”male patriarchy”. I have seen this phrase used. I have yet to see examples or usage of “female patrarchy.)
This is nothing new –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler
Thomas Bowdler, LRCP, FRS (/ˈbaʊdlər/; 11 July 1754 – 24 February 1825[1]) was an English doctor best known for publishing The Family Shakespeare, an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare’s plays. The work, edited by his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler, was intended to provide a version of Shakespeare that was more appropriate than the original for 19th-century women and children. Bowdler also published several other works, some reflecting his interest in and knowledge of continental Europe. Bowdler’s last work was an expurgated version of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published posthumously in 1826 under the supervision of his nephew and biographer, Thomas Bowdler the Younger.
The verb bowdlerise (or bowdlerize)[2] has linked his name with the censorship or omission of elements deemed inappropriate for children, not only in literature but also in motion pictures[3] and television programmes.
Yeah, “progress” as always.
We’ve gone from censoring material that is deemed inappropriate for children to censoring material that is deemed inappropriate for black people. That sounds like a good idea. NOT!
I’m reminded of a song by Tom Lehrer, that was originally titled “Smut.” It seems to apply to “racism” now.
All books can be [racist] books
Though recent books are bolder;
For [racism] (I’m glad to say) is in
The mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed
Everything is [racist].
(I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz, there’s a [racist] old man!)
Here is the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jARdWfJulo
“Winston woke up with the word ‘Shakespeare’ on his lips.” And then she re-wrote it.
Yet another reason why we should pull all federal funding from higher education.
Shakespeare isn’t anti-black so much as he generally fails to say anything about them, which I suppose would offend a narcissist.
The Moors were Muslim invaders, raping and killing thousands and taking hundreds of thousands of women as sex slaves to the Arab slave markets. If anybody deserves bad things said about them by a European, the Moors do.
I’m sure it’s shocking, just shocking, to discover that few if any of those living in Elizabethan England had attitudes congruent with those of today’s diversity apparat. Then again, few Elizabethans would have seen a blackamoor at any time during their entire lives.
Of course, if the entire past is put through a contemporary sensitivity screen then nothing at all can emerge intact.
Which, I suppose, is the point: once the past has been cleansed by the purifying fires of our latter-day Jacobinism, nothing will be left except, perhaps, some unreadable jargon-ridden academic “writing” and, maybe, a properly cleansed, Disneyfied version of Shakespeare.