Woke Teachers Now Trying to Cancel William Shakespeare
“Shakespeare was a tool used to ‘civilize’ Black and brown people in England’s empire”
Activist teachers are now coming for William Shakespeare. They argue that the English language’s greatest poet-dramatist is a purveyor of racism, misogyny, and worse.
You have to marvel at the self-confidence of these teachers who think they’re qualified to judge Shakespeare.
Lee Brown writes at the New York Post:
William Shakespeare ditched by woke teachers over ‘misogyny, racism’
William Shakespeare, thou hast been getting canceled.
An increasing number of woke teachers are refusing to study the Bard — accusing his classic works of promoting “misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir.”
A slew of English literature teachers told the School Library Journal (SLJ) how they were ditching the likes of “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and “Romeo and Juliet” to instead “make room for modern, diverse, and inclusive voices.”
“Shakespeare was a tool used to ‘civilize’ Black and brown people in England’s empire,” insisted Shakespeare scholar Ayanna Thompson, a professor of English at Arizona State University.
Teachers also need to “challenge the whiteness” of the assumption that Shakespeare’s works are “universal,” insisted Jeffrey Austin, who is head of a Michigan high school’s English literature department.
Former Washington state public school teacher Claire Bruncke told SLJ she banished the Bard from her classroom to “stray from centering the narrative of white, cisgender, heterosexual men.”
Anyone who has attended a Shakespearean performance in the last thirty years knows that people of every race and gender have played every role. One of the fantastic things about his work is that it transcends identity. It’s all about the story and the language.
Even the liberal Washington Post is against this idea. Kathleen Parker writes:
Don’t cancel Shakespeare
Just when you thought our so-called cancel culture couldn’t get any more ridiculous, the calibrators of literary justice surpassed themselves recently by targeting the Bard himself as just another racist, genderist, homophobic fellow.
Yes, even William Shakespeare, who not only provided centuries of wisdom, tragedy and entertainment, but also gave us much of our modern vernacular, has become the latest target of those who can’t bear the burden of context. Which, as you know, really is everything. But some of the busybodies at #DisruptTexts — which describes itself as a “grassroots effort by teachers for teachers” to “challenge the traditional canon” — aren’t concerned with criticism in the academic sense, even if they think they are.
I understand the impulse to stop teaching literature and the lessons it holds the way we have done it for decades. But that doesn’t make it a good idea.
This is not about misogyny or racism. It’s just another attack on Western Civilization, its culture, and its history. The left wants to rewrite the world, and they think they can do it better than Shakespeare.
I’ll leave you with some classic clips.
Richard Burton as Hamlet:
Sir John Gielgud as Prospero in The Tempest:
Laurence Fishburne as Othello:
Orson Welles as Macbeth:
Sir Laurence Olivier as Richard III:
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Yeah, because being civilized is now a bad thing.
The point is that the woke take offense at the idea that “black and brown people” needed civilizing. It’s heresy today to mention the fact that a few centuries ago many Africans, most American Indians, and all Aborigines were savages. In fact the very notion that there have ever been savages, that human beings are even theoretically capable of being savages, is heresy. Because the notion of savagery implies a hierarchy of values, that some states of being are better than others, and that is the ultimate heresy today.
Which is why an honest study of history is being erased from the curricula. Too “problematic.”
““Shakespeare was a tool used to ‘civilize’ Black and brown people in England’s empire,” insisted Shakespeare scholar Ayanna Thompson, a professor of English at Arizona State University.”
1) Nothing worked, as demonstrated by violent crime stats of brown and black people. Those stats do matter.
2) Ayanna Thompson stands as a testament of how university degrees have been watered down.
Maybe those people NEEDED civilizing. And, yes: I said THOSE PEOPLE. Sue me.
Black people and brown people? Hell, now try it on the white people.
White people are on a per capita basis, far less likely to a degreed incompetent.
I remember when an AA Degree was Associate in Arts. No, obviously, AA stands for affirmative action. Or in the case of a lot of the holders of affirmative action degrees African-Americans.
Paul Robeson, call your office …
Robeson’s father was a great poker of fun at people he liked. Pal sang about him with great affection and feeling. The song was Old Man Ribber.
/I had to. I just HAD to…
Robeson was an actual communist, who supported Stalin through everything, but he also loved America. I wonder what he would have thought of this. He’d have no problem with rounding us all up and shooting us, but I think he’d have had a problem with cancelling Shakespeare.
“Woke” psychos hire other psychos
It’s too late to ever change.
The Colonies left the British empire, which wasn’t as oppreasive nor corrupt as America is now.
We need to leavw.
Leave to where?
I didn’t say leave without taking what is ours. It’s just a matter of geography.
Things are going to get so bad, we’ll wish we did it before it’s too late to organize:
Our Descent Into Collective Madness
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/our-descent-collective-madness
The Decline Of The West: American Education Surrenders To “Equity”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/decline-west-american-education-surrenders-equity
What is it the left loves to say…”you hate what you do not understand”…
Don’t tell them about Aristophanes and the sophists. They would be enraged to know they were being mocked thousands of years ago.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. —William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”
Aristophanes, call your sophistt.
I’ve got news for them. Shakespeare was a tool used to civilize everyone, and not just in the UK and its empire but in the USA as well.
It never has worked to well on the Scots, has it?
I resemble that remark…
I’d like to think that people who only know how to destroy historical greatness will themselves become extinct for their own inability to create anything of note, let alone the lack of heart and skill to create anything truly great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ1koU26aeY
Yeah, there’s that. I just find it over-the-top ridiculous that the very leftists who are so quick to point the finger and say Nazi, are the same half-wits who want to ban and burn books.
Talk about a generation completely devoid of knowledge of 20th century history.
I can’t stand Michael Kaine. He should have gotten a regular job.
In France, it took a decade and was ended only by the ascent of a megalomaniac.
MORE THAN A CULTURE WAR
NEXT, they will say that the BIBLE was used in colonization so it must be banned along with G-d.
With each passing week, it is more clear that this is a full-out attempt to undermine western civilization. This is a coordinated attack by a vocal and determined 2% to 3% of radical ideologues. They have an agenda. And they win everyday that good people remain silent.
These people know what they are doing. They have evil intentions. They are not anti-racist. In fact, they are racists and anarchists. They are out to destroy whatever white people ever accomplished. The racial aspects of this are just a cover. They want power and money.
Wake up – our culture and way of life are under attack.
They don’t just want to cancel OUR culture – they want $$. Their is a major effort underway for transfer of wealth from one race to another. Reparations, preference in jobs, transfer of property owned by white and asian. Already – major effort underway to get elderly whites to change their will to transfer their property to blacks.
Affirmative action was to give a boost. What is being done now is EXTORTION.
It’s further clear now that Immigration Policy has de factor been racist. 60% to 70% of all ppl coming to USA for 30 years has been from just 2 or 3 countries in central America. Clearly an unwritten policy to encourage this flow. Meanwhile, those from Asia, Africa, Mideast, Europe all have to wait in line because they cannot just walk over the border.
Mexico and the other central american countries should be allowed ZERO (or at least much less) new immigrants until the other regions of the world catch up to the unfair advantage they have had for 30+ years. That would fairly address the disparity.
Otherwise, US policy is clearly been to favor one race in immigration over others. THIS OUTCOME IS EXACTLY WHY IMMIGRATION POLICY WAS CHANGE IN THE 1960s. At the time, people complained that immigration favored whites from Europe. So the policy was changed to admit a more balanced geographic group. For over 30 years the “balance” has been non-existent. Where are all the woke anti-racists? Well, this puts the lie to their so-called “principled stand” because they are silent when racism impacts whites.
How can we organize against them?
I am not talking about writing letters or petitions and at this point they have killed our electoral system so we can’t vote them out.
There is really only one thing that gives us a chance, and I am certain we have untold millions that could act. But it is so extreme that unless Trump actually really DID call people to action it wouldn’t be acted on.
There is a legal way. We unite into a version of our own economic union – so that we cannot be cancelled.
Imagine if ppl who recognize the threat were to do business only with ppl and companies that want to protect against this onslaught. 100 million people in an economic union – like an EU. Across all 50 states.
It would stop the madness. But it means millions of ppl would have to join together. Do you think ppl are smart enough to join together to protect their culture, their way of life, their civilization ? ?
Personally I was not a big fan of Shakespeare. I would take my Ray Bradbury Dandelion Wine, Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five, Isaac Asimov Fantastic Voyage or Ernest Hemingway Nick Adams stories over Macbeth any day. (even though I have new appreciation for Shakespeare). One book I really hated was Catcher in the Rye. J. D. Salinger is probably one of the most over rated writers.
Agreed!
But, for the true meaning of boredom, try to survive reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Or, Silly-Ass Marner.
I agree, I like hard science fiction, and have no use for fantasy.
or maybe Shakespeare was used a s a tool to teach the English language. Since he helped invent modern English and all….
Don’t forget about Shakespeare’s other great work.
“We Wuz Kangz”
Available on Bitchute from Mister Metokur
Good article. I find the idea of cancelling shakespeare and indeed cancel culture pretty revolting. I’m very glad those ideas haven’t really transfered over to the UK.
The underlying theme is that all present culture must be burned to the ground. It’s Year Zero, and The Revolution will create a new world, free of all the evils that indelibly deface the old.
Of course, we’ve been here before. Radical utopianism tends to leave behind nothing but rubble, ruin and waste. Except perhaps for the memories of the few who somehow survived a world descended into starvation, cholera and madness (and are not much interested in telling you just how they accomplished that).
Except for the Nomenclatura, of course: they are always provisioned.
Although sometimes one can see the perverse logic of this future. For if a white child is forbidden to role-play as a Zulu warrior then the same logic would say a black child may not be cast as Julius Caesar. For in this new dispensation you are your identity; that’s all you are and all you can or ever will be. The boundaries shall be enforced!
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
One of the fantastic things about his work is that it transcends identity
…except for Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, MacBeth, and all of the other plays in which biological identity are core to the plot.
Shakespeare isn’t universal because his work transcends biological identity; his work is universal because biological identity transcends culture.
You need to understand that these people’s mentality are close to Isis.
First, they came for the babies: “burdens”, profitable, pollutants. Then, they came for the females: keep women appointed, available, and taxable. Then, they came for the white males. Transgenders (e.g. genderphobes) are still trendy.
Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment), not limited to racism, is a progressive (i.e. monotonic) condition that threatens to liberalize (i.e. diverge).
You can’t just add modern authors, ie authors we haven’t heard of for a REASON. You have to erase the greats. The medoicraties cannot stand next to the greats without their mediocrity being exposed. Kind of like comparing Mahler 5 to What’s Her Name’s Wet A** P***y
Made up nonsense.
How are these people insane? Let me count the ways.
(yes I know that is Browning).
Browning’s not bad, but nothing beats a Wesson.
What the heck is “misogynoir”? Hatred of black women? Or is it some cute new malaprop for hate of all things black? In which case they need to remove the ‘gy’, though I’m sure pointing out linguistic errors just proves I’m a racist bigot too.
There was no such person as William Shakespeare – it was a collection of writers who used the name to cover their own identity.
Utterly untrue.
Like John Bull, John Galt, or Frank Hammond.
Speaking as a teacher, I note that a lot of people in my profession are not necessarily intellectual, cultured, or even thoughtful. We’re a media-drunk people who have a hard time dealing with anything beyond the emotion of the moment. We’ve cut off the Bible, our taproot connecting us to the oldest civilizations; now we’re cutting off Shakespeare, the taproot of Modern English.
Now that I am about to become legally obligated to see a eunuch in drag as being as much a woman as my own mother who bore me or my wife who bore my sons, I can only apologize on behalf of my profession for the destruction of not only civilization, but common sense itself.