The play that I am going write about in my blog entry is Wedding Band/A love hate story in black and white. It was interesting to read about an interracial relationship and to hear them argue about stuff. It was also interesting to hear what the mother thought of her son loving a colored woman. His sister was not really too excited bout Herman loving Julia either, until he started to explain himself. Then she sounded like she wished she had found love like he did too but it never seemed like she accepted what he was doing. The mother admitted that she had never known love so you would think she would be more understanding of her son. The mother even seemed to admit a little bit of remorse when Julia shut the door in her face at the end of the play also.
It was different to hear about how much hate and disrespect people had for colored people back then. Miscegenation was another thing I didn’t know about, I knew it was taboo too mix whites and blacks but I didn’t know there were laws about it. Even the African Americans were talking bad about the Asians and telling the kids that they would cook them up and eat them if they caught them. So it’s not just white people being racist to other cultures, this was and is a problem with all cultures.
It was tough to read the conversation between the bell man and Nelson when the conversation got heated. They were both firing back and forth racist remarks and the bell man even threatened Nelson’s life by telling him to be careful or he’ll end up hanging from a tree. It’s hard to believe that there was that much hate back then. I guess I am not around that kind of racism so maybe things like that are still being said today.
Another conversation that was tough to read without being uncomfortable was the conversation between Herman’s mom and Julia when they were fighting when Herman was sick. They were firing back and forth a lot of hate and racial slurs. It was interesting to hear about how even the Germans were being slammed also with racial insults. I guess being German myself I have always thought that Germans were one of the original nationalities to settle here so I didn’t think they were discriminated against also. I guess the Native Americans were here before anyone else so I guess it is safe to say anyone is susceptible to racism.
Just from reading this play I learned some new origins of racism and some new earlier racism that I wasn’t aware of. I have reached a new understanding of how much racism is spread out through a lot of cultures and this was just from one play.
I wrote my blog post on the Wedding Band play too, and I also was surprised to find about the antmiscegenation laws. I had never heard about those laws at any point in my education, so I was pretty shocked to find out that there were actual laws put into place like that.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting too when you talk about how you can see the racism coming from all sides of the situation-that it is not just whites being racist against blacks, but it is also flipped and goes beyonf even those races. I feel like this play really was a good way to see that as you said, and I agree with you too that it was a good way for the play to open up your eyes to see just how strong those prejudices can be in people, no matter what race they are a part of.
I also agree with you when you talk about how a few of the conversations were kind of hard to read in the play, as they made you feel uncomfortable. I felt like the author of the play did a good job of taking those conversations and really getting the audience to see how much of a problem that hate was.