…and other questions I had after seeing Young Jean Lee‘s The Shipment, a very compelling off off-Broadway play about Black identity in America by a Korean-American playwright, starring an all-black cast.
Warning: if you’re in NY and you plan to see this, you may not want to read this yet!
I’d been really excited about seeing this play for a while and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Also made me think. A lot. And methinks this “review” may be all over the place because of those thoughts.
The play is divided into three sections, or acts. The first consists of a foul-mouthed Eddie Murphy-type stand-up comedian who says he’d love to spend all his time telling jokes about pooping (his very favorite subject of comedy) but is being forced to talk about race instead (because he’s black, because it unfortunately affects him as a black American). He remarks on some of the differences between whites and blacks: whites obsess about their weight throughout their lives, blacks — once they get married, forget about that shit. Occasionally, he’s confrontational but in a funny way, and, though I think he made many in the mostly white, mostly young, very liberal audience somewhat uncomfortable at points, everyone laughed. This was my least favorite section, mainly because I wish Lee would have been more specific at times and also because she overlooked class differences a bit. For example, the comedian says that whites love to accuse blacks of “whining,” but look at what whites whine about: “Ooh, I just don’t know what to dooo with my life!,” he says in falsetto, or “Ooh, am I too fat?!” It’s funny — because that’s exactly what a lot of whites do whine about — but upper-middle-class whites. Believe me, poor whites are not worried about how they look; they’re worried about putting food on the table, about how far they can stretch their next paycheck. Just visit any small working-class town in the south or the mid-west.
But also, I don’t really know what whites accuse blacks of whining about. Historical oppression? The disproportionate rates of incarceration? Racial targeting by the police? I’ve never heard any whites accuse blacks of whining about any of these things. Most whites don’t even want to think about those things.
Continue reading “Blacks Acting "White" is Hilarious, But What Would the Reverse Be?”