ethnicity | The Direction of Intention

Teach The Moment [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 17, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

As I watched the curtain of grasses sway I thought they’d make an excellent set piece for a production of The Tempest. Their movement was hypnotic. I had the good fortune to design a minimal-budget-production of The Tempest several years ago and used huge pieces of driftwood and a bamboo curtain. I loved it.

The Tempest was on my mind because earlier in the day while doing some research I bumbled across the question, “Why is The Tempest a banned book?” The answer is a very sad statement about our times, the reason our nation cannot seem to mature: “The Tempest,” one of the playwright’s classics, is among the books removed, as teachers were urged to stay away from any works where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” the website Salon reported.

In our nation race, ethnicity and oppression are the central themes of our history: “246 years of brutal enslavement; the rape of black women for the pleasure of white men and to produce more enslaved workers; the selling off of black children; the attempted genocide of Indigenous people, Indian removal acts, and reservations; indentured servitude, lynching and mob violence; sharecropping; Chinese exclusion laws; Japanese American internment; Jim Crow laws and mandatory segregation…” (Robin Diangelo, White Fragility)

You’d think we might want to encourage teaching The Tempest and other great works so we might consider and discuss the full scope of our history. So that we might learn about ourselves. So that we might become capable of addressing and putting to rest the ugly fear – rooted in race, ethnicity and oppression – exploited for gain by the Republican party, that gave birth to the MAGA movement. It’s the Confederacy by another name.

In a nation of immigrants, you’d think it might be a first principle to teach our children about race, ethnicity, and oppression so we might learn how to reach across – and put to rest – division rather than perpetually recreate it.

The AI overview provided another related and currently more salient reason to teach The Tempest: “The main message of Shakespeare’s The Tempest is that forgiveness and reconciliation are preferable to revenge and punishment, especially when it comes to the restoration of social order and personal peace.“

If social order and personal peace are the goals, our current path of revenge and punishment will not take us there. In the play, Prospero chooses release from his island prison through the power of forgiveness and redemption rather than perpetuating his imprisonment by seeking revenge.

In this teachable moment Prospero’s choice is an analogy worth teaching: a path provided to us by a play written in 1610 by one of the greatest poets of the English language; a way out of our national-soul-imprisonment.

I suspect that is why The Tempest and other great works of literature dealing with themes-that-matter are being banned. In the minds of this administration, continued imprisonment, revenge and punishment seem to be the goals.

Angels At Our Side, 24″x48″, mixed media on board

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GRASSES

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Transcendence | Tagged: artistry, banned books, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, ethnicity, forgiveness, history, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, oppression, race, reconciliation, Robin DiAngelo, story, studio melange, teaching, the melange, The Tempest, white fragility, William Shakespeare | 3 Comments »

DEI is U.S. [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on February 1, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…Hitler then promulgated a special decree titled “Destructive Measures on Reich Territory.” Otherwise remembered as the “Scorched Earth Decree” or “Nero Decree,” for the brutal Roman Emperor Nero (ruled 54-68 C.E.), the order mandated the destruction of Germany’s infrastructure.” Sealing The Third Reich’s Downfall: Adolf HItler’s “Nero Decree”

Of course, at the very heart of the U.S. American experiment is diversity. We have many catch phrases celebrating our common bond: A nation of immigrants. When I was young we were taught that our nation was a melting pot. More recently we celebrate our multiculturalism. In any case, the very center of our ideal is printed on our currency: out of many, one. E Pluribus Unum. In fact, it is our nation’s official motto.

In the past few weeks, with an all-out assault on DEI, Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ rights, restrictions of conversations about race and gender in classrooms, demonization of immigrants, the free press…we are witness to the current Republican administration’s version of a Nero Decree. An all-out-assault on our infrastructure. A scorched earth policy meant to pull down our democracy and replace it with an ugly White Christian Nationalism, the exact opposite of our founders’ intention. A flip of our national motto.

How far into the current Nero Decree do we need to go before our elected leaders remember their oath is to The Constitution and not to their party or the whim of an authoritarian? At what point will they recall the the purpose and absolute necessity of checks-and-balances? How much more indecency will we witness before they act or before we-the-people wake up and remember that the power is with the people? People of many races, genders, ethnicities…a richly diverse, formidable people when united.

(Bonus: A cautionary phrase from the National Center for Constitutional Studies: “Toynbee observed that 19 of the world’s 21 significant civilizations disappeared from the face of the earth – not from assault by outside forces, but from deterioration within the society.”)

read Kerri’s blogpost about DEI