Students,
college clash over civil-rights parody
By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter
May 4, 2006
In two weeks, Tinu Oyelowo will graduate with a degree in theater from
Seattle's Cornish College of the Arts, leaving behind what she believes
is unfinished work.
She and other students on the tiny campus are at odds with school
administrators over a March 31 clown-class production they say went
terribly wrong. Meant to parody white ignorance of the civil-rights
movement, the performance by three white students resorted to painful
stereotypes and mocked the era's icons.
The group of students, both blacks and whites, say Cornish officials
have not done enough to address the lack of cultural awareness that led
to the incident. College officials, meanwhile, say such change takes
time.
The performance came before another racially sensitive flare-up at
Bellevue Community College over a math question that contained
stereotypical references to black people. Both incidents raise
questions of reconciling artistic expression with issues of race and
cultural sensitivity.
Cornish is a campus of scattered buildings where 786 students pursue
degrees in areas of theater, music, art, dance and design. Less than 3
percent of the students and less than 3 percent of the faculty are
African American. Students describe it as a liberal place, which is why
the incident has so disturbed some of them.
Those who saw it later described something akin to a train wreck
everyone sees coming but could do nothing about.
Provost Lois Harris said the performance, dubbed "Civil Rights Movement
— In Its Entirety" was an in-class, end-of-semester presentation put on
by three graduating students in the college's theater department.
In their clown characters, the three portrayed Martin Luther King Jr.
and Malcolm X as "half-witted simpletons," said the offended students.
In one scene, King begins his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, then
admits to having forgotten the rest before he is shot. But it was the
performers' depiction of the 1960 sit-in at Greensboro that proved most
offensive.
In the historic incident, four black students forced the issue of
segregation by sitting at a whites-only lunch counter in a Woolworth's
store and attempting to order sodas, coffee and doughnuts. In the
Cornish rendition, the students who saw it said the performers greeted
each other with "Homey G, whaddup?," ordered fried chicken,
chitterlings, black-eyed peas, watermelon and fruit salad, and
declared, "We're not goin' 'til we git some."
Oyelowo, a senior from Florida, said Cornish administrators have put
the onus on students to reconcile what happened.
"We are training artists to best represent this culture — both the
flaws of this country and its strengths," Oyelowo said. "There's no
pressure being put on how we educate them." There are no real
cultural-studies courses at Cornish, she and the other students said.
Harris, the provost, said administrators don't believe the students or
their instructor intended to be malicious and are thoroughly mortified.
"They've apologized. They've been thoroughly chastised."
Harris said much of what the other students are asking is part of a
long-term plan on which the college is now embarking.
"What will be seen more publicly will be seen in the fall," Harris
said. "Diversity has to be measured and institutionwide, and it needs
to be consistent."
"I felt ugly, gross ... " said Cassandra Pittman, 20, a freshman
theater major who is black. "And to turn and see my section mates
laughing while I wasn't was really painful."
Melissa Henry, a white sophomore theater student from Denver, said
during the Woolworth's lunch-counter scene, audience members were
"looking to the African-American students — one, for permission to see
if it was OK to laugh, and two, to see if it was offending them. That's
the point where artistic license goes too far."
Harris said theater officials immediately brought together the
performers with black students and theater faculty to address what
happened. The entire theater department also met and later participated
in a diversity-training session.
Oyelowo, Henry and other students formed a group called Students
Promoting Understanding and Respect to speak to diversity and
culturally sensitive issues. Harris said the college plans to form a
diversity committee to improve the campus climate for all students and
develop a plan for curricular review. But students say there are
actions the college could take now — such as hiring a more diverse
faculty and requiring the three performers to write public letters of
apology. One has done so on his own.
"We come from big cities and small towns and we're all ages," Henry
said. "We're not all on the same playing field, culturally."
Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company