Wednesday - November 28, 2007

What Lakota Students Learned this Week

Let's start off with the reading assignment:

Students say they were told the play was canceled because there was reason to be concerned about their safety.

"What I did was this," Hines said. "I called to get information on procedures for filing for public demonstration. I did not file. Let's be clear about this. (School administrators) censored themselves."

Jon Weidlich, Lakota director of school/community relations, said the decision was strictly about "outcry in the community. As people became familiar with (the play), they became less and less confident and more and more uncomfortable."

Schmaltz sighs that the theater program "is about the kids. ... And it stopped being about the kids."

"Ten Little Indians" is not a play that is typically at the center of controversy.

Mystery fans know "Ten Little Indians" as one of Christie's nursery-rhyme plays (such as "The Mousetrap"), with strangers trapped on an island with a maniac killer who murders them one by one, according to the verses. Every time someone dies, a figurine of an Indian is knocked over. In 1930s England, the original was titled "Ten Little N - - - - - -."

Educational Theatre Association judges it to be perennially in the top 25 shows produced on high school stages nationally.

Abbie Van Nostrand, vice president of Samuel French Inc., American licensing agent for Christie plays, said that while French doesn't "keep statistics," she had not heard of objections and said that French "does very well with Agatha Christie and with this title all the time" (now licensed as "And Then There Were None"). Van Nostrand said the group was "not having an issue with it in 2007-2008."

Since 1992, Ron Blankenbuehler has directed the popular mystery three times at Ursuline Academy and Roger Bacon high schools without a whisper of protest.

"I love the show," Blankenbuehler said. "There are great lessons in it."

Hines is a theater fan, and with his wife, Cynthia Pinchback-Hines, was a founding member of the African-American Theatre Company of Butler County a few years back.

Hines argued that people are generally unaware of the origins of "Ten Little Indians" and of some recent scholarly considerations of Christie. If they were informed, they would have objections, too, Hines said.

Weidlich agreed and told of a conversation he had with a black staff member who said, "You don't teach kids not to play with matches by showing them how to play with matches."

While Hines said the play is about "genocide," he also said "Ten Little Indians" is fine on stages from community to professional. It's high school productions he questions, in general. "Kids don't have enough information about diversity."

Hines also questioned the choice at Lakota East, in particular, which Hines thinks has a poor track record in diversity issues. He said he views the production "in a broader context of the history of the (school) district."

Hines operates GPH Consultants, a diversity training company in West Chester Township, and has made various racial accusations against Lakota schools through the years, Joan Powell, president of the Lakota Board of Education, said this week. She said Hines' personal financial interests sometimes come into play through his recommendations.

Hines said it's up to every high school's community to make up their own minds about producing the show and that American Indians should also be given an opportunity to weigh in publicly.

Using "Ten Little Indians" as a diversity exercise and a departure point for "a community discussion would have been great," Hines said, but noted "by the time (school administrators) came to us, they'd pulled the play."

Weidlich agreed that the original idea was to use the students' hard work as "a teachable moment" until it became clear that emotions within Lakota East were running high.

"Time will tell whether it was the right or wrong decision," he said.

As for the students, senior Alicia Frost said, "It's all I can think about." She was "enraged" by the undisputed charge that the mystery had a theme of genocide and that administrators came away from a Monday evening meeting with a statement that "students are disappointed but know it's for the best." 

Here's the lessons learned:

• White liberal guilt has no limit and no backbone

• Mr. Hines of the NAACP also runs a diversity training business. So in other words, blackmail is acceptable

• Diversity is nonsense

• Cincinnati's NAACP, led by Mr. Hines, has what we moralists call a conflict of interest

• Mr. Hines is more concerned with making a buck with his diversity business, than say helping the poor blacks of Cincinnati find jobs or better their education

• There is no money in the poor neighborhoods of Cincinnati to be had

• Vote Republican or put up with this race blackmail for years to come

• Apparently schools are administered by illiterate staff, who can't bother to read "Ten Little Indians" fore themselves and find out the play isn't racist

Finally, how many white students, affected by Mr. Hines stunt, will now have a unfavorable view minorities after this attempted shakedown. You've definitely taught the people of West Chester all they need to know about diversity. They need to move further away from it.

Mr. Hines, white people, and this play are not the problem faced by Cincinnati's black community. 

Why aren't you addressing the horrible graduation rate of black Cincinnati? Why aren't you addressing the high crime rate of black Cincinnati? Why aren't you addressing the out-of-wedlock birth problem of black Cincinnati? Why aren't you addressing the gangster culture adopted by much of black Cincinnati?

No need to answer, Mr. Hines, we know, there isn't the prospect of a diversity contract involved.

Author: The Machiavellian
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