Or, Not Neurotic Enough.

From Vancouver, via Alex Zoltan, an attempt to attend a “2SLGBTIAQ+-friendly” outdoor theatre is derailed by some cultural-sensitivity complications:

You see, madam’s hair – or rather, her woollen hair extension – violates the venue’s “Code of Conduct Cultural Appropriation Policy.”

Which is a thing, apparently.

Readers may not be entirely surprised to learn that the list of terms and conditions is somewhat extensive and includes both pre-emptive scolding that is nebulous and therefore open to interpretation by those so inclined:

We ask that guests take responsibility for understanding their own privileges… be mindful of how you take up space.

And pre-emptive scolding that is more particular:

Use inclusive and respectful language. Avoid making assumptions about other people’s genders and pronouns.

Because pronoun policing is the basis of every good night out. And with regard to madam’s supposedly scandalous hair:

We do not tolerate cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation refers to the non-consensual wearing or utilising of culturally significant and/or sacred elements of a culture that you do not have ancestry or genuine, meaningful relationships within.

That’s the non-consensual wearing of your own clothes and hair.

You see,

People who are not Black do not experience daily anti-Blackness that can come in the form of microaggressions, erasure, racial slurs, physical violence, police brutality and murder.

We’re talking, you’ll recall, about a trip to a “2SLGBTIAQ+-friendly” outdoor theatre. In the hope of a jolly time.

We’re also informed, sternly, that people of pallor do not experience,

intergenerational trauma as descendants of enslaved and colonised peoples

And that,

Blackness is not a costume that can be tried on.

Again, at a venue where luridly cross-dressing men can pretend to be women and must always be addressed with their fabulist pronouns.

In short, attendees must, 

uplift, celebrate and hold sacred those most marginalised among us.

Those forever downtrodden magic brown people.

And transvestites. 

I feel I should point out that the interaction filmed above goes on for nine minutes. You may wish to have a fortifying beverage to hand.

Or something to bite down on.

The complications of progressive fun times – specifically, what can only be referred to as ideological dancinghave been mentioned here before.

Update, via the comments:

Liz adds,

The wokescolds don’t even know the history of braids.

There is that. But if we start listing the things our Enforcers Of Purity don’t know, and the things they choose not to know, and the things they think they know but which are wildly incorrect, I suspect we’ll be here all day. And any interest in history, or in reality in general, seems likely to be subordinate to the neurotic, wearying drama that they wish to inflict on others.

Not unreasonably, Chow Bag asks,

How do they propose to check if someone has “genuine, meaningful relationships” with their hair and clothes?

Well, indeed. And likewise, if you’re obliged to continually “uplift, celebrate and hold sacred those most marginalised among us,” while fretting about pronouns and privilege and “how you take up space,” and while fretting about police brutality and “intergenerational trauma” and the sacredness of other people’s hairstyles… well, that may leave little time for watching the actual show. Which, I seem to recall, was the purpose of the visit.

But poking at the implications of their rules of admission almost certainly makes you a white supremacist and so you’re not allowed in.

Lest you contaminate The Purity.




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