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Last night, social media blew up as folx posted and tweeted about the recorded performance of Hamilton. Today, links to Frederick Douglass's Oration in Corinthian Hall on July 5, 1852 fill the newsfeeds and timelines. So now a little compare and contrast. /1
Admittedly, part of me considers this a matter of apples and oranges. Douglass and Miranda are writing at different times from different identities and deliver their work and messages through different mediums.
All true. /2
All true. /2
So is the fact that they share the same audience: Rich white people. /3
And what the two performances provide for and demand of their privileged and influential audience reveals not only a striking difference between Hamilton and "What to the [Negro] is the Fourth of July?", but also a difference btwn the expectations of allies and co-conspirators. 4
Both Douglass's oration and Miranda's play examine the glory, power, and promise of America. Douglass showers his audience with biblical allusions and analogies that connect America to the book of Exodus and God's liberated people, while Miranda breathes music and life... /5
...in the supposed story of young men and women courageous enough to believe in better. The Difference: After praising America, one performance demands accountability from its white audience while the other demands its audience aspire to be like the founding fathers. /6
After painting the picture of America, Douglass's oration in front of a rich white audience reveals the hypocrisy and cruel irony of the country that enslaves while celebrating freedom and liberation. /7
Meanwhile, Miranda's Hamilton leaves its audience, an audience that while more diverse, to be sure, is still comprised of many influential rich white people, in the comfortable premise of the greatness of the founders. /8
Hamilton encourages its audience to exhibit the same level of daring and risk as the founders to achieve their goals. Miranda lets white people keep the America of their dreams. Douglass reveals to white people how delusional and hypocritical their ideas about America are. /9
In this way, one performance, Hamilton, only asks its white audience to be allies, while the other performance, The Oration, provides its white audience with the initial steps toward being co-conspirators. /10
The only ask of an ally is to be present. There is no real disruption to an ally's privileged life. It is the co-conspirator who does the lifelong work of examining and improving themself with regard to the recognition and proper use of their privilege. /11
It is from this take that I be looking at folx, especially white folx and non-Black POC, posting both Hamilton AND Douglass. /12
How you posting links to an oration that argued allyship requires accountability, when a moment ago, you were praising a play that gives white people yet another story that glorifies their one-sided history thru Black & Brown creativity w/o asking anything in return?
