To the Editor:

I would like to applaud SUNY Potsdam’s Theatre and Dance department, and Jay Pecora and his wonderful crew in particular, for bringing James Baldwin’s “Blues for Mister Charlie” to the stage.

This play is a powerful depiction of how racism, sexism and class-based discrimination work together. These forces manipulate what people think is true and make it appear normal that some humans just don’t count as much as others.

The play shows the everyday humiliations whites considered adequate in their interaction with blacks; it also shows how those who consider themselves superior are assigned very narrow spaces of appropriate behavior – best embodied by the white women who invest all their energy in their appearance of “decency” (an attribute possible to achieve for white women only).

One male white character tries hard to bridge the divide between blacks and whites and within the racist system, cannot but fail in this endeavor. One male black character debunks the supposedly “normal way” of white supremacy as the blatant brutality that it is by passionately denying his inferiority. For this, he has to die.

This play is set in the past but it is not a theme of the past. I watched the fantastic actors develop the realities of white supremacy throughout the three acts of the play.

At the very end, the actors left their roles and hugged each other “across color lines”. I was surprised about how much of a relief this gave me; obviously, it takes only a few hours to get caught by any social order presented as normal, no matter how despicably inhuman it is.

Only recently, SUNY Potsdam faculty and students were informed about a number of racist incidents that students of color were exposed to both within the college and out in the community.

It is important that we make clear in response that racism and any ideology that divides humans into superior and inferior categories has no place in this community. “Blues for Mr. Charlie” clearly made that point.

Susanne Zwingel

Potsdam