Tam: Blog 10

In act one of Clybourne Park, set in 1959, we see Bev and Russ planning to sell their home in the white middle-class Chicago neighborhood of Clybourne Park. They receive a visit from their neighbor informing them that the family buying the house is black, and pleads with the couple to back out of the deal, for fear that area property values will fall if black residents move in.

Reading this play with the lens of 2013, I am appalled by their behavior and view it as racist. However Norris is genius in the second act, set in 2009, as we witness the same behavior dealing with race. Although the second act is set fifty years later we see that nothing has changed, it is just black versus white.

I used to believe that in the community religion, race, sexual orientation, or any matters that feels sensitive is private. We are appalled when looking at history when people are discriminated against, but we are doing the same things today. Every news paper, online blog, and television station airs stories at someone else’s expense. They dig into every aspect of people’s personal life almost as if we are entitled to this information.

When I read act one of Clybourne Park, I try not to judge, because I wonder how different are we today? Granted it is not socially acceptable to judge people based on the color of their skin, but we judge people everyday based on what we read about them, how we perceive them to be, and other shallow factors. It is difficult to answer what is public and private because I feel that in the community of this nation we have lost sight of what the answer is.