From the audience division, to the content of the play, and the post-play discussion, I found it intriguing how much surrounding race relations and family politics has changed, but has also remained the same. In the play, there was so much tension around their interracial relationship, but mainly because the Black man was doing everything in his power to please his white wife. As the play went on we were able to see that his wife would do everything in her power to sabotage her husband’s potential career as an attorney. I found this to be interesting because in modern day terms, outside of dating, Blacks still work hard to prove that in spite of tensions, they can still accomplish what they put their mind to do. At the same time, this can come at the cost of their well-being and stability. Thinking about being a Black women, I find that even when I’m working hard and trying not to fit stereotypes of Blacks in America, I can still feel that there are forces/individuals , who do not believe that I should succeed, and will do anything in their power to prevent that prosperity. All in all, this play helped me to further question how race relations affect my personal decisions and aspirations, and ways that I can consciously work to ameliorate those challenges.

Last weekend, I got the opportunity to see the play All God’s Chillun Got Wings. It was set in the 1920s during America’s blatantly racist past. The plot follows an interracial couple that have known each other since childhood. Jim is a black man who is struggling to pass his Bar exam, as he is an aspiring writer. Ella, the woman Jim is madly in love with, is a sought out for woman who ultimately marries Jim. The couple flee to France to escape the hatred against miscegenation that was prevalent at the time in the United States, especially with a white woman. However, when the got to France and were well received, the couple realized the issue was themselves. They were running away from an insecurity, which did not serve in dealing with that insecurity.

Once they returned to the United States, things took a turn for the worse. Ella was feigning insanity in order to keep her husband from passing his Bar exam. She could not be bear the thought of a black man becoming successful in a “white man’s world”. As a result, she did anything to keep Jim from achieving his dream. She oppressed Jim within his own household.

I think this play highlighted the battle of confronting and maintaining stereotypes about ourselves. Today, I doubt there would be that type of power dynamic in a relationship, but I still believe everyone has racial biases. This extreme scenario may have caused some people to confront their’s.