Disrupting "SUFFS"

On direct action

Last night, a group of autonomous activists disrupted (video at this link) the Broadway show “SUFFS,” right as the Woodrow Wilson character was taking the stage. I was part of the group, and here are some things you should know about this action.

A tweet from journalist Talia Lavin who was the first to report on it.

1. Actions like this one are meant to get peoples' attention when the "calling in" that Loretta Ross advises has failed (and it has failed over and over again with this show from people involved in it);

2. In addition to the reporting about the action, which is already way more critical than any stories about the show have been to date, there is also an entire discussion board on Reddit about the action and the show, which is also way more thoughtful than previous discussions. So good job all of you, and SUCCESS for our action! 😊

3. Lots of people on the socials are eager and insistent to point out that there are WOMEN OF COLOR in the cast, so how can the show be criticized along lines of race? Yes, of course there are women of color characters and actors in the show, that doesn't mean it's not a whitewashed show. It very much is. The number, “Wait My Turn,” which the character Ida B. Wells-BARNETT (why they leave off her married name, I have no idea, except disrespect), is a way of containing her critique about "wait my turn" by doing that very thing in the show. She sings that number near the opening of the show, followed by a very brief one by Mary Church Terrell, then they are both reduced to minor characters, ancillary to Alice Paul and the "real" suffrage movement of the white women. If you study the show -- I've seen it 4 times now — what you’ll see is that the Black women characters effectively recede into the background as the show unfolds, including one scene where Mary Church Terrell literally gives a speech with her back to the audience. The show patronizes the causes and lives of these Black women. It's heartbreaking to see (some) Black women defend the show in comments on social media, but I understand it. It’s because there are so few roles and opportunities and so little representation for Black women on Broadway. The main critique in the action is not of the Black women in the show, it's of everyone using the Black women as an excuse for the white-wash of the entire show. It’s sad that Black women are forced to perform gratitude for what’s on offer in “SUFFS.” It’s a shame that white women like the show’s creators don’t have a more capacious imagination than this, and that the mostly white women in the audience settle for what’s on offer in “SUFFS.” In scarcity, we’re grateful for crumbs. We all deserve better than this.

4. It's so clear that the creators of this show read ONE book (about Alice Paul), and then went on to create this whole fantasy about her. But the show's narration does real epistemic violence to the legacy of the Black women, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, and what they were fighting for (an end to lynching) and the ways that white women were implicated in that reign of terror. Our action with the banner was really about political education, trying to get people who are obviously interested enough in history to go to a Broadway show to read another book, another article, listen to another podcast about voting, about feminism, about race ~ and to do that in a way that challenges the narrow, outdated, tropes of white women's purity that take center stage in "SUFFS." This is the main story in “SUFFS,” a rehabilitation of white women who are not “Karens” but rather valiant fighters for justice, a story not supported by the historical evidence.

5. The show "SUFFS" is doing political work. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a major investor, to the tune of $19 million, and used it recently as a fundraiser for the Democratic Party (along with Lin-Manuel Miranda). Our action with the banner was also meant to call attention to this fact, and to challenge what should be obvious by now, that white women do not vote as a block for progressive causes. They didn't in 1920 and they didn't in 2016, when 53% voted for Trump. So, all the people yelling at me about "Well, what about Trump," you should really check your assumptions about what “good” this show is supposedly doing. “SUFFS” is a consolation prize for a nice white lady that lost a big election, but it’s not “history” in any demonstrable way. It’s a comforting fiction for its predominantly older, white audience.

6. The most dangerous aspect of “SUFFS” is that the show has educational aspirations. The rumors are that the show is not filling seats, and so is not likely to earn out the investments in it. Yet, even if the show loses money and closes, it seems clear from the show’s website that it wants to do “education,” and this is disastrous because of the way it misleads the next generation of feminists about our shared history. This story sends the feminist movement backwards to a time when white women actively excluded Black women, but without any tools to understand it. There are difficult truths in the history of women’s suffrage and telling a fantasy about them, rather than the plain truth, is no way to build a liberation movement.

My hope is that the action with the banner not only disrupted the show but that it was also a disruption in the collective delusion of white women’s superiority, racial innocence, and commitment to progressive causes.