ANDREW (ACTOR 4):
We’ve kind of divorced the racist language from it, but the outcome is the same. So you don’t have to say, “I want to go to a White school or live in a White neighborhood”; you can talk about “Oh, I’m just concerned about my property values going up or down” and really what you’re talking about is race but you don’t have to talk about it out loud.
COURTNEY (ACTOR 2): All these people have very strong progressive identities, like if you met them, they’d be like, “Yeah, I’m a radical anti-racist.” But the moment comes when it’s like, “Can you go to school with these other kids in your neighborhood school?”
ALL:
They pushed back.
ZAHAVA (ACTOR 2):
Like, it is bananas that you would ever have parents sitting at a kitchen table going, “I don’t know if we can afford to move to a place with good schools for our kid. Like I don’t know if we can afford good public schools. Like, I don’t know if we can afford something that’s free.” That is a wild conversation, right? That makes no sense at all. We’ve found a way to parcel out the privilege in a system that is supposed to be free and open to everybody.
ERIKA (ACTOR 1):
The stark reality is that schools are segregated because White parents want them to be.
Courtesy of Epic Ensemble Theatre
