On Thursday evening, I went to watch The Top of Bravery: An Evening with Bert Williams– the play that my SSIR Travel for Discovery community has been working to bring to campus since this past August. The messages that this one play promotes are truly life changing and mind opening. The Top of Bravery is a monologue depicting the struggles that Bert Williams, a black performer during the vaudeville era faced during his length in the entertainment industry. Although audiences absolutely loved Bert and his wonderful acts he was still subject to the extreme racism and hate that surrounded African Americans during this time. He was forced to wear blackface during his performances, although he was an African American man, and he did not enjoy any of the luxuries that the white performers were able to during this time. Bert Williams’ struggles were depicted brilliantly onstage by playwright and actor Jeremy Morris.

When I first read the script back in September, I honestly did not believe that this play would be as much of a success as it was. I promoted the play to my best ability (because it was part of my grade), although at the time I did not think that it was all that special. When I finally saw it in person, 6 months removed from originally reading the play, I was reminded how powerful the arts are in conveying messages to a multitude of people. Playwright and actor Jeremy Morris invited the entire audience to view an entirely different perspective on an issue- something that we do not always get to do. Humans tend to shy away from discussions that make them feel uncomfortable, however in order to fix certain situations we need to talk about them, no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel. That is why we often do not consider viewing something from another’s perspective, simply because it makes us feel uncomfortable, however this is exactly what Jeremy shows us we need to do more of in order to put an end to oppression.

During the talk-back panel at the end of the show, I was blown away by what the 3 panelists had to say. The most important message that I took away from the talk back was that we need to continue to fight the oppression that blacks face in today’s society. While we have taken steps forward, blacks continue to face racism and different obstacles in their daily lives- meaning that we have many more uncomfortable talks coming up in the near future to even begin to fix this issue. Jeremy Morris talked about the idea that there is an archetypal “black guy” that is promoted in the entertainment industry, and when blacks do not fulfill this role they are told to act “more black,” often by whites. He raised the question that how can someone be told to act “more black” when they are acting the only way that they know how? How can an individual be told that their people only act one certain way by someone else, when in fact that individual knows that this is not true? How do they conform to this stereotype and what effect does this have on the person?

As critical thinkers, we need to realize that these types of questions are often forgotten in society, and we need to bring them up to combat racial injustice. We need to force the world to have more uncomfortable conversations in order to overcome the discrimination is still prevalent. That is the only way that we can begin to overcome these problems.