Show Boat and the media circus
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Tuesday 7:27pm 20March07

Apparently Spring begins around 8pm today. Yippee! Spring fever begins! Like I haven't been suffering from spring fever already.

Got to talking with my co worker today about being in the media eye and the negativity that can be written with no regard to the human being that its written about. I told the story of my Showboat days. When I was in my 2nd year in my child and youth work program at George Brown College I was working at the Showboat box office full time because it was a good gig to have while I was in school. I could get all my homework done at work and was still getting paid.

The theatre that was still being built was to show Showboat as the opening show in the mainstage theatre. It had been announced several months ahead of time. Out of the blue, it seemed a school board trustee decided to protest the show. It started off slow and built steam when more protesters from the black community joined the band wagon saying that they didn't want the show to be performed. They started protesting outside the box office that I worked in.

I minded my own black business and stayed in the box office neither ogling nor spying on the protesters. It was an opinion and I didn't want to be a part of it. One Saturday one of the protesters wrote racist on one of the building signs and management decided to put up video cams to video tape the protesters in future. Like clock work the following weekend one of the protesters came to the front door and peered in and of course saw me behind the box office desk. He walked back down the ramp to the school board trustee and whispered in her ear and she got up and walked into the box office. My boss came running into the front desk area and stood behind me prepared for whatever was going to happen.

The school board trustee walks up to my window leans forward and says, "I can't believe you need money this bad to work for these people."
I look back at my boss and say, "Can I say anything?"
He says, "No"
And I say, "Okay". And turn back around and smile at the School Board Trustee.

She leaves with her entourage and my boss tells me how proud he is of me that I didn't say anything knowing my personality and how I have to speak up at all times. I'm a little pissed because I wanted to say something. Nothing nasty just that she should be happy that I did indeed have a job instead of being that bad stereotype of black woman that lives on welfare.

Once all quiets down and everyone else is gone, I sit in the box office and write a letter to the School board trustee. I expressed that I was just a girl working a job that gave me the opportunity to go back to school. I told her that she should be ashamed of herself for protesting a show when instead, as a school board trustee, she could be guiding the producers into creating a great black history program to coincide with the show. Since the company, Livent had educational programs for the other shows that they produced such as The Phantom of the Opera. It was a fairly lengthy letter that I wrote to burn off steam because that's what I do, I write to burn off steam.

When I reread the letter I read it to my co worker to ask her what she thought of it. She said it was damn good. Because I'd signed a confidentiality agreement when I started working for Livent I faxed a copy to Garth Drabinsky asking his permission to send it to the Toronto Star as a letter to the editor. I didn't want to be totally silent about this slight. Garth was out of town when I sent the fax and by the time he got back I was out of town camping as part of a practicum for my Child and Youth Work program. I went camping with aggressive behaviour children. It was a trip and a half but worth the hours that would be subtracted from my practicum.

When I got back to town, I had about 30 messages on my answering machine saying call me, get the paper, where are you, etc.

While I was away there was another school board meeting and the executives from Livent were to be in attendance. They had called me to ask me to first read the letter at the meeting and finally if they could read the letter at the meeting. They got the female vice president to read it figuring that since I'd addressed it to the school board trustee that I wouldn't mind if it was read at a meeting that she would be at. The female vice president read it and when the school board trustee was asked by the media whether she'd been in and harassed a black employee she said, "I'd never step into that wooden boat." The box office was a makeshift boat.

Of course there was video footage saying otherwise and that tape was retrieved and sent off to the media.

Then the media circus started. I was interviewed by The Toronto Star, City TV news, CFRB radio and Eye Magazine. The guy that interviewed me from the star asked me dumb questions like what is Garth's next move? Buddy, I'm a ticket seller, Garth isn't telling me what his plans are, just so you know. Lance Chilton from City TV news was the kindest and really listened to what I said, that I was a simple person that liked to write but was going back to school because I'd promised myself that I would work with kids to give back. Andy Barry with CFRB was very interested in me as a writer and asked me if I'd give him a call when I had some writing because he'd love to hear about it. And buddy from Eye magazine didn't believe that I wrote the letter. He believed that I was a pawn strategically placed in the box office to kill the black queen.

The Toronto Sun had a big piece about me, as if someone had interviewed me when they hadn't and they spelled my name wrong. The black weeklies tore strips upon strips out of me. They called me an Uncle Tom Nigger that became the house nigger skinning and grinning with whitey. Happy to be accepted by the massa's. In one editorial they called me an uneducated ignorant nigger happy to be the little puppet sitting on the white man's lap. That I was too happy to take credit for writing a letter that I so clearly couldn't have written. In another editorial they berated me for calling myself a girl and not a woman, when my implication of calling myself a girl was a comment on how the school board trustee had treated me.

It was a wild ride reading the letters that were for or against me based on the media coverage they read. It was surprising that some media outlets could write pieces as if they'd interviewed me. It was shocking that some interviewers had already picked a side and didn't want to listen to me no matter what I said. It was hard to see that in my own community, I wasn't allowed to have my own opinion on a subject and that they couldn't be bothered to notice that some of my ideas were actually valid. For my 15 minutes of fame, I was recognized on the street when I was out with my friend Dillon which he got much amusement from. People, black people came to visit me at the box office telling me to keep a stiff upper lip and that they were proud of me.

It's been more than ten years and I figure it's about time I comment a on it for better or for worse. I wonder how much worse it is to be in the media today, if you're a celebrity or if you're going through a hard time or if you have a flash fire of attention on you for that fifteen minutes. Something to think about...

Oh and because it always pops up whenever I google my name, here is the Eye Weekly article from that guy who made up his mind before he walked into the Livent offices... Twirling the Show Boat Spin Doctor

By the way, Showboat was one of my favorite shows that Livent ever produced. I got to befriend so many beautiful talented black performers and got to know Lonette Mckee and Mic Bell on a first name basis. I would run through the halls of the building to sneak into the house to catch the montage every night that I worked. I met Quincy Jones on opening night and got a kiss from him and had a quick conversation butting in front of the line up of cast waiting to meet him. Oh and I was recognized from the executives when ever they came in the building and always treated with respect. That's all anyone can ever ask at any job, joe job or otherwise.

EY