Dolly Parton and Genre-Bending Reggae Ballet

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/10/us/dolly-parton-and-reggae-ballet-race.html

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Good morning,

To all of you who took the time to respond to last week’s newsletter and to complete the survey, thank you. Race/Related is evolving, and your feedback is always appreciated and welcome.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this new chapter of Race/Related, and part of what I want to do with this newsletter is to make it more transparent, which means sharing more about my experience as a black woman, about this project and about how The Times covers race.

From week to week, some of the most interesting conversations about race that I have happen during our weekly Race/Related meeting, which a colleague aptly described as an “internal consciousness-raising session.”

This week, our guest was Cliff Levy, a brilliant editor, a reporter with two Pulitzer Prizes, and The Times’s newly minted Metro editor. Part of our conversation was about a recently published Metro story on Gavin McInnes, the leader of the Proud Boys, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group.

The headline, “Proud Boys Founder: How He Went From Brooklyn Hipster to Far-Right Provocateur,” struck many readers (including many inside The Times) as problematic. Others felt the piece itself didn’t do enough to interrogate Mr. McInnes’s position as a vocal proponent of racism and violence.

The takeaway from the meeting was that every instance in which The Times is called out for our coverage of race offers us a moment to reflect on how to improve it and to put those lessons into practice. In a time when racial tensions are extremely high, that task can feel overwhelming. But what I love about this newsletter is that it makes this responsibility feel like less of a burden and more of an opportunity.

That’s what’s been on my mind this week, as well as Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, and the number of firsts during this week’s midterm elections.

Also, my fiancé just started listening to Dolly Parton for the first time. I can’t believe it has taken him this long!

Until next time,

Lauretta

By Neeti Upadhye

A few years ago, I apprenticed with a “genre-bending” reggae-ballet dance company in Rochester, N.Y. I had been a casual dancer my entire life, but this was the closest I had ever come to joining a real company. Dance was my escape. I spent nearly 15 hours a week at rehearsals. My fellow dancers quickly became a surrogate family. Most of them were from the Caribbean. As an Indian woman, I felt at home surrounded by people of color.

But I remember the day our choreographer asked us to wear “nude” leotards for an upcoming performance. I scoffed when I was warned by another dancer that I wouldn’t be able to find a leotard to match my skin tone at a local dance outfitter. It was 2015. Dance companies that celebrated dancers of color — including the Dance Theatre of Harlem — had been mainstays for decades. How hard could it be to find a bronze leotard?

It turns out that the answer is “very hard.” So hard, in fact, that I eventually stopped looking. I gave up, bought a beige outfit and followed step-by-step instructions given to me by another dancer for how to dye fabric at home using black tea. Apparently, she already knew the drill.

The experience made me feel like an outsider in a place that otherwise felt safe and welcoming. It also made me think about other young brown dancers who, upon learning that they have to steep their leotards in Lipton tea, might feel discouraged from pursuing their passion for dance.

Brown point shoes, the focus of the eye-opening article, “Brown Point Shoes Arrive, 200 Years After White Ones,” won’t fix the dance world overnight, but it’s a start.

[Read “Brown Point Shoes Arrive, 200 Years After White Ones” here.]