Reaction and overreaction.
The ChiTAC petition and statements from Chicago-area theaters about the Sun-Times’ head arts critic amount to a very small action: The removal of free theater tickets in response to a longtime, demonstrated pattern of abusive opinions and unprofessionalism. The petition itself does not demand anybody lose their jobs even if they probably deserve to do so. The initiative has occurred after years of attempting to help Ms. Weiss change her perspective and listen to others explain the damage she causes, including invitations to free gatherings devoted to discussion of racial issues in the arts that she would then decline to attend.
This is being referred to as “mob justice.”
There’s a guy I used to work with. Let’s call him “Greg Allen” because that was his name and at this point–after every anecdote shared about him last December in the wake of his petulant decision to revoke performance rights to Too Much Light–this should hardly be surprising.
A few years prior, the Neo-Futurist ensemble decided to hold Greg accountable for a longtime pattern of abusive behavior and unprofessionalism that threatened the company’s ability to continue creating and performing new work. At the emergency session, the ensemble voted to suspend him from active status for one year, and told him that reinstatement was contingent on him taking a moment to reconsider his attitudes and try to find a healthier mode of collaborating with his fellow artists.
On a number of occasions afterwards, to nearly anybody who would listen, Greg would refer to this incident as “my lynching.”
A one-year suspension.
With a generous avenue for reinstatement.
“My lynching.”
And that’s what I remembered this morning as I scanned through certain contrary opinions.
And I remember Martin Luther King Jr. being labeled “a danger to national security.”
And I remember Colin Kaepernick quietly taking a knee during a national anthem being equated with “treason.”
And I remember Sen. Kamala Harris’ aggressive questioning of AG Jeff Sessions being referred to as “hysteria.”
“Mob justice.”
“My lynching.”
The first line of attack is not against your reasoning. The first line of attack is to declare you lack reason at all.
Creative Control 