What Comes Next: Hamilton?

Has anyone else lately just grown absolutely tired lately? Of everything? The bad online theatre, the not being able to see your loved ones, the working from home? The virus has hit a second wave, and so have I. I almost don’t have any words for this one.

So Hamilton is cancelled?

Just about as cancelled as…

Shane Dawson

or

Jeffree Star

or

Kanye West

or

Jimmy Fallon

or

Huckleberry Finn

or

White Fragility

or

Amazon

So, yeah, but this doesn’t take away from viewers, likes, and attention. If anything, it only creates attention.

These clickbait-y articles that fill your newsfeed about the real Alexander Hamilton all miss one thing: Hamilton isn’t about the real Alexander Hamilton. In fact, a Harvard professor brought this up 4 years ago. Theatre isn’t meant to be real; it’s meant to be imaginary. If you think that George Washington, Aaron Burr, and James Madison were all Black men, I’m afraid that your history is a bit off. Our history is shameful. And while the musical doesn’t address that head on, it is certainly implied given the very clear intention to create a 99% POC cast (only 2 white characters, by my count). Instead of harping on our past, Lin-Manuel Miranda found a way to revise it. Maybe it wasn’t his job, as a Puerto Rican-American, to apologize for America’s mistakes.

You know whose job it is to apologize?

Mine.

Ours (white people).

Those of us who can trace our ancestry back for generations upon generations.

I definitely feel strange (Is that the word? Is it shame?) about being able to trace back my ancestry to the 1600s. I’ve tried to move past it my whole life. And the fact that the other half of my family fled from religious persecution. I don’t even really know who my great-grandparents were. I try every day to move past my shame, my guilt and into the realm of action. Frankly, most days, I’m just paralyzed by it all.

My point here is that when someone like me sees Hamilton- and people like me need to see productions like Hamilton- it flips a switch on the rules I’ve been abiding by, either consciously or subconsciously, my whole life. I see a majority in front of me that doesn’t look like me. This is frustrating to a lot of white people, and trust me, there are plenty of older people who just don’t get it. At the end of it all, however, it’s a celebration of America’s untold secret weapon:

diversity

It’s both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. Differences in creed, nationality, and race kill us every day. But they also have the miraculous power to create something new, beautiful, and beyond what anyone has ever seen before.

America does suck most days, but there is probably nowhere else I’d rather quarantine.

…Well… it would be nice to watch the sun set on the Amalfi Coast every night.

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