Yale’s Project O

The work done by the members of project O brings about similar racial issues that were discussed in our previous readings. Racial tension is something dancers and many artists will have to deal with for a while. For example, most of the members of project O considered themselves “post-racial” but it was evident that they could not comfortably discuss issues of race. This in a way reflects the attitude of present day America despite the fact that they elected Barack Obama as president. Interestingly, some of the group members claimed they did not notice race yet there was conflict in chatting the way forward for the group.

From the onset, we are told that as the project confronted race issues, the phrase “don’t look back!” became more resonant within the group. I feel like this was a way of avoiding the race issues that many black artists find themselves tackling on a daily basis. For example, it was laughable that this group that considered itself racial blind did not want to be reminded of Hurricane Katrina or the number of young black men going to jail. For this group of post racial students, the solution for them seems to be “forget the past” and carry on from where we are. Unfortunately, race issues still exist albeit not as pronounced as they were in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Nonetheless, the article concludes with the discussion of a paper done by one of the project members who reveals that in order to take a step forward in the issues dealing with race, we must take a step back. It’s only by analyzing what went wrong, that we can get solutions to permanently fix the problem.

Anthony

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