#u.s. stuff

Maybe we should go back to regulated public utilities.

Maybe we should go back to regulated public utilities.

Maybe we should go back to regulated public utilities.

but hamilton’s purpose was always about something else. failure in one avenue doesn’t mean there weren’t other, successful intentions of good. to understand that, take a step back and reflect upon the reactions of white detractors of hamilton. you know what they complained about?

how hamilton was historically inaccurate because the original historical figures were white. how hamilton was “discriminatory” toward white broadway actors because hiring focused on actors of color.

what hamilton did was give powerful, high-profile opportunities to living musical actors of color, both established and aspiring, across multiple countries. what hamilton did was service theater students from communities dominated by populations of color. what hamilton did was look at a story written by our oppressors, created and controlled for so long by white people, and said “hey, this shit is ours now. we’re taking it.”

hamilton was an act of re-appropriating a narrative used against us for ages and rewriting it:

so that the people telling it were actors of color,

so that the themes were those of the experiences of marginalized communities in the united states,

so that the musical genres were as far from western standards of “respectable music” as could be unironically performed in the white house as a work of art ever.

you know what hamilton did? it had a cast of nearly all actors of color on stage in the white house, performing seriously and authentically to an audience of majority white and wealthy politicians.

it had okieriete onaodowan (a nigerian american), anthony ramos (a puerto rican american), daveed diggs (a jewish black american), and leslie odom jr. (a black american) on that very stage as they listened to lin manuel miranda (a puerto rican american) beside them rap:

I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory When’s it gonna get me? In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me? If I see it comin’, do I run or do I let it be? Is it like a beat without a melody? See, I never thought I’d live past twenty Where I come from some get half as many Ask anybody why we livin’ fast and we laugh, reach for a flask We have to make this moment last, that’s plenty

that’s not a song for the white folk. that’s not a song for the wealthy and powerful. that’s a song for every single marginalized, impoverished person in this world who sees death in front of them clear as day rather than a hypothetical lying decades away.