A Yay and Boo Hiss

Editor:

Re: T. Custodio’s June 26 review of Love’s the Best Doctor at Dell’Arte.

My two guests and I enjoyed the Sunday, June 30, show in the Rooney Amphitheater. The review had a “sidenote” that rang true for me. With recent local efforts to incorporate the long-ignored original inhabitants of Humboldt County, it was sad not to hear the Wiyot Tribe acknowledged by the director of this show. While he did use the word ‘Indigenous’ in his politically timely introduction, it was along with a group of other words he claimed were no longer legal to say. This prologue was gloriously hypocritical in its colonially rooted finger pointing. Hearing a white, male, elder rage against the machine while ignoring their own non-Native privilege was a poor way to introduce the Baduwa’t Festival. Our planet’s utter lack of cultural empathy will NEVER change until those in power learn to recognize, and choose to alter, their complicity in the perpetuation of colonialism. Luckily, fine music and performers pulled me out of my dis-ease and entertained the heck out of me. Yay to the show, boo hiss to unacknowledged privilege and basic respect to those long ignored by the system.

Brian Ingram, Bayside