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A crowd dances at a summer music festival. (Hero Images Inc./Getty Images / Hero Images)
Should whites pay a premium to attend a An Afro-Futurist music festival in a historically black neighborhood of Detroit?
For the organizers of the next Afrofuture Fest, the answer was clear: yes, they absolutely should. Too often, they have seen people of color being excluded from events in their own communities because they did not have the resources to purchase tickets when they were put on sale. It did not seem right.
"Often, when doping events take place in Detroit, the cheapest tickets are bought and sold by people who are not from the community because they can afford them first, leaving higher-priced tickets as well. only options, "explained one of the organizers of the event. on Twitter last week. "Negroes and blacks deserve to have access to quality events in their city and it's not fair that events happen in their city and they have no chance of being separated because people who do not look like us benefit and have more access to the collective wealth. "
With this disparity in mind, the organizers proposed a race-based pricing model for the Aug. 3 event. Early Bird tickets purchased before July 17th cost $ 10 for people of color and $ 20 for whites. The general admission would be $ 20 for people of color and $ 40 for whites. Part of the proceeds would go to Afrofuture Youth, the community initiative that hosts the event.
At a time when lawmakers and presidential candidates are debating reparations, the idea of charging whites an extra fee to attend a concert has proved equally controversial. What was supposed to be a small festival where a few hundred people gathered at a farm in East Detroit to listen to music, a bonfire, a drumming circle and a parade is now at the center of a storm. of national fire. Sunday evening, the Afrofuture Fest reversed the course, saying After receiving racist comments on social media and threats from white supremacists, the organizers decided to change their ticketing model in the interest of security. All remaining tickets will now cost $ 20, although it is suggested to donate to whites.
[One chef’s social experiment: Charge minorities $12, white people $30.]
The concept of race-based pricing is not really new. Tunde Wey, a Nigerian chef based in New Orleans, known for turning meals into a provocative and politically charged performance art, tried something similar last year. As a social experiment, he opened a lunch counter where he provided information on the racial wealth gap alongside plantains and Jollof rice. After listening to his brief lecture, customers would learn the price of their lunch. People of color paid $ 12. White diners would have a choice. Did they want to pay $ 12 as well, or give $ 30 and redistribute profits to people of color?
Some simply canceled their order and left. But more than 80 percent of white shoppers wanted to pay the higher price, said Wey to Maura Judkis of The Washington Post.
"If I created the framework in which I described an unquestionable problem and positioned you as an antagonist, I gave you the means to solve the problem in an orderly manner and to be the hero. antisocial behavior, "he explained.
A similar waterfall – though of very different motives – took place at the University of Texas, Austin, in 2016, when a group of conservative students staged an 'affirmative sale at the pastry shop ". Among the prices quoted: Asian men charged $ 1.50 for a cookie, white men would pay $ 1, African-American women, 25 cents, and Native Americans would receive biscuits for free.
Members of the Young Conservatives Texas campus section stated that their goal was to draw attention to what they saw as a discriminatory admission policy giving preferential treatment to groups. marginalized. Their experience did not work well on campus: in an hour, the bake sales table was invaded by protesters who described the demonstration as racist, said HuffPost.
In Detroit, the decision to give people of color a discount on tickets was motivated by the organizers' commitment to social justice. Afrofuture Youth describes itself as a youth-led initiative offering middle and high school students the opportunity to "build a new and more equitable world". On Eventbrite, where festival passes were sold, the group highlighted the difference between equality, which "means treating everyone the same" and fairness, which meant ensuring that "everyone has what he needs to succeed". They were targeting the latter.
The higher priced tickets for whites have begun to attract attention online after an artist abandoned On July 2, Jillian Graham, a Detroit-based rapper and interpreted as Tiny Jag and described as biracial, told the Detroit Metro newspaper that she had learned about the existence of the pay structure. when a white friend sent him a screenshot. She argued that politics was creating a gap in the community.
"It's non-progressive and, in my opinion, it's not focused on the solution," she told the paper. "It almost sounds like it's a grudge, and unfortunately, rancor comes from hate, and this is obviously not a good direction for us if we want positive change."
Graham also noted that she had white family members and would not want them to be "subject to something I would never want them to be in". She had planned to interpret pieces of "Polly," a mix tape that she named after her white grandmother, she added.
"How do you want me to come to a show and perform these songs from a music band that bears the title of that white woman you would have charged twice to get in here?", She asked. . "It's as if it's outrageous under so many different angles."
While the story was picked up by national and international media, critics flooded Afrofuture Youth's social media accounts, and commentators living far from Detroit began to make their voices heard. it is noted that the festival may violate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in public spaces such as concert halls. Others see it as an example of politically correct.
"Bravo Intersectional Radicals" wrote the controversial British rapper Zuby. "You have become the same racists you claim to defend."
But others spoke in favor of the festival and questioned the logic behind Graham's decision to drop out of school.
"My white mother would be proud to pay more because she understands the history of economic exploitation of the black people in this country to the benefit of whiteness and that she wants a better future for the black people, including his black children, " tweeted Ijeoma Oluo, author of "So, you want to talk about race".
She added"Please also note: publicly harming a black women's business because you imagine that her efforts to help the black community would make your grandmother uncomfortable, that's what internalized white supremacy looks like."
The controversy erupted on Sunday, when Eventbrite threatened to pull off the festival list, which would prevent the group from selling more tickets to the site.
"We do not allow events that require participants to pay different prices based on their protected characteristics such as race or ethnicity," said an Eventbrite spokesman at Washington Post in an email. "When we became aware of the violation committed by AfroFuture Fest, we informed the creator of the event and asked him to change the price of his tickets accordingly. We also let them know that if they did not respect it, we would completely remove the event from our site. "
The organizers of the festival refused to comment late Sunday night. Adrienne Ayers of Numi, founder and co-director of Afrofuture Youth, told the New York Times that the decision was made on safety and "nothing more than that."
Since the right-wing media has taken up the story, she says, people have sent unwanted messages to her co-director's family and harassed the owner of the community farm. But no other programming artist had retreated and the response was largely favorable. Up to now, 71 tickets have been sold, out of the 200 planned.
"Many whites have told us they have no interest in paying extra," she told The Times. "Not bad."
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