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One-act play explores subtle racism

A one-act play put together through a partnership with Beyond Theatre Productions and SOICS educated students at Pen High
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Some forms of racism are overt, but that isn’t the only way it is expressed.

That’s what the one-act play Respect Lives Here explored during a performance for Pen High seniors at the Shatford Centre on Feb. 27.

The project, a partnership between Beyond Theatre Productions and the South Okanagan Immigrant and Community Services (SOICS), was funded by Embrace B.C., a government program that promotes multiculturalism and aims to eliminate racism in the province.

Angelika Eneas, community connection coordinator South Okanagan Immigrant and Community Services said part of the message in the performance is to explore the more subtle racism that occurs in Canada.

“Canadians are so passive aggressive in their racism. A lot of people don’t really know what it is. So we’re showing what it is, exhibiting that and bringing up things that we can talk about and learn about how to change that,” Eneas said.

Respect Lives Here explores a fictional company where agents have control over the world around their subjects, every day people.

In three different scenarios different kinds of racisms and scenarios are explored. One is a young boy whose teacher points out that his skin colour is different from everyone else in the class, another explores a kitchen worker whose boss makes off-hand racist comments constantly and another sees a woman verbally abused at a bus stop.

The next step after the performance is a discussion hosted with the students.

“We talk about what could have been done differently, what resources are in our community to address that,” Eneas said.

Lily Zarif was approached by her mother, who works at SOICS, to create this production.

“Especially in Canada, the forms of racism people experience, typically it’s a weird passive-type thing,” Zarif said. “Sometimes it’s things people don’t even realize. We wanted to bring attention to that and make people think how they would react if they saw any of this happen because it does happen,” Zarif said.

Laura Carly Miller, actor and contributor to Beyond Theatre Productions, agrees.

“For me, it’s getting the message across. There’s so many people in Canada who have a passive aggressiveness with racism. People will make a joke about it and say ‘oh, well I’m not being racist,’ but yeah you kind of are,” Miller said.

For more information on SOICS visit www.soics.ca and to learn more about Beyond Theatre Productions visit www.facebook.com/BeyondTheatreProductions