David Smith, Guardian (Manchester), May 28, 2009
A theatre production designed to promote inter-racial harmony in South Africa has been hit by recriminations over an onstage kiss between a white and a black actor.
Carolyn Forword walked out of a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin after being directed to kiss fellow cast member Unathi Dyantyi repeatedly on the lips.
Forword, 22, argues that the kissing was not suitable for the touring production’s audiences of young children. Dyantyi counters that her description of the kiss as “unhygienic” was racially motivated, an allegation she vehemently denies.
The row engulfing The Pied Piper, which has three white actors and one black, has underlined how even the apparently liberal arts are not immune to South Africa’s ongoing sensitivities around race.
Dyantyi, 28, said Forword pushed him away and shrank from kissing him during performances of the play. “I felt like a piece of shit every time we had to do it because of the way she treated me,” he said. “She didn’t want to kiss me. She said she found it unnecessary and the kiss was unhygienic.”
“I’m speechless. What’s unhygienic about the kiss? And what’s unnecessary about it? It is necessary for what the director is aiming to do. He’s trying to convey a message that it’s OK for different cultures to fall in love. We’re a multicultural country and we’re trying to convey that.”
The Riverside Theatre Company, based in Cape Town, had hoped to take The Pied Piper to Forword’s former school, but she apparently objected. Dyantyi added: “I gathered she didn’t want her parents to see their kid being kissed by a black dude.”
“She’s been trained as an actress at drama school, yet she has a problem with kissing. This has never happened to me before. There is still racism in South African theatre today, but it’s very subtle.”
Forword withdrew after 12 performances of The Pied Piper, leaving another actor to take over the remaining 50 shows. She adamantly denies the accusations of racism, which first appeared in the Sowetan newspaper.
“It is a play for eight-year-olds,” she said. “They wanted me to kiss the guy for 20 seconds, which is inappropriate for that audience. It wouldn’t have gone down well at a Catholic school, for example. It would have been unhygienic because it was a travelling show. I pulled out because the director never gave my agent an idea of where we were staying. It had nothing to do with the kissing thing. But now I’m seen as a racist.”
The play’s director, Leslie Ehrhardt, supported Dyantyi’s account. “Without a doubt there was a racial element from the word go until the very end,” he said. “Carolyn underlined it with her general behaviour towards Unathi. She pushed him away and her face was screwed up, as if kissing him was the worst thing in the world.
“She said to me in rehearsals that her doctor told her it was unhygienic to kiss on the stage. That took me by surprise. When we going to her old school, she said it would not go down well with her people, or words to that effect.”
Ehrhardt, 42, added: “It’s a horrible situation. It undermines what people did here in the 60s, 70s and 80s in using theatre to challenge apartheid. Racism isn’t significant in South African theatre and we shouldn’t be talking about it.
“South Africa is 15 years into its new democracy. This lady is 22 and she would have been brought up in a different way from me and others of my age and older. I was really shocked about what happened.”
Forword has made a series of complaints against Ehrhardt over issues such as living conditions, transport and what she termed his “inappropriate behaviour”.
Original article
(Posted on June 1, 2009)
Comments
“She said to me in rehearsals that her doctor told her it was unhygienic to kiss on the stage.”
I would agree with the Doctor, however it is NOT just on stage either. With all the old and “new diseases” being spread at break neck speed that are antibiotic resistant, I would say swapping spit with just anybody is not only unhygienic but unsanitary and it’s still ill moral.
There are over 140 venereal diseases (100 of them are forms of the human papilloma virus). One can also get herpes I and II just from kissing someone. Also, there is no test to determine if a man has herpes. The only way to know he had/has it is if a woman who is not infected with it is intimate with him and then subsequently gets herpes. So, this actress’s contention that it was unnecessary to kiss a co-worker in a long, lingering kiss has merit.
Oh, and never mind that this was a traveling play to be put on for the benefit of 8-year olds.
Considering black South African male’s sexual proclivities she isn’t wrong to fear catching heaven knows what.
so we got to kiss em now or we are racists. how pitiful, and i am sure it is cominmg to america. they can shoot me, but i wont kiss em. these multiculturalists never cease to amaze me. they want our blood.
“It is a play for eight-year-olds,” she said. “They wanted me to kiss the guy for 20 seconds, which is inappropriate for that audience.
That’s true. Even if it were not an interracial kiss, why do they need to put a twenty-second kissing scene in a play for eight year olds?
I have long wondered if at least a few White actresses who must kiss or be affectionate on screen(or stage) with Blacks aren’t secretely put-off by the whole affair. Oh sure, the avowed liberal tendencies of most of them would preclude ever letting this aversion show or, heaven forbid, expressing it verbally. But we all know liberals like a talk a good game, but their actions often betray their bleeding-heart baloney! One has to wonder…
What do feminists tells us? No means no. According to feminists, women have the right to say no and their choice is to be respected above all else.
Good for her.
“He’s trying to convey a message that it’s OK for different cultures to fall in love. We’re a multicultural country and we’re trying to convey that.”
Well, maybe I can help you understand the situation a bit more, Dyanti old boy. To her you look grusome and it sickens her to have to act as if she’s romantically involved.
I’d feel EXACTLY the same way about a black woman.
Sorry, old guy, but that’s called “diversity.” You’re probably surprised to learn that not all people view your reluctance to dilute your genes with another race.
Notice how the newspaper account quotes the black, on and on and on, with all-too obvious approval of what he’s saying; quotes the White actress, but only briefly; then continues with extensive quotes from the director, who agrees with the black. Can anyone guess which side the Guardian is on?
And for that matter, what does an extensive kissing scene between a black and a White have to do with “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”? That is a story about how the mayor and council of the city of Hamelin, Germany, in the Middle Ages, hired a piper to lure the rats that were plaguing their city, away to their drowning deaths. Then, when the city fathers reneged on their promise of “a thousand guilders” for his ridding Hamelin of the rats, he used his self-same piping magic to lure away all their children.
Now what does all that have to do with black or White, or miscegenation, I’d like to know?
Why do we have to call someone a ‘racist’ for not being attracted to someone of a different race than us? Who cares if it’s the “hip” thing to do nowadays? I’m not attracted to blacks or hispanic women and no amount of guilt-tripping me or accusations of “racism!” is going to change that.
The generation of 1960’s ‘civil rights activists’ are now the establishment, and they can’t understand why the kids are rebelling against their prurient interest in arranged race-mixing.
A twenty-second interracial kiss in a play about the Pied Piper is gratuitous.
I did not know there were black men in the German town of Hamlin,
I did not knoew there we black men in Robin Hood’s band of merry men,
I did not know there were black men in the courts of the Royals in Tudor times.
Why are we being subjected to having these people appearing in totally unreal situations where we know that blacks were historically never present. It does not wash with me & probably millions of others.
I have even seen a Swiss produced film claiming that Christian Barnard the pioneer heart transplant surgeon was assisted by a black surgeon who developed the technique for transplants but was not allowed to claim the credit by those nasty ‘apartheid types’.
Do these people think we are totally ignorant!!!!!!!!!
No wonder we can no longer tolerate blacks & the liberal do gooders.
“Carolyn Forword walked out of a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin after being directed to kiss fellow cast member Unathi Dyantyi repeatedly on the lips.”
She’s right. Kissing someone repeatedly on the lips is not appropriate in a play for eight-year-olds. I have seen the Pied Piper, now I don’t really remember but I don’t recall any kissing scenes.
Acting and theater should not be made an opportunity to promote race mixing and Forword is right to resist the coersion.
On another angle; What is a Black doing in a play that is a classic European cultural story? Didn’t we just see Whites deemed inappropriate in the reverse situation?
Poor African’s fragile self esteem must have been shattered. I think it is just awful what happened to him.
I hope they persevere in and continue to promote diversity, in fact should make the play even MORE diverse in light of what happened here.
How bout we keep the beautiful multiracial love fest angle, but instead of a woman, give him a burly homosexual white male?? Not one of those well groomed feminine ones either, but one of those big hairy-chested, leather-clad, in your face types.
That would be more progressive than the old version which promoted the bourgeoisie archaic hetero-normative ideal. I mean come on people its the 21st century already.
“They wanted me to kiss the guy for 20 seconds,…..”
20 Seconds! How many scenes are there in movies where any couple holds a kiss for that long?, - none I suspect. To plan to do this in front of eight year old kids has to be interpreted as a conditioning exhibition.
Not that long ago, anything but a quick kiss was deemed inappropriate on stage, but also in film. I always note how rare kissing occurs in vintage films - yet nothing is lost emotionally.
These same forces want to dress little girls like prostitutes, sell them makeup at ten years or younger and see them on the front of a magazine with as much skin exposed as possible by eighteen - either that or in a porn film. I would think feminism was worth something if they were fighting this….
The young lady displayed admirable gumption. But in the very act of bleating, “I’m not a racist!” one has already ceded all the ideological territory to the foe, and they have won, and you have lost.
Only a black would act this way over a woman refusing to kiss him; as if he’s owed. Okay, I could almost see a homosexual acting this way…
Ehrhardt?
I wonder if his choice of sides is ethnically-motivated?
I also wonder if this woman would have been put through the wringer if she were a lesbian, and her antipathy to kissing men had caused a similar problem?
And why not swap the roles around for once? The macacas who make theater and the like are always squawking about the need to be original…so how ‘bout we get a white guy and a black gal? That would go over well in heavily black areas, I think.
Kudos to Miss Forward to demonstrating common sense, she is definately babe material!
http://iluvsa.blogspot.com/2009/05/white-actress-refuses-black-actors-kiss.html
“I’m speechless. What’s unhygienic about the kiss? And what’s unnecessary about it? It is necessary for what the director is aiming to do. He’s trying to convey a message that it’s OK for different cultures to fall in love. We’re a multicultural country and we’re trying to convey that.”
Yes, and she’s a smart young Boer woman who’s undoubtedly aware of the staggering rates of sexual promiscuity among African blacks — and what SHE’S trying to convey is that she doesn’t want your diseases. In a part of the world some 40% of the black population are HIV-positive, what this actress displayed was not racism but merely a survival instinct.
The fact that the Marxist — excuse me, Manchester Guardian, was compelled to finally admit in the final sentence that “Forword has made a series of complaints against Ehrhardt over… what she termed his “inappropriate behaviour” also suggests that this whining, “offended” black actor wasn’t satisfied with inappropriately shoe-horning extended kissing sequences into “a
a play for eight-year-olds” about the Pied Piper. It sounds like he had also been sexually pestering the actress offstage — and probably for a whole lot more than just a kiss.
Yes her refusal is overtly racial and God bless her. Kiss-
ing that Black may well have been dangerous considering the rate
of STD’s over there. And even if he was clean, it’s still a very
bad example for the kids-like the faery tale in which the prin-
cess kisses the frog but instead of turning him into a man she
gets turned into a frog herself.
Congratulations Ms. Forword. You stuck by your principles and didn’t fold.
With the number of HIV infected Bantus in SA she shouldn’t have been required to kiss him.
No one should be required to kiss anyone to whom they’re not attracted. That’s been the technique employed here in the US. White girls have to submit to what amounts to sexual harrassment by Blacks because to resist would carry the stigma of racism. I see it every day and it’s nauseating.
IT’s too bad that we have no access to her email. It would be great to deluge her with supportive messages.
What they’re trying to promote is not racial “harmony”. Rather they are trying to promote black men coupling with white women. It’s the same agenda all over the world. In their twisted view, if a black man can’t have the white woman, this is “racism”. To push their sick agenda upon eight year-olds is a crime.
Given the fact AIDS and drug-resistant TB are rampant among blacks in South Africa, kissing a black man repeatedly on the lips would in fact, be unhygienic.
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11413&
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/jan-june09/southafricatb_03-24.html
Kudos to Ms. Forword for sticking to her guns. Now if she was really smart, she’d get out of South Africa asap.
A woman should always have the FINAL say in who she kisses or sleeps with PERIOD. A lot of white American women might learn from her good example?
As the virgin Mary is what all women should try to emulate and Jesus Christ is what all men should try to emulate, so is Carolyn Forword what all young white women should emulate.
Whites are routinely murdered and brutalized in South Africa, and yet the media still labels the blacks as poor, innocent victims of racism. It goes to show that whomever controls the media ISN’T your average white person.
On my trip to Cape Town I saw quite a few black male and white female couples. But most white South Africans I talked to would whisper disapproval.
“Whites are routinely murdered and brutalized in South Africa, and yet the media still labels the blacks as poor, innocent victims of racism. It goes to show that whomever controls the media ISN’T your average white person.”
No. A little more investigation, shows that it is big-business and corporations, out to enrich themselves while impoverishing the third world, who control the media. Get to the hidden truth! Don’t let the barriers put up by the elites get in your way. Get to the real truth.
“A theatre production designed to promote inter racial harmony”. I just cannot understand this globol design that is so depraved. dyanti was upset because he couldn’t get his lips on this well disiplined lady, Carolyn Forward. Her folk character is well engrained. Thank God, Theres one who isn’t weak. I hope it taught dyanti the depths of shame, but probably not with his instinctive behavior. this racial harmony dung has to stop. Maybe, Just maybe, this Carolyn Forward disipline and self segregation(obviously),will spring board to a spreading example of self respect for our women folk. This production design is nothing less than racial rape. Where were the real white men to defend this lady who was under attach? Did they just stand by? Why this gross condonation? This freedom to terrorize “OUR!” lesser vessels,maybe “this!” article will bring you into self-examination. “Consider my friends!”
THe fact is that it is likely that around 30-40% of South African black males of Unathi Dyantyi’s age-group and social-economic class are, in fact, HIV positive.
Seen in that light, the poor girl’s refusal to kiss Mr. Dyantyi on the lips can only be seen as an emninently rational decision.
Quite apart from all the other issues that this story raises, notice how the insufferably PC Guardian refers to an actress as an “actor”.
How come whenever some film maker wants to promote interracial romance, they almost ALWAYS choose a black male and a white female. You think maybe they might be up to something?
In another article about fatness on this website, I posted a comment saying Oprah Winfrey would be great to be the host for a telethon to find a cure for obesity and explained how dieting does not work.
However, Oprah is a good person with a wonderful personality. She would certainly know what I am talking about in this website’s article about being fat. And nobody would have to kiss anybody on this telethon for it to raise money for such a worthy cause.
However, even though South Africa is a country I would like to visit someday, that does not ignore there is a high rate of aids and veneral diseases in that country. I would not blame any South African actress or actor, black, white, or colored, who would refuse to kiss on stage for for concern of aids and veneral diseases.
South Africa does look like a great place to go for vacation, but because crime, aids, and other diseases, common sense must be used on visits to that country. So, I still would not want to live there.
I’ve heard some of my white female acquaintances tell me of when black guys hit on them and they use the dishonest racism charges like “you don’t like me because I’m black” or “we’re all black” or “once you go black, you’ll never go back” I agree with an above poster. They are trying to promote black men/white women relationships and any white female that doesn’t want a black man is a “racist”. It angers me as well that they are pushing this on kids. I’m glad that young woman had the guts to say what she felt
This is stupid.
Will Smith’s first movie called for him to kiss a man and he demurred, instead forcing a shot showing his back and blocking the other actor’s face. Later, Denzel Washington told Smith, if you take the role, do the role.
If the actress didn’t want to kiss another actor, she should not have agreed to play the part.
The whole thing is a bit silly. First, in most African cultures people do not show affection by kissing on the lips.
And all this chatter about “promiscuity of African males” in SA is just absurd. No male has been more promiscuous in SA than the white male. How many of those so-called coloureds descend frm African fathers and European mothers? Approximately zero.
But not only in SA. Think of the Americas and their cohorts of “coloureds”, all spawned by the promiscuous white male.
Three cheers for Carolyn Forword. For having the gumption to stick by her principles. Whether it is part of the act or not is not the issue. The issue is we have the RIGHT to refuse such ‘closeness’ with people we do not wish to kiss. Now what is so hard to understand there?
I see the woman’s point. There’s no way I’d kiss Halle Berry, Beyonce, Whoopie, Oprah or even Hattie McDaniel just to make some money acting.
If anyone knows of an address for Carolyn Forword please post it. I wouldn’t want her home address but an e mail address, fan club or agent, something public. I want to send her a message of support and maybe some money. She will surely be blackballed and will need financial help. Let us back her up to the hilt! Here’s a chance to stand up for ourselves and a white heroine. Send her messages of support and, if you can, money. Tell your friends. Tell other pro white people and organizations. Create a large reaction of support. HERE’S OUR CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING! R.K.S.
I agree with the actor; I would not kiss someone that was not a member of my race but the media keeps pushing things like that to hurry up and completely brainwash our youth so I say, good for her not to kiss the black man, why not havde a black actress play that part of leave it out all together…
sbuffalonative: “According to feminists,No means no. Women have the right to say no and their choice is to be respected above all else.”
— — — —
Ah, but not quite “above all else”. In the leftist scale of things, black trumps feminine, race trumps gender.
Well they always promote white men and asian women as well.
Seems like the White Liberals and all their “handlers” across the West want a reaction…….real bad.
39 — OCCAM wrote at 11:59 AM on June 2:
The whole thing is a bit silly. First, in most African cultures people do not show affection by kissing on the lips.
And all this chatter about “promiscuity of African males” in SA is just absurd. No male has been more promiscuous in SA than the white male. How many of those so-called coloureds descend frm African fathers and European mothers? Approximately zero.
But not only in SA. Think of the Americas and their cohorts of “coloureds”, all spawned by the promiscuous white male.
Right, it’s the white man’s fault for the AIDS epidemic and why over 70% of black babies are born out of wedlock each year. (Turning sarcasm off)
“No male has been more promiscuous in SA than the white male.”
Thanks in advance for the hard data I’m sure you’ll supply in support of this statement.
“Think of the Americas and their cohorts of “coloureds”, all spawned by the promiscuous white male.”
Three-quarters of American mulattos have black fathers.
“they are trying to promote black men coupling with white women. It’s the same agenda all over the world. In their twisted view, if a black man can’t have the white woman, this is “racism”. To push their sick agenda upon eight year-olds is a crime.”
— — — — —
Yes, this is what is all about (and, despite their denials, we always knew it was). Back in the 60’s all they wanted was civil rights, so they said, and they insisted that they wanted nothing more.
Now, 40 years later, they want it ALL — including your job, your neighborhood, and your daughter.
Should we be surprised?
“Whites are routinely murdered and brutalized in South Africa, and yet the media still labels the blacks as poor, innocent victims of racism. It goes to show that whomever controls the media ISN’T your average white person.” — Mike
No. A little more investigation, shows that it is big-business and corporations, out to enrich themselves while impoverishing the third world, who control the media. Get to the hidden truth! — Mr.Sarcasm
— — — — —
Sorry Mr. Sarcasm, we already know about the role of big business and corporations. I’ll go with Mike on this. He was much closer than you to getting at the “hidden truth”.
And what’s this doctrinaire Marxist claptrap about “impoverishing the third world”? Stop parroting the party line and open your own eyes.
The poster above, OCCAM, must be an African male. White SA males are the ones who are promiscuous, OCCAM? Who do you think you are dealing with here on Amren? A bunch of ignorant Whites? You came to the wrong place to spread your racist propaganda.
The sole purpose of this kiss is obviously to offend the white woman’s dignity.
And there is a serious ritual element to it, since the actress is an actual white woman, being kissed by an actual black man, with the audience all playing their parts by prentending to not see anything the matter with it, or at least putting with it if they do.
I goes along with the other ways our dignity is offended by the big people, such as pulling grandma out of the line at airports to check her various orifices in case she’s hiding a bomb in there somewhere, while the family and significant others stand helpless to do anything to stop that either.
It’s dehumanizing. I guess it fits in with the way that once these lovy-dovy socialists, levelers, pity-moralists, nation and race destroyers get the utmost control they crave, the bodies always end up stacked up like cordwood, duh!
From Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: “Now I say that the human being exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion; instead he must in all his actions, whether directed to himself or also to other rational beings, always be regarded at the same time as an end.”
And a page later he makes this formulation of his “Categorical Imperative,” what’s generally known as the formulation from “humanity” or from “dignity”: So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”
Actors and actresses are often viewed as “prostitutes.” But this one appears to have a conscience, manifest as that spontaneous nausea that afflicts her performance.
Tell her that marijuana and possibly ginger have been shown to some extent effective against just this sort of nausea, and, of course, there are also effective pharmaceutical psychotropics that will get her through on it. I think The Big People would like us all to do that if necessary, much like anesthetized cattle on the way to slaughter.
Hey, it works, and we’re allowing it.
What do feminists tells us? No means no. According to feminists, women have the right to say no and their choice is to be respected above all else.
Good for her. (liberals even feminist white liberals will always side with minorities over white womens rights)
For those interested in contacting the young actress, Carolyn Forword, you may be able to reach her through the theatre company here:
http://theriversidetheatrecompany.com/Pied_Piper.html
“Now, 40 years later, they want it ALL — including your job, your neighborhood, and your daughter.”
And if you don’t give them up, you’re a wicked racissss!
(In 40 years more, you’ll be sent for re-education.)
Black ‘robbers’ are killing white folks in South Africa, on the one hand, and one white actress refuses to kiss a black actor, on the other. Guess which one is a major news story and has people upset?
39 — OCCAM wrote at 11:59 AM on June 2:
The whole thing is a bit silly. First, in most African cultures people do not show affection by kissing on the lips.
And all this chatter about “promiscuity of African males” in SA is just absurd.
———————————
Well, if we can set aside all other issues here, would you at least agree that no one should have to kiss someome if they don’t want to? And that their private reasons should be their own business?
At least we now have proof that years of Marxist brainwashing hasn’t turned all white women into programmed robots willing to brainlessly debase themselves by pairing with black males. Rejoice!
Sorry to burst this “actors” bubble, but contrary to what the social engineer/diversity magpies would have you believe, all white women do not find black men attractive. And it is very easy to contract a number of diseases, including herpes, from kissing. Bottom line: it’s a preference thing and she shouldn’t be berated or called racist for her honest feelings.
39 OCCAM: Most of those coloreds mothers chose to have a baby with a White man, usually an overseer, so that their children would be lighter and have a better chance at being a house servant. The hope was that the house servant would look out for his mother and her other children. It’s the same reason that so many Filipinas will marry old White losers, to make things better for their families. A couple hundred dollars sent home a month goes a long ways in P.I.
12 Graham R: The techniques for heart transplants were primarily developed by Michael DeBakey, a Texan. Dr Christian Bernard was the student, not the master. And the only Black involvement in the first heart transplant was to donate the heart, involuntarily.