Behind the Drama Department Demands

graphic by jenny katz

Jerk spoke separately with Chidube Egbo, Spencer Lombardo, and Isaiah Brooks about the experiences that led to writing a list of demands to the Syracuse University Drama Department. This list is the result of the racism that these students and many other members of the BIPOC community have faced at SU.

What was your role in creating the demands for the drama department?

Egbo: “I was one of the organizers and writers. Over the summer, after the alumni call to action happened, not a lot of the current students were involved. When they did their call to action, we thought ‘What about the non-overt racism that’s in the department, that’s actually structural in the department?’ We ended up talking within current students and from our meetings that we did over the summer, and from a letter I wrote, we started formulating the demands. We went to class, which had all the theater students, alumni as guests, and Dean Tick, and surprised them with our demands; we dropped them in the Zoom chat and we opened up the floor for questions.”

Lombardo: “I was one of the three writers of the demands. It was Isaiah, Chidube, and me, and then we ran them past the rest of the upperclassmen, and then that’s where all the signatures came from. The inciting incident was the alumni reaching out about writing their demands and asking for our support. Then we were like these are awesome, we want to have our own set.”

Brooks: “I guess you can consider myself as one of the main organizers. The demands came out of several events leading up, it wasn’t just like a one-time thing. After the Not Again SU protests in Barnes Center and Crouse-Hinds, and the events of the summer, in regards to the executions of so many Black people on video due to state-sanctioned violence or white supremacy, were very triggering and we realized that we can mobilize and we can make systemic change.”

Can you share some of your personal experiences that led to writing the demands?

Egbo: “There’s the opportunities and structure, which exists in the department. The structure within is currently racist, at least in terms of the way that material is chosen, how actors are worked with, classes are structured, and what’s worked on in those classes. Then, there’s the overt racism that I have faced from some teachers in terms of microaggression, comments, and complicity of my classmates and other teachers—particularly with one faculty member. There was a faculty member that definitely really hurt me in terms of my experience in the department. This faculty member made a lot of comments about Black people, a lot of stereotypical comments about what they expected Black people to do or be like. They would frame it the weird way of trying to understand and learn. Students very much came to her defense at the time. They would say ‘Oh, she reminds me of my grandma,’ or ‘She doesn’t mean to be harmful, she just doesn’t know any better.’ Initially, me and some classmates decided not to speak out because we didn’t feel safe and comfortable enough. There was also this weird thing where we felt we would feel awful if we got someone fired. I don’t feel the same way now.”

Lombardo: “Where do I begin? My freshman year, a teacher called out all the Black men in the class and pointed out that just because we were all Black, didn’t mean we all had the same background. We thought, ‘Um, what’s your point?’ Then, she made all of the white students stand up and she said, ‘Stay standing if you know your background,’ and everyone stayed standing. The chances of white students understanding their heritage is definitely greater than, specifically African Americans, because we were obviously taken. During class, she had said, ‘If anyone finds anything offensive, please come up to me, I would love to speak about it to address it.’ After class, Chidube and I approached her and we said ‘The exercise made us feel alienated as Black students in the classroom and we didn’t appreciate that.’ Basically, she starts yelling at us, saying, ‘I don’t care what you think or what you feel, that exercise served a purpose and if you don’t understand that, that’s too bad.’ That was one of my very first experiences. Then, during the Not Again SU protests, there wasn’t much understanding from my professors that I’m fighting for my life and so, learning a song or a monologue wasn’t my main focus.”

Brooks: “I’ve experienced structural and systemic change as a Black student in the Department of Drama. I don’t want to call them microaggressions because I don’t want to diminish what they actually are, but aggressions in the classrooms. There has been a lot of implicit bias—I think implicit bias is one of the biggest things—just simply because unfortunately at a PWI there are white people who haven’t been around Black people or anyone that isn’t white. Sometimes, it is just obvious racist behavior and sometimes, it’s serial-types of assuming I’m going to behave a certain way, or that I will manifest a character a certain way. Or, that certain skills of Black students are not being validated through their experiences.”

Have the demands had the effect in the department that you’ve hoped for?

Egbo: “They have agreed to the demands. Now, we’re talking about how they’ll be implemented, which is the most difficult part. Nothing is concrete yet, so I am very apprehensive to call anything a victory. It’s good that we got them agreed to, I’m glad that they want to understand; however, it’s not been implemented yet—everything is still in this grey area.”

Lombardo: “I’m pleased to say that they have responded in a way that we hoped. We are working closely with Ralph Zito, [the Chair of the Drama Department], and he has clearly put in time and effort. We have Friday meetings with him to talk about ways we wanted the demands implemented within the department and him sharing what’s logistically possible. They are called demands because they’re nonnegotiable, so, the fact that the demands were signed without any pushback or resistance was the response that we were hoping for.”

Brooks: “Before the demands, I didn’t feel like there was a change within the Department. There was a sense of acknowledgment of what we are facing as a community of artists, but I felt that action wasn't being initiated. If you’re learning math, after learning how to do certain formulas, the way of approaching mathematics changes. So, when you’re claiming to be doing work on something and your vernacular of the subject doesn’t change, it says something. We have gotten a commitment and the required signatures on the demands. Now, we are meeting with Dean Tick and as a part of the demands, me and Chidube gave the department a list of plays by Black authors and told professors not to get the plays online, but pay Black playwrights for their work.  They need to be prepared to teach the material in class and work with Black actors— not telling them how to act ‘Black.’”

Is there anything that we missed, or you think is important that we haven’t asked about?

Egbo: “One of the things that I get frustrated with is I feel that we sometimes are [conforming] to the curve instead of being ahead of the curve—we aren’t being radical as artists. I have been finding myself squeezing into these characters that are ideas of what I should be, like this idea that standard for a male actor is brooded in whiteness and masculinity, and I am neither of those things. I think that sometimes we can be a little bit more challenging of the system because if we can’t challenge the system in our drama department, then what are we going to do when we get into the big world and see something messed up. We won’t have that muscle flexed to say, ‘This is messed up, why does it have to be this way?’”

Lombardo: “A lot of experiences of students of color are negatively affected because there aren’t enough faculty that can relate directly to our experience. We have a lot of white faculty and because of that, we don’t see stories where we are represented. We don’t feel very visible within the department because there’s no one that even thinks about us in terms of picking shows or things we need to work on. Then, there are very few students of color within the drama department and then even fewer Black students. So, they aren’t even able to do shows with lots of Black people or people of color because they don’t have the numbers within the student body. Those are basically our first two demands: you need to hire Black faculty and every year there needs to be 40% people of color within the class. In New York City and LA, the percentage of people of color is from 45% -55% of the overall population, and those are cities that are meccas for theater, film, and acting. Those are the places we are planning to go, so the department needs to reflect that.”

Brooks: “These demands are not like the US Constitution— we don’t think they are these things written on a stone tablet that should be sanctified forever. If in four or five years students don’t think it’s working, destroy the document and come up with something else. These demands are very specific to Blackness, they don’t talk about queerness, ableism, [or] feminism because, as a collective, one of the only things we can talk about is race. But, I know within the liberation of Black people, you will find the liberation for other marginalized groups.”