new play whitewashes pedophile slaveowner thomas jefferson’s rape of sally hemings

I don’t know why we keep having to go through this. Actually, I do. Black girls aren’t seen as human, and therefore they aren’t seen as rape-able, which means that their rapists have never actually done anything wrong, and in some cases they should even be celebrated.

This is particularly the case with America’s most beloved founding father, Thomas Jefferson, and his rape of the underage slave, Sally Hemmings. In addition to this reality rarely, if ever, causing a blight on his legacy, the relationship between the two is now being commemorated in a new play by the Marin Theater Company in California called “Thomas and Sally” that runs through the end of the month.

In response to the obvious backlash, the company put out a statement defending the play, claiming that “We believe Sally Hemings and her family deserve to be part of our national story.” They have also posted reviews attempting to highlight how they have “flipped the script” on the unquestioning worship of Jefferson, but The Coalition of Black Women in Theater have a different story.

“Throughout both the developmental workshops of Thomas and Sally and auditions for the production, MTC disregarded the concerns of multiple black women actors regarding the play’s hyper-sexualization of black girls and women and its reframing of the coercive master/slave relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson as a ‘love affair,’” The coalition wrote in a statement. “Several of these actors ultimately declined roles due to not only their initial concerns over the script but also due to the dismissive response both by the theater and Mr. Bradshaw.”

I believe the Black women.