Hill. Are we one. Welcome back to the nonprofits. So here's some real twenty twenty five energy for you. A high school in Georgia, I just canceled The Crucible, you know that play literally written as a warning against religious hysteria and moral panic, because a few parents claimed it was demonic, the irony practically biblical. This isn't just a cancel performance. It's a symptom of a deeper rot where fear driven censorship is dressed up as protecting the children.
If the Crucible is too dangerous for teenagers, we're not far from calling the Handmaids Tale and instruction manual. Let's talk about what this means, not just for students, but for the baolground of public education and how we push back. This story is from The Friendly Atheist by him and Metta on May twenty six, twenty twenty five. Okay, I got opinions before I go into such a pinny. It's about how done this is. I was in a high school production of The Principle. By the way, I was
Sarah Good in our high school production. So I've been in display and since I grew up so close to stay On, Massachusetts, we went to Nathano Hawthorne's home. So this felt this story felt a little personal to me, especially, you know, growing up in New England and this having
such historical, historical, I almost say, hysterical historical relevance. So Tracy, I kind of want to start with you, it was your kind of feeling when you read this article, and what was your takeaway from how stupid this is?
Well, my takeaway is primarily I just feel bad for the kids. I mean, I'm I'm I'm terribly impressed. I didn't even get to see the show. Of course, I didn't get to see the show, but I'm probably impressed because it mentions in the article and in a few others. I think I looked up one or two other things on this where their director for the show was removed from school employ like two weeks prior to the show actually being put on. And I was a theater kid
back in high school as well. I remember those days, and we at my school called the week running up to opening night. We called that hell week just from how much work we'd have to do to get all the lighting cues and everything. You have to really iron everything out in that time. And I'm terribly impressed they were able to put something together that they're apparently proud of, and I'm very sad for them that because apparently not an administrator and probably not one of the.
Kids who's in the show's.
Parent is so upset about this that they have to ruin it for all of those kids. Of course, like like that, that's my takeaway. It's it's it's the entitlement. I'm always yapping about that people want things to be exactly according to their own sensibilities and not and not allow for any other expression.
So I kind of you mentioned that, you know, you're a theater kid, like, like, I can't imagine the impact this would have, like last minute to do to put this play on without your director, without your producer, and the kids had to step up and have you do.
The director was doing work man like. That's that's all for sure.
Yeah, that's definitely press. So, you know, shout out to the kids for getting this done because that uh and having to step up and doing the thing that they needed to do. So I'm a little concerned that a few parents complain because apparently they didn't read the play.
They just heard that it was about you know, kids getting possessed by the devil, and they you know, you know, started pearl clutching and worrying about something that didn't they didn't have to worry about if they actually read the context of the play. But that being said, we know
that's kind of messed up. Jason, What like when people are like, when we have these kinde of like moral panics like canceling the Crucible, do you think it's really about protecting the children or do you think it's more about you know, people showing their true colors and what kind of narcissists they are?
Well, yeah, yeah, you know, you hear that word narcissism thrown around, but when when I when I hear the term narcissism, it's it's very clinical. And the thing that I've won about narcissists is that they despise truth. So okay, so if you tell someone about if you let's say, let's say Tracy's a narcissist, and I'm like, hey, Helen, Tracy did some shit, you know, and it was really messed up. But it's true. What Tracy's pissed about isn't anything other than the fact that you know about their
stuff that they try to keep secret. So if you tell someone about their actual actions, their actual thoughts, their their motivations, they have meltdowns because you know that facid it gets exposed, you know. So I'm convinced that this is like a strong example of that they were able to harness like the fears of idiots to push like an unethical agenda that's based around lies and gas lighting
and triangulation. And that's what a narcissist does. I mean this play like you, like you said in the intro, the purpose of this place to highlight multiple issues that all like congregate around one thing, and that's the misuse of authority and authoritarian power with religious undertones. So yeah, I would understand why that would make some people's cognitive this and then's maybe spike a little bit, and then they have to soothe it by being a bunch of
effing liars. I mean, it's gross. And then the way they I was a tech guy, we did little shop whrres and I mean we like theater was the only thing in the high school that anybody heard about. The high Scholl went to was rough, and so our theater crew we ran the school and we had this huge auditorium it was crazy and I've deteched. We did a little shop of hores. We had a full like a full giant plant, and I mean it was amazing. We did Dracula, we did everything. So I get it. It's
a ton of work. And if miss Pettitt hadn't been there the whole time it had dropped out, that would have been insane. You know, We've had people drop out and it's insane. So these kids, look, this is good because bad press is the best press. These kids are getting attention now. I mean thousands of people who watch these shows. So now we're talking about these kids performance.
Hopefully this this does something for them. Anybody watching this, you know, maybe you know, if you want to reach out and donate.
Some love to some kids, you know, there you go.
I think also too, like and I know that I brought the Hammadsdale because this is the thing about what's going on is that this is like it's the same like like I have to imagine that Arthur Mary Miller is just like rolling over in his grave, you know, to cancel this play, which is all about you know, moral panic and you know, letting to be swept up in hysteria and the harm that comes from that, you know, because that's why Alvin during the Salem witch trials and
people died for no reason other than moral panic. So if we're and I like and I can you can feel it in you know, in the zeitgeist. And that's the thing that why this play because it's been performed in high schools for a few decades now and read and studied because it's about authoritarian control, not you know, not thinking critically and being swept up into hysteria, which
kids need to know about. That's how. And so the fact that parents are concerned has more to say about the fact moral leans on the side of like the book burnings that it has to lead to, like you know, moral panic and warrying about you know, the safety of the children. I mean, like the kids were performing the play,
they knew what they were reading, you know. Hello. So Tracy, Yes, if you if you were going to push back against mentioned and titled parents and that override educators and the students. But the students would you know they were trying to silence their voice. What would you do as far as your pushback if you had the power to so, yeah.
Would that I were an administrator be that you know, a principle or what you call it, a superintendent or something to that effect. I don't I don't really see the need to eat even do anything like like like that's that That's what I'm running into here, Like I really feel like if this was a decision from the principal side of things, the principle could have easily just done nothing and everything would have been okay. I don't
even really see. And I think the pushback you need to do is to just ignore them whoever whoever's complaining, if you have the authority to do so, because at the end of the day, this is a show put on by the school. If let's take it to an analogy, if the if the high school football team is running plays that where I don't know how many people are on a football team, but you, uh, but they aren't
very good. No amount of tea like like, what's the amount of parents coming to you and complaining about this as an administrator, what amount of parents is going to get you to go actually go talk to your u to pull your football team out of the season. No, the kids are having fun. They're there to learn about playing sports. They're not there to actually I mean, you know, different schools have different goals, but like, the kids aren't putting on a show to express a certain political agenda.
They're putting on a show to express their creativity and to learn about the process of the arts. If you don't want your kid participating in it, that's fine, pull your kid out. If you don't want to see the show, that's fine, don't go see it. Where this whole the school is not going to live or die based off of whether or not little Jimmy who's in the chorus, or your family comes and buys tickets to the show. I think this is something that could have just been ignored.
Then again, I don't know the extent of the complaints. Maybe this came directly from George's house representatives, who knows. We don't have much information, but I think that's a little outside of the realm of reality. I think this was either some parents whose kids were in the show and weren't very attentive about it and didn't want to
simply pull out their own child from the production. They wanted to ruin it for everyone else, or it's just you know, ancillary, unrelated parents who decided to whine and complain, maybe not even parents, maybe just random people. We I ultimately don't know who lodged these complaints, but it seems like a thing that could have easily been ignored well, and.
I think that, you know, what is concerning about this is that if let's just say it's a handful of parents, you know, I don't, like we said, we don't know the extent, but like, you know, let's just say that it was and they had a particular problem with the opening scene and they just made a big like hooplah about it. And the fact that the administrators considered folding that is a lot. And I don't know if the particular parents had any sort of like state in influence
maybe would affect funding. You know, we don't know because if because if it's was when those things they be ignored, where someone was just like belly aching, then you can be like, well don't come, you know, you don't have like the kids decide to participate. It could be that, you know, if the if the threat was you know, actual going to cause actual long term you know, harm, then we're having a different conversation when we don't know.
And that's the thing that I find concerning because you know, people complain about crap all the time. It doesn't get canceled. People are just like, well, don't participate, that's your choice. No I don't. I'm like, I don't know.
I think you're right about the safety thing. If there was like a real potential for harm here, a demonstrable potential for harm, then it would it would be like if they were putting on a stage production of Lolita. I don't think that would be the best thing for those kids to be doing. Maybe we can have them put on a different show. But just because of the themes in that particular show, I don't think they're necessarily appropriate for children to be portraying uh in that particular
novel and film. But as far as I know, and you know you probably you know more about the critcipal than I do. You were in a production of it, Is there anything like? Are there suggestive theme? Like what's the I know it was a dance. It was the dance where they were describing the allegations for the witch girls.
Well, the thing is, though there's there's an eluded scene in the beginning of the play. This oracle mentioned that there was a bunch of girls in the woods you know, summoning spirits, and it's alluded to that they were summoning the devil. But the rest of the play is about basically how Salem, Massachusetts did a witch hunt. That is the whole point and the criticism, and Arthur Miller used real uh court records of the things that were said
and what happened in court. But the whole point of the play is the show moral panic, people believing in hysterica and Stuward natural superstitious beliefs. So, Jason, you have first hand experience dealing with bullshit from schools. Uh so, I'm curious, but you're kind of feeling about this is someone that has dealt with bullcraft from schools, getting worried about nothing and worrying about the moral decay of the children.
Well, you know, here's the thing I've had. I've had.
This bird is cleaning it It's just happy. I'm sorry, my bird sitting and it has to clean itself. Forward screams with me. It has to be on you and fell in love with me. So sorry about that. It's just going nuts over here.
Okay. So one I've had to change schools.
I've had to pull my kid out of a school out of actually out of a school district, and I had to find a private school that you know, I've definitely put a little a lot of hard work in who banged for and whenever certain things arose at that school. Luckily, there were people that were willing to have a conversation enough. It's interesting. In one occasion, my kiddo there apparently was how do I give it not too much? There was one kid who expressed some religious beliefs, my kid expressed
some non religious beliefs. They you know, started having a little bit of bickering. So one kid started wearing a lot of like very religious shirts, but very blatant. So my kid has like shirts that we generally wear, like around the house or to go see bands play, and you know, like black metal band shirts and short this is gay for Satan, just fun, fun shirts, and so my kiddo started wearing some of those shirts to school, and I'm like, oh man. So we had some conversations.
We made some agreements that nobody's allowed to wear any blatantly religious stuff. So if my kid's not allowed to, nobody else is allowed to. So we came to some things I brought up being members of the Satanic Temple, which you know, I know people have mixed feelings about different branches, but as a whole, they've actually helped you with some things, and I really appreciate what they've done.
And it really opened up some good discussions, and we talked about atheism and equal rights, and my kids learned how to communicate with people who were willing to communicate but had different beliefs and stand up for themselves in a safe enough environment. So we've definitely learned a lot and are learning a lot right now with some recent situations we're going through about how people can target.
You and how you can present yourself.
So it's the thing is when you live in a place like in Texas and you have let's say, atheistic leanings, queer tendencies, children of that in nature haven't forbid anything that's gender nonconforming, you're going to have to deal with these things in one way or another. And we just we refuse really to run. So we're just trying to learn how to play it smart. So my partner and I and my kid all go to different types of counseling and therapy and family sessions, and we work really
hard together to navigate this world. So my advice would be become a really strong family unit and a team, and don't be a coward, but fight the right way, you know.
So that's me No, And I think I think that's a really really good point because I know it's I my kids are you know, I've been out of high school for a few years now, they're adults. I've been out of high school a while.
So like seven years, right, yeah, yeah.
Only seven seven maybe all these seven multiply that by four anyway.
So that being but being you know, looking back on my own experiences and even my kids experiences of like these moral panics and things like that, it didn't.
Happen very much. And now it seems that, you know, with book bands and banning a play because it talks about solution.
There was about a twenty years race period.
There was like from Clinton until about two years after Obama. There was a little grace period because I grew up in the Satanic panic, and I grew up in a church that was very scary and they were convinced demons were everywhere and everything was demonic. So I grew up, I mean, in that environment. But I'm realizing now that was much more insular than it really was, so we're
we're looking at like a twenty year lag. But I agree, it's it's fucking scary now, Like this is scary as fuck and it's weird, and I hear people talking about it on the job side, which is a no no, you know, you don't talk about that shit at work or at the bar or at the gym, and now people are, and I'm like, that's not good. Even with Southern ethics, it's not good. Like your Southern honor ethics
are being destroyed. I don't know how good those are, but at least that was there, at least people would shut up, and nobody shuts the fuck up anymore.
Yeah, So, Tracy, I would like to get as a former theater kid, I would like to hear your final word on this particular story, because it's not great. Unfortunately.
I think my final word on this story is going to be an encouragement to those children that were affected by this. Don't allow and it doesn't seem like you are. Because I saw a video response sort of like a vlog from one of the actors. I watched that on the article, and they seem to be you know, soldiering forth,
especially after losing their director. Those in the arts are probably always going to be attacked for their expression of art, and just understand that that is one of the side effects of being in the arts, and that it isn't necessarily a comment on who you are. It's a comment on who the people are that are making these attacks. Oh, it isn't a comment on you.
It means what you're doing is awesome, that somebody is hating on it and it messes with them.
What you did was great, keep doing again. That's art. Art is there to like stick in your teeth. So yeah, kudos to whatever y'all did.
And I think that is a very good positive note to end this on. So if you want to hear more of what we have to say, and please find a video and like and subscribe, and maybe visit our merch shop because we have clothing, so do that as well, and we'll see y'all next time.