Seems like the liberal intolerance thing is getting a little close to home now. For what it is worth, Wyandotte, Michigan is about 10 miles to the south of me. This was in the local paper here.
Via News Herald:
Jazmyn Bencik isn’t afraid to speak up when she sees something she perceives as wrong.
That’s exactly what she did recently when she saw something she thought was insensitive against her race.
Bencik saw a member of the Southgate Community Players post a photo of himself titled “Puerto Rico Suave” on Facebook. The theater group was preparing to put on “West Side Story,” which closes this weekend.
Bencik, who at the time was a board member for the Wyandotte Community Theater, thought using white actors to portray Puerto Rican characters was wrong. She was even more offended when she found out several cast members were using spray tans to appear “brown.”
“It’s highly offensive to use excessive spray tan like that,” Bencik said. “It’s the equivalent of using yellow or black face.”
She said she commented on the photo and was nearly immediately attacked for her feelings.
“It was racially insensitive and personally offensive,” she said. “I was told that they weren’t likely to get that many Puerto Ricans to try out for a play in Southgate. Then I suggested they take into account casting difficulties in the future.”
Phillip Rauch, president of the Southgate Community Players, said Bencik’s feelings are off base.
“We don’t use black face,” he said. “We are actors putting on a show. That’s all it is. Using spray tan is nothing more than part of the costume.”
Bencik said she was willing to leave it at that, having spoken her mind. But it didn’t end there for her.
“When I went to practice for our group I was told what I had said was wrong,” she said. “I don’t understand what I did wrong. I was speaking my own opinion.”
She said members of the board told her that she shouldn’t have spoken out on the issue since she was also on the Wyandotte Community Theater board of directors.
“They told me that especially because I was the social media director that I shouldn’t have spoken out,” she said.
That night, Nov. 10, she was removed from having access to the Facebook page for her group. She said she received a letter the next morning notifying her that she was relieved of her duties with the organization.
There you have it folks, liberal intolerance at it’s finest. Jonah Goldberg was on to something: