Shakespeare, a ‘White Racist’ and ‘British Imperialist’
Mar 19, 2025 10:00 am
By Hugh Fitzgerald
32 Comments
The latest entry in the Annals of Wokeness can be found in an essay Robert Spencer wrote here. More on this can be found here: “Shakespeare’s birthplace to be ‘de-colonised’ over fears his success ‘benefits the ideology of white European supremacy,'” by Emily Jane Davies, Daily Mail, March 16, 2025:
William Shakespeare’s birthplace will be de-colonised over fears that portraying his success as the ‘greatest’ playwright ‘benefits the ideology of white European supremacy’.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust owns buildings in the playwright’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.
It wants to ‘create a more inclusive museum experience’ and announced it will move away from Western perspectives after concerns were raised that Shakespeare’s ideas were used to advance ‘white supremacy’ ideas.
The trust also said that some of its items could contain language or depictions that are racist, sexist, or homophobic.
It comes amid an ongoing backlash against the writer. Some productions of his works have been slapped with trigger warnings for misogyny, racism and ‘problematic radicalised dynamics’ that link whiteness to beauty.
In 2022, a research project between the trust and Dr Helen Hopkins at the University of Birmingham postulated that the idea of Shakespeare’s ‘universal’ genius ‘benefits the ideology of white European supremacy’.
This is because European culture is portrayed as the standard for high art and the playwright as a symbol of British ‘superiority’, according to The Telegraph.
The project said this narrative has caused harm, and advised that the trust stop saying Shakespeare was the ‘greatest’ but part of a community of ‘equal and different’ writers globally.
Some of its organised events celebrated Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, and a Romeo and Juliet-inspired Bollywood dance workshop.
The trust also promised to remove offensive language from its collections.
Some of the items at the trust include archived material, literary criticism, books linked to the writer and gifts from around the world offered in honour of him.
A statement from the trust said: ‘As part of our ongoing work, we’ve undertaken a project which explores our collections to ensure they are as accessible as possible.’
In 2021, The Globe Theatre launched a project to ‘ decolonise’ Shakespeare’s famous plays, while experts claimed his work is ‘problematic’ for linking whiteness to beauty.
The London theatre, which is a reconstruction of the Elizabethan playhouse where William Shakespeare wrote his work, has begun ‘anti-racist’ seminars to discuss ‘decolonising’ Shakespeare’s esteemed plays.
Experts claimed that the bard’s plays are ‘problematic’ for linking whiteness to beauty, while an academic said all of Shakespeare’s plays are ‘race plays’ as they all contain ‘whiteness’.
Also in 2021, it was reported that a growing number of ‘woke’ academics are refusing to teach Shakespeare in U.S. schools, arguing that the Bard promotes racism, white supremacy and intolerance, and instead are pushing for the teaching of ‘modern’ alternatives.
It should be enough to point out the passages in his writings that prove Shakespeare to have been a defender of British imperialism even before there was a British empire to defend, and a racist to boot. Once those offending passages have been pointed out, shouldn’t they be excised from all future editions of his works, and from all future performances of his plays?
Or perhaps, given Shakespeare’s “racism,” why not remove his works altogether from the libraries, school syllabi, and repertoire of plays allowed to be put on? No one should be given a pass to spread racist views in his writings just because some consider that writer talented. As for me, now that his racism has been brought to my attention, I will never read a line of Shakespeare again. I will urge my local library to divest itself of his books so that no one else, including impressionable young people, inadvertently runs across them. And you will find me out on the picket line outside any theatre that has the bad taste to put on one of his plays. We have so many writers who are not racists; why do we need Shakespeare? |
