Luckett & Shaffer’s “Black Acting Methods” PLAGIARIZED
Dear Professors Cynthia Santos-DeCure and Micha Espinosa, hopeful co-editors of Latinx Actor Training: Critical Approaches and Culturally Inclusive Pedagogies,
“You’s a lie, and the whole field ‘bout to testify.” — riff on Janelle Monáe
Yes, you both have lost your minds. 2020 clearly has no chill, and due to Covid-19 and a nudge from our almighty ancestors, we had time today.
On Twitter, @citeblackwomen discusses the politics of citation in regards to “Black women’s knowledge production.” They offer: “The consequence is that people seriously engage with non-Black women’s work while they use Black women as sources of “intellectual nurturing” and then give no credit for that labor.”
@citeblackwomen also asks about action. “How do we begin to systematically change the culture of citation that erases Black women?”
Our answer: Call that mess out!
So, we’re here to publicly address your intellectual thievery and attempted profits off of Black women’s labor, head-on. And then, as this is now common practice, we will issue our demands.
Professors, did you really think you were going to get away with this? Stealing our work, and not citing us? At all? Like, nowhere? Not even a footnote?
First, what is: Latinx Actor Training: Critical Approaches and Culturally Inclusive Pedagogies? Hmmm. You don’t know, do you? Maybe it’s because you literally lifted the description off of the inside and back cover of Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches and simply replaced “Black” with “Latinx” throughout.
Our cultures and histories are not interchangeable. How dare you.
In your internally circulated, invite only CFP, you use the description of Black Acting Methods to solicit participation from renowned scholars and artists in the field of theatre. With our description, at least 35 of them agreed to participate in a “rip-off” project that should actually be a unique project celebrating the rich, beautiful Latinx culture and its contributions to actor training.
At this moment, we are going to assume that the contributors who signed up were not aware of your actions, just victims of your intellectual laziness.
Second, how you gonna steal our whole book outline? Like, ya’ll just sat down with your coffee or tea or alcohol and thoroughly scanned our book as if we created it for you.
As if Tia and I said, here, use this, all of it, our intellectual labor, our words, our rightfully earned respect in the field, and oh, by the way, there is no need to mention our names. And perhaps you’d like to start the Latinx Acting Methods Studio in a year or so. Yes, L.A.M. has a nice ring to it. Build your scholarly career on our Black backs, and every contributor in B.A.M.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. NO. NO. NO. NO. No! No! No!
You will not get to go quietly into the night with this mess.
Professors Santos-DeCure & Espinosa, Black Acting Methods is a field and the outline of B.A.M. is specific to Black culture. Nothing in the book is happenstance. We worked hard to honor Black histories in theatre, and for very good reason, invited distinguished practitioners from the field to participate.
In case you are not aware, Black histories in America and Latinx histories in America are quite different, especially as they relate to the beginnings of theatre and film. We have experienced atrocities at the hands of the entertainment industry, and would argue that we have been assigned the most negative, deleterious stereotypes out of all peoples in the US.
Therefore, Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches is a sacred text. It is a healing text. It is a nuanced text. It is a personal text. And it is not yours or anybody else’s for the taking.
Our anthology is not an outline for POC to duplicate our work and to then profit off of our pain-staking labor of promoting our book, founding a Studio, and sparking long-reaching, global conversations about the white-washing of actor training.
Professors, you will not be given the license to co-opt a movement that was significantly amplified and articulated by Black women. Ode to Baldwin, we are not your negroes.
With your actions, you have joined a long lineage of theatre-makers that prove Toni Morrison’s point over and over again: “Racism is a scholarly affair.”
Just write your own book, using your own words, that is unique to your own culture.
Third, after reviewing your Table of Contents, it’s very clear that what we included in our book helped you decide on a good deal of the content that you wanted to cover. Glad that you got somebody to throw some Shakespeare in there. And by the way, Afro-Latinx is not necessarily a combination of Latinx and African-American identities. So, you was just trying to pull in the Black stuff to cover your bases, huh?
By the time we got to the “distinguished practitioners” section, we were done. Where’d you get the idea to even include practitioners in such a text, being that it’s uncommon for academic and practitioner voices to merge in our field? And how’d you know the section would be about 15 pages long? Oh, it’s because you counted how long B.A.M.’s section is. Riiiiight.
At this point, it’s like, did you all do any work? Did you at all think about how you should structure an anthology that highlights Latinx contributions to actor training? Nope. You didn’t. Not one bit. Because we had already done the work for you, or at least that’s what you thought.
We’re guessing that you thought about how this book might be as popular as B.A.M. How doing something analagous to B.A.M. with a title that signals our book might substantially raise your profiles in the industry.
You tried to do what many POC have done and still do to Black folks, particularly Black women: let us lead the way, provide a road-map for your liberation, let us experiment with trying to attain whole, ripe freedom, let us die on the front lines, and while following behind those of us that survived, quietly and discreetly “thank” us for speaking up or showing out. Then you reap the benefits of our labor, all the while, ascribing to whiteness and white supremacy.
In summation, after reflecting upon your book title, your questionable scholarly backgrounds, the contents of your book and the description of your book, it is clear that you have committed intellectual theft.
Professors Santos-DeCure & Espinosa, you’s a lie, and the whole field ‘bout to testify.
Though we have asked alot of questions, at this point we really don’t care about the answers.
We simply want to share our demands with you and Routledge Publishing. Oh, and how’d you end up with Routledge as your publisher? Nevermind, we can probably figure that one out too. Ya’ll oughta be ashamed. We expect better from you as colleagues in the field.
OUR DEMANDS:
- We demand that you and Routledge Publishing abort and abandon this book project. Once you’ve had time to reflect on your actions, go back to the “drawing board” and write your own book, with your own ideas, as it relates to your own culture. You can do it. Just believe in yourselves. And we’ll support you 100%.
- Alert all of the contributors about your plagiarism of our book description and intellectual property. Apologize to them for your actions. They did not deserve this. For good measure, here are their names in alphabetical order.
Teo Castellanos, Ivonne Coll, America Ferrera, Lydia Garcia, Henry Godinez, Meggan Gomez, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Gil Gonzalez, Antonio Guzman, Brian Herrera, Jorge Huerta, Tiffany Ana Lopez, Michel Lopez-Rios, Sandra Marquez, Alma Martinez, Noe Montez, Richard Montoya, Lou Moreno, Jacob Padron, Monica Palacios, Coya Paz, Jade Power-Sotomayor, Chantal Rodriguez, Gina Rodriguez, Anna Garcia Romero, Jon Rua, Monica Sanchez, Olga Sanchez-Salviet, Tanya Saracho, Daphnie Sicre, Kenan Valdez, Jose Luis Valenzuela, Laurie Woolery, Joanne Yarrow, Patricia Ybarra
3. Take a look at Jeungsook Yoo’s A Korean Approach to Actor Training. This important book was published after B.A.M. and it’s really specific to her culture.
Let us be clear that we are highly disappointed in your behavior as scholars and supposed fellow fighters of racism and injustice.
That you would knowingly perpetuate the same type of oppression that we rail against in Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches suggests that you have no business working on such a project in the first place.
Sincerely,
Sharrell D. Luckett, PhD
(Seconded by Dr. Tia M. Shaffer & a host of ancestors and allies)
ps: Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches, 2nd edition is forthcoming; Routledge Publishing.
