‘Not a safe space’: Black cast members boycott Dickens Christmas Fair over failure to prevent racist, sexist behavior

SF Chronicle Datebook ^ | December 6, 2021 | Erin Feher

[C19fan]

For her first Great Dickens Christmas Fair in 2015, LaToya Tooles fashioned a gown out of dollar-store hula hoops and a tablecloth. A friend had invited her to the annual event, a festive re-creation of 19th century London inspired by the works of Charles Dickens that has been running in San Francisco for nearly 40 years.

Almost as soon as she arrived at the antique winter wonderland, she joined the revelers on Fezziwig’s dance floor and didn’t stop waltzing for hours.

“I met some of my greatest friends at the Dickens Fair,” says Tooles, who went on to join the event’s volunteer cast, taking on bigger roles and more responsibility each year.

[C19fan]

When I lived in California I attended the Dickens Fair at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. I did dress up as a Victorian gentleman. These woksters never are satisfied are they. Now they are setting their sights on this 19th Century geek festival.

[Steely Tom]

That’s a shame. Life is tough for the let’s-dress-up set. Oh well.

[Nifster]

I always enjoyed going. These people are Bah. Humbuhg

[Seruzawa]

The wokesters can never be satisfied. Never give in on a single issue.

[Skywise]

“ For Ari Yovel, who is autistic and transgender, the current conflict LoAD members are facing parallels their own struggle to advocate for marginalized communities within the fair. For years, Yovel advocated as a representative of the Order of the Golden Needle, a neurodivergent advocacy group, for a de-stimulation space within the fair, or “de-stim” room. “Each time, I was met with the sentiment that even though they took my requests very seriously, they just couldn’t possibly do anything about them. All the while, I was being paraded out as a poster child for how progressive and cooperative RBP (Red Barn Productions) were,” says Yovel, who is boycotting this year’s fair and is unsure if they will ever return.”

Progressives eating their own.

[HYPOCRACY]

Blacks doing a white play is cultural appropriation. Can we not have blacks doing Shakespeare or Dickens or anything else worth reading?

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Gee...I remember when parades were safe spaces.

[sport]

What constitutes racists, sexist behavior?

[BenLurkin]

A neurodivergent advocacy group?

Dedicatrd to the advancment of lunatics?

[Jewbacca]

Scanned the article.

It basically seems they are upset that Victorian England was full of mainly English people, who were largely white gentiles.

How stupidly liberal.

[Vaduz]

The result of feral dogs not being locked up

[Jewbacca]

Existing while white.

[wbarmy]

but when her husband, a Black man, started attending, she began to understand what the situation was like for attendees of color. Despite having a cast member pass, she says he was stopped at every security gate — not just by hired security officers, but also by fellow fair participants, and looked at with suspicion by vendors.

I call BS. In this day and age of cameras and smart phones, there is no proof any of this happened. And I would wager, that if an incident happened like that, she would have been the first to call tv stations and media to announce and broadcast the video of the heinous attack within minutes.

[dfwgator]

It’s mainly white liberals who complain about these things.

[sport]

It stands to reason. The media, the Self Hating Whites, The White Elites, the Globalists all want to eradicate the Caucasian Race.

[Persevero]

Oh man the Dickens Fair is so fun. A yearly tradition for us until lockdown.

Now it is “drive through,” heck with that.

[KC_Lion]

BAH!

Humbug!

[luckystarmom]

My daughter loved going to the Dicken’s Fair. We moved a 1 1/2 years ago, and the fair hasn’t restarted because of Covid. I hope they don’t ruin it.

[The MAGA-Deplorian]

They graduate as functional illiterates. Makes Shakespere just that harder.

They organizers of the Dickens play could change the names of the two emaciated children shown to Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Present from ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’ to ‘Liberalism’ and ‘Racism’ for on their foreheads spells the word “SNOWFLAKES”.

[Wiser now]

Wait a minute! All these claims of racism in THE most politically correct city in the country?
Do these people think it’s “white supremacist conservatives” visiting the Dickens Fair? Because if it’s locals, then the racists are progressives!