Building Better People Productions was started because we see kindness as a tool in the fight against darkness, with theater as our vessel. Because we know that people start forming their world views when we are young, and because young people receive things in open, less-jaded ways, we focus our message towards kids. Kindness and understanding don’t exist in a vacuum. They help to dismantle hate. Our company’s debut show, “We Got It!”, is about empathy. A key part of the play was based on our inability to see each other across racial lines; our inability to see other people’s pain as valid as ours is; and our devaluing of other’s lives because they aren’t like us.
The events last week in Minneapolis, and those before, and some of the reaction to them, are a perfectly sad picture of the refusal to see people different than ourselves as human.
We are sad. We have some fear. But we have not given up hope.
I know that some of you might look at this message and wonder why a theater for kids is addressing racial issues. You might think that kids don’t need to know about these things, and that the mere mention of them is divisive. But your kid probably already knows. My son could verbalize differences in color at age 3, and by the time he was 5 he could understand that there were differences in how black people and white people were treated, based on nothing other than the color of their skin.
So why I am saying this? By writing this, does this mean that we only care about black kids?
No.
What I am saying is that we see your children in all of their beauty, with their different skin, and different abilities, for who they are. And we want to be a place that honors them, and is a safe place for all kids For all humans. Not in spite of their color. But in full recognition of it, and of who they are.
We are here for you and your kids if you all have any questions, or just want to be silly.
We’re here.
And we see you.
All of you beautiful, different YOUS.
-Miss Lynne Founder and Artistic Director, Building Better People Productions
A new podcast featuring BBPP’s Lynne Streeter Childress