The question for me, really, is whether Shakespeare, the cultural weight of Shakespeare’s fame, gets in the way of talking about race in a productive fashion. And I think this is something that’s been hard to have a real conversation about with other Shakespeareans and with practitioners, with actors and directors, because they all want to make it very relevant and make it meaningful for their audiences, whether your audience is a student, a fellow scholar, or, you know, actual theater audiences. The longer lists found on the web are more elaborate and the many color codes in them are less often used in practice, although some of these colors are offered for sale at LGBT stores along with free cards listing their meanings. Networks, Hornet (2022-02-11). "We're Loving the Push to Revive the Hanky Code for a New Queer Population". Hornet . Retrieved 2022-02-18. Glymond, Joanne. "Judicial robes belonging to The Right Honorable Turlough O'Donnell Q.C." www.newry.ie.

THOMPSON: Well, I think Ian lays it out perfectly, right. I think, our fantasy is that when someone writes a first-person travelogue, that what we’re getting is an actual representation of truth. But, in fact, no. What you get is a kind of recycling of older narratives that you already have in your head, and you’re kind of placing them onto the new environment that you’re experiencing. And I think that plays out in the plays in really fascinating ways. And, especially, in the ways that Shakespeare, I think, tries to shake up certain audience expectations regarding race and then, kind of, fulfills them over and over again, in many different ways. SMITH: I think that’s quite right. And also, what it implies, therefore, is, as you just said, that Shakespeare’s name comes with this sort of, very positive sort of valence. What that also then underscores, is that for some people to attach race to Shakespeare makes race something negative. That, by definition, race is something that’s going to somehow dirty or muddy the Shakespeare waters. When, race per se is not something dirty or negative. Race is about a study of relationships, about how people interact with each other. That’s what race is about, fundamentally. The hanky code was a semiotic system of sexual advertising popular among the gay leather community of the United States [10] and cruising scene more broadly. Social networking services may have replaced the use of hankies in cruising areas by digitizing the process. By using online platforms, men who have sex with men (MSM) can eliminate harassment and violence that they may face in public. [11] Social networking services for MSM also allow for sub-groups, and for people to list fetishes, and what they are looking for, which is where the replacement of the need for hankies may have come from. [11]SMITH: Yes, that actually is a quote from Adrienne Rich. And, not just the person’s view on talking about Othello in this way, but also the experience of others in that room for whom that kind of approach to talking about race has a definite impact. That is to say, when somebody sits or stands in a room and makes that sort of declaration, there are intended consequences. Some of us in the room are quite unsettled by that sort of statement, right? A writer, Tim Wise, talks about white privilege and power, and to quote him, he says, “That which keeps people of color off balance in a racist society is that which keeps whites in control.”

Eddie witnesses Chrissy Cunningham's death and is the last person to see her alive, so it makes sense why he becomes a wanted man. Granted, those outside the core group aren't aware of the terrors that reside under Hawkins. Chrissy's boyfriend, Jason, leads the charge to find "Eddie the Freak," believing his connection to Dungeons & Dragons is the cause of the deaths in town. With the help of Dustin, Steve, and the others, Eddie stays hidden until he officially joins the group in investigating Vecna.THOMPSON: I was just going to say that actually reminds me of a moment when I was teaching, last year, a large lecture class that is sort of a survey of early British literature. And I had this amazing, lively class, even though it was a lecture. There was lots of participation and the students were really engaged, whether it was “Beowulf,” or Marie de France, or whatever. While we celebrate 50 years of Pride this year, Metro.co.uk is shining a light on two charities that offer life saving support to the LGBTQ+ community - and asking readers to please donate whatever you can to help them both continue to help others. Kallen, Jeffrey L. (27 November 2013). Irish English Volume 2: The Republic of Ireland. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9781614511298– via Google Books. SMITH: Well, some time ago, I was… You know, I’ve been always taught about the white handkerchief in Othello. You know, Ayanna will tell you, that’s sort of standard thinking on the play. But it never really sort of sat with me completely. And so, a couple years ago, I was thinking more about this, and it occurred to me as I was reading the text, that what we found there actually was a reference in the play where Shakespeare sort of makes it clear, at least to me, that… He speaks about the handkerchief “dyed in mummy.”

And, in a real sense, in that kind of discussion, when somebody makes that kind of declaration, there’s an attempt to coopt the conversation, there’s an attempt to control the conversation, and there’s an attempt to silence those who would want to produce a sort of progressive argument about race and similar topics. And so, that is why I then referred to Adrienne Rich, where it is about a sort of view then, that would rather perpetuate the idea that we live in a world in which we think or we imagine or we speak as if whiteness is the totality of experience and knowledge. IAN SMITH: It was actually a seminar. So, there are a group of us participating in the conversation, and somebody asserted, several times actually, that Othello is not about race. My sense is that, he felt that this statement was supposed to be a corrective of some kind. And, so…

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Stryker, Susan; Van Buskirk, Jim (1996). Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. p.18. ISBN 0-8118-1187-5. BOGAEV: Right, and we’re going to talk more about historic accuracy in a moment. But, you were making a really interesting argument on that panel. And if I could paraphrase it, I think what you were arguing was that the only world in which Othello is not about race is in a white privileged world. And the way that you put it, is a world where people “think, imagine, and [can] speak as if whiteness described the world.” There was no single authoritative standard for the code. This table is drawn from Larry Townsend's The Leatherman's Handbook II (the 1983 second edition; the 1972 first edition did not include this list) and is generally considered authoritative. Implicit in this list is the concept of left/right polarity, left as usual indicating the top, dominant, or active partner; right the bottom, submissive, or passive partner. Townsend noted that discussion with a prospective partner was still important because, people may wear a given color "only because the idea of the hankie turns them on" or "may not even know what it means". [8] Color

SMITH: Whereas I see the play as making a point for a modern audience about raising the question about, “How can we tell stories?” Shakespeare himself puts it in a racialized context. That is, he says, how can we, now, as modern day audiences, how can we tell Othello’s story when Othello himself is very anxious about how that story’s going to be told? When I talk about Othello essentially saying, Well, who’s going to tell my story? I think the sort of meta dimension of that is about us as audiences and critics. How do we tell that story? Ian Smith is a professor of English at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. When we published this episode, Ayanna Thompson was a professor of English at George Washington University. She is now Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University. Smith and Thompson are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. That if we are aware that we as a culture, and a culture of critics, and a culture of audiences, etcetera, and readers and students, if we have this sort of bias that still dominates what we do, how we think, how we read race in American culture, then the end of Othello really makes a demand in us to then be much more conscious and humble at the same time, when we say we want to talk about Othello, or make declarations like, “ Othello is not about race.” But it makes us think about, “Well, how reliable are we? And what is the basis of our saying that?” I think that’s important. BOGAEV: Well, a call to be open about and to challenge our assumptions, that is such a wonderful place to end. Thank you so much. It’s been wonderful talking with both of you. SMITH: Yes, I think on two grounds. One, he thought that perhaps, historically, people weren’t interested in seeing the play in that way in Shakespeare’s time, which, as you just suggested, is really sort of startling, because of the very clear and numerous derogatory references to skin color in the play. And, the second thing I thought that he was trying to do, too, was something perhaps a little bit more powerful and dangerous. That is, he was suggesting that race was not something that people thought about in Shakespeare’s time, and the term “race” itself, he was suggesting, didn’t have the kind of force that it has for us until the 18th century or so, that somehow we were misusing a term that was anachronistic. And so, he was correcting us and saying that we should not be deploying a term in such a careless fashion.Ayanna Thompson is professor of English at George Washington University and Ian Smith is professor of English at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Their thoughts on race, history, and theatrical practice may leave you looking at Othello in an entirely new way. Ayanna and Ian are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.