The gay Lake View nightspot Hydrate cancelled a drag show it had booked for Friday, May 27, in response to outrage from many that the performer, a white gay man, sports blackface.
Charles Knipp had been billed to perform two shows at the Boystown club, but management canned the act just hours after local organizers launched a Facebook campaign alleging that Knipp's act is racist.
Videos on Knipp's website of drag persona, "Shirley Q. Liquor," shows Knipp performing his blackface routine. In one mock commercial, Shirley Q. Liquor gives a sales pitch for "Ebonic Airways," during which she draws on several racial stereotypes.
Shiren Rattigan, a program coordinator at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Women Leadership and Resource Center, was an organizer of the Facebook page against Knipp's Hydrate performance. She said that she was "appalled" to find out that Knipp would be performing in blackface in Chicago.
"I was disgusted," she said. "People were really upset."
It's not the first time that Knipp's performances have come under fire. In February 2007, GLAAD came out against Knipp's Shirley Q. Liquor portrayal, stating that the Knipp was perpetuating racial stereotypes. A 2005 letter to Windy City Times from one Evanston man said that Knipp "displays a hatred and contempt for Black people in general and Black women in particular bordering on the pathological."
Hydrate owner Mark Liberson posted notice that he had cancelled the event just a few hours after the Facebook page against the event surfaced. "While the promotions team had good intentions, the advice they received regarding the diversity of this entertainer's appeal was misguided," the statement read. "I regret that this error in judgment was allowed to occur."
Local organizers will hold a community meeting to address racism within the LGBTQ community May 27 in place of what had been an anticipated protest against Knipp's performance.
"I think the larger question isn't about Mark [Liberson] and Hydrate," Rattigan said, adding that organizers were not looking to scapegoat Hydrate. "It's about, 'How could this have been booked in the first place?'"
The community meeting will be held Friday, May 27, at 5:30 p.m. at Q4/Multi Kulti, 1000 N. Milwaukee, 4th floor. For more information, e-mail verbalvegetarian@gmail.com .