A Detroit music festival has sparked outrage by offering half-price tickets to “people of color” — with at least one biracial artist pulling out in protest.
The AfroFuture Fest has early-bird ticket prices of $10 for POC (“people of color”) while anyone else has to pay $20. Tickets eventually rise to $20 for POC and $40 non-POC for the August 3 event.
Local rapper Tiny Jag pulled out of performing as soon as she learned of the race-based price disparity.
“I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial,” the rapper, real name Jillian Graham, told the Detroit Metro Times.
“I have family members that would have, under those circumstances, been subjected to something that I would not ever want them to be in … especially not because of anything that I have going on.”
She was particularly troubled because some of her material is inspired by her grandmother, Polly, who is white.
“How do you want me to come to a performance and perform these songs off a mixtape that is titled after this white woman that you would have charged double to get in here?
“Like, it’s just outrageous from so many different angles,” she told the Metro Times, also announcing on Twitter how she was no longer involved.
Festival organizers declined to comment to the paper, but addressed the ticket prices on its official Eventbrite page.
“Our ticket structure was built to insure [sic] that the most marginalized communities (people of color) are provided with an equitable chance at enjoying events in their own community (Black Detroit),” the festival stated on its official Eventbrite page.
“Affording joy and pleasure is unfortunately still a privilege in our society for POC and we believe everyone should have access to receiving such.”
The statement claims that “people outside of the community” usually lose out to those with “proximity to wealth.
“This cycle disproportionately displaces Black and brown people from enjoying entertainment in their own communities,” the statement adds.
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