I Have Conflicting Views On ‘Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist’ from Avenue Q

(Photo: The Missuolian)

• Annie Bocock

Avenue Q is an award-winning comedy musical, written by Jeff Whitty and took on by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, about life on the shabby street of Avenue Q. By celebrating puppets and holding interesting discussions on race, porn, and sex, it won Tony Awards in 2004 for Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score. 

As a musical amateur venturing into novice, I discovered Avenue Q almost by chance. After a discussion with some friends of mine about quite literally the idea that “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”, I scrambled to find something which backed up this idea, along with the fact that reverse racism is a myth. That, as you can imagine, led me to a nice little video of the Original Broadway Cast singing “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”.

Initially, I was overjoyed by what the track was saying, that due to everyone’s unconscious biases when it comes to race, everyone is perhaps racist to an extent. This, therefore, allows us to accept that we’re complicit in systemic racism through our behaviors and allows us to tackle them accordingly. “[It] doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes” is a complexity to this argument though, which is important here, racism lies on a spectrum, and the song does a great job displaying this, even if it is outdated.

I found myself getting more and more excited about the track, right up until the line, “and everyone stopped being so P.C. Maybe we could live in harmony.” I was slightly disappointed at the time but didn’t read too much into it.

OnStage Blog published a blog a few weeks ago about the Book of Mormon, and it made me think about the other musicals that perhaps handle race a little bit differently than I originally thought. It led me back to that line. 

Being P.C. isn’t an issue. Ultimately it comes down to caring about how other people may feel about what you say or do, particularly if it has the potential to hurt their feelings.

So when Avenue Q used it, the thought that came to mind was that perhaps they just want me to acknowledge that we are all a little bit racist and simply move on, rather than still choosing to hold ourselves accountable and aim to diminish our microaggressions.

I'm not the only one to have had this thought, this essay by Joseph S. Amditis sums it up like this: “Once again, [Garry] Coleman and the rest of the ensemble urge the audience to admit that they are a little bit racist, ‘even though we all know that it’s wrong,’ in order to better ‘help us get along’... a perfect example of what Antonio Gramsci calls ‘spontaneous consent.’”

Racism isn’t a guilty pleasure that we can all indulge in, in fact, that is what I believed the message to initially be: that we are all racist to varying degrees, so you shouldn’t be complicit and claim yourself to be “innocent” - I, by inference, thought the song was preaching that we, therefore, need to act on our biases.

This is only one of many issues with the song that I originally just looked over as outdated exaggerations for simplicity’s sake. The essay above gives a fantastic overview, from the downplaying of common racist behaviors, the generalization that all racism is created equally and that all racism, regardless of who is “victim,” is equally as bad - to say that all races, and therefore all skin colors, experience racism to the same degree.

So, is the song, okay? 

Does it allow all of us, but especially white people, to have the perspectives to look at our own racism and act on it? Perhaps. Does it do this in a way that handles the “sensitive subject of race” well? No, as Amditis says, the song (and perhaps entire musical) “addresses race relations from the narrow perspective of a white, middle-to-upper-middle class audience. This is evidenced by the frequency and range of racial stereotypes, factual and historical inaccuracies, and ideological slants found in the content of the song itself.” It still, to perhaps a great extent, allows us to feel comfort in racism. It’s tailored to white comfort.

My opinion of that original question is simply no. Due to a lack of nuance, the song comes off as an advocate for us to all be passive bystanders in systemic racism, rather than active bystanders. Ultimately, whether you choose to turn your back on Avenue Q in disgust, get angry at me in the comments, or simply just choose to acknowledge that it’s problematic but still just listen anyway, it is your choice.

All I ask is to address your own racial biases, to confront your racist behavior, and to finally acknowledge that, indeed, Everybody is A Little Bit Racist.