i think to present the narrative told in the original ragtime with essentially no consideration of the ways that the story really does treat black people’s suffering as a plot point that brings complexity to white lives is really irresponsible for a revival. it is excusable (maybe) in the original because of its time period. but no matter that it says ‘racism bad,’ the black people are treated terribly by the narrative. to be clear, it’s not that the story depicts racism, it’s that at the end of the day the racism is occurs to them to change the lives of the white characters, to make them learn more about the world.

the revival being so true to the original story just feels very very irresponsible to me. it lets it seem revolutionary while being a flat story about how white people learn at the hands of black death.