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CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The founder of a black theater company in Chicago says her latest production will speak to the lessons being learned about racial inequality in the United States in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing.
"People are waking up," says Jackie Taylor, founder/CEO of the Black Ensemble Theater.
Taylor says America got to see "the face of racism" when George Floyd died before their very eyes at the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.
She says America is being forced to look at its sores: "Now the sores are wide open and they’re oozing and they have to be dealt with."
Taylor’s production, “The Healing,” opened the last night theaters were allowed to be open before Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's emergency stay-at-home order. “The Healing” will be the production that re-opens her theater — whenever that is.
It shows the brutalization of black people in the United States but also the accomplishments of many black people. Taylor says the production stresses the need for everyone to be forgiving.
"We forgive each other because we have to forgive each other. We can’t continue to harbor negativity, revenge, hostility."
She says on that first night showing, people were crying and hugging each other and saying they were sorry.
Taylor says of racism: "If we do not eradicate this disease, it will destroy us."