What Is The Erasure Of The Black Past In Hamilton By Lyra D. Monterio

Lyra D. Monterio wrote the essay “Race-conscious casting and the Erasure of the black past in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton” to address the racial history that was unfortunately left out of the musical “Hamilton”. The irony behind this is because of the actors of color who play the roles of founding fathers who were slave-owning, white men. This questions if the roles should have been played by nonpeople of color due to the way the play leaves out their racial history which was a key factor in many instances throughout our history. The question Monterio leaves us with “Is this the history that we want most brown and black youth to connect with, one in which black lives so clearly do not matter?”. Monterio questions whether Hamilton is a reliable

Monterio explains how history has been sorely portrayed as a “great white men” history. She follows with the topic of how Hamilton was supposed to be portrayed as “a turning point for the art form and a culture conversation piece”. Monterio does acknowledge and celebrate the accuracy of the history as well as the use of the many primary sources that make an appearance throughout the play such as diary entries and letters. Then Monterios' essay quickly transitions to point out how Hamilton leaves out the racial history throughout the play. She goes on to give a few examples which question the accuracy of the musical to her point that Hamilton. She is clear about what her opinion is as well as incorporates Mirandas, some actors, and credible reviewers' opinions. Monterio is sure to leave it up to the reader to decide if they agree or disagree. As the essay comes to a close, Monterio enforces the question of, was this an important and progressive point of view to history or whether it is still whitewashed with people of color playing the

There were few to no lines in the script where slaves were mentioned and zero appearances of enslaved actors. The only scene in the play where slavery is mentioned more than once is in a rap battle between Hamilton and Jefferson. There were many instances where there is a dinner scene and in reality, a slave would have been serving dinner, the white men serving their own. A specific example I can give is in the song “No one else was in the room where it happens” which completely erases the enslaved men and women who would have been in the room at that