Using autocritography, this essay acts as a critical performance of interracial communication, civil and academic unrest, and theatre during the Grand Jury Hearing for Darren Wilson a year after he murdered Michael Brown in the streets of Ferguson. On the second day of my interview for the intercultural communication professor position at Saint Louis University, the grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson. Protests erupted around the city. Later that week, after Thanksgiving and as protests began to wane, my family and I went to the Fabulous Fox Theatre to view Motown: The Musical. Drawing from canonical prejudice, this essay adds canonical exception to the discussion in an attempt to illuminate the repulsive practice of respectability politics in policed spaces like the academy, theatre, and music.
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