By Tiffany Maleshefski

Everyone is kind of a racist.

Not that everyone intentionally sets out to be a racist, but even those with the most pluralist intentions have had those awful thoughts creep into their heads. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones you’d never dare repeat because they feed into every ugly stereotypes you’ve ever struggled to forget.

Lest my point be misunderstood, the above in no way condones these thoughts. It’s more of a painful truth I (and I am sure many others) couldn’t escape while watching Dan Wolf’s new play, Angry Black White Boy, which opened this week at Intersection for the Arts.

It starts out kind of like this: Examples are tossed out illustrating the stupidity and the overall square personalities of white people. Funny stuff. Everyone can laugh at himself or herself a little bit, right? Then it starts to go too far and you’re sitting in your chair saying, “Now wait a minute, I’m not racist, but ok maybe I do cross the street when I see a black man and I’m alone, but I live in a neighborhood with a lot of questionable folks…and then two black dudes attempt to mug Detornay in one scene and all your ifs, ands, or buts, are confirmed.

And then you feel totally terrible and guilty for having your preconceived notions confirmed.

Adapted from Adam Mansbach’s hip-lit novel of the same title, the stage version doesn’t dilute the potent conversation about race, racism, and identity. In fact, I’d venture to say witnessing the Mansbach’s deeply complicated subject matter as live dialog is possibly more powerful. Featuring members of the hip-hop collective Felonious (Myers Clark, Keith Pinto and Tommy Shepherd), it’s also very lyrical in its execution, featuring and ballet-influenced choreography and stage blocking from Keith Pinto (who plays “that guy” for lack of a better term).

It’s a tricky show to summarize, but here goes.