One rapper has canceled a Detroit festival performance after learning white concertgoers were being charged more for tickets than people of color.
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Tiny Jag, also known as Jillian Graham, recently withdrew from AfroFuture Fest when a white friend sent her a screenshot of an Instagram post that outlined the admission difference, the Detroit Metro Times reported.
According to the Instagram post, the August affair, hosted by a youth lead initiative called AfroFuture Youth, is selling "early bird POC" tickets for $10 and "NONPOC" tickets for $20.
"I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial," Tiny Jag, who is from Detroit, told the Metro Times. "I have family members that would have, under those circumstances, been subjected to something that I would not ever want them to be in ... especially not because of anything that I have going on.
“A lot of the songs that I perform are from my first project called ‘Polly’ — that is my grandmother’s name,” she continued. “How do you want me to come to a performance and perform these songs off a mixtape that is titled after this white woman that you would have charged double to get in here? Like, it’s just outrageous from so many different angles.”
Once she received confirmation about the prices from the festival organizers, she pulled out of the show and requested her name be removed from any promotional materials.
She also announced her decision via Twitter, revealing she didn’t know about the price discrepancy when she had initially signed on.
AfroFuture Fest explained its pay model on its Eventbrite website. It's all about equity, the organizers said.
"Equality means treating everyone the same. Equity is insuring everyone has what they need to be successful," the group wrote. "Our ticket structure was built to insure that the most marginalized communities (people of color) are provided with an equitable chance at enjoying events in their own community."
While Tiny Jag said she’s an advocate for equity, she disagrees with AfroFuture Fest’s method to do so.
"It's non-progressive and it's not solution-focused in my eyes," she told the Metro Times. "It seems almost like it has spite, and unfortunately with spite comes hate, and that's just not obviously going to be a good direction for us to go if we're looking for positive change."
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