With FLOTUS and Rhianna targeted, 2011 ends with more racist and sexist language
Within the span of about 10 days, a little-known congressional representative and an even lesser known magazine emerged into the public by deliberately disrespecting two of the most popular black women in the world: the first lady of the United States Michelle Obama, and mega-pop-star Rihanna. Each of these instances are distinctly despicable in that they attempt to degrade women’s bodies generally by reaffirming a societal gaze that assigns value to a woman’s humanity based almost exclusively on the size and shape of her body. What may be more sinister here though is the deployment of this tragically common assault at two exceptionally popular and powerful black women with one unfortunate outcome being the fact that the ‘representative’ and the ‘magazine’ enhanced their ‘brands’ via an assortment of name checks in the media-sphere. Sadly we will have to (yet again) mention those (brand) names here.
During a recent Christmas bazaar at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Hartford, Wisconsin, Rep Jim Sensenbrenner (R – WI) criticized Michelle Obama’s campaign against obesity given the size of her lower posterior.. Daniel Bice, in “Sensenbrenner apologizes to first lady over ‘big butt’ remark,” described the incident in the following way:
Perhaps Sensenbrenner – who was accompanied by an aide – assumed it was safe to crack wise about the first lady’s posterior in such a heavily Republican area. But, as the old saying goes, this is what happens when you assume.
Ann Marsh-Meigs, a church member who heard Sensenbrenner’s remarks, said he took several swipes at the first lady on Dec. 10. . . .“He then talked about how different first ladies have had different projects – Laura Bush and literacy – and he named two or three others,” Marsh-Meigs said in an interview last week. “And then he said, ‘And Michelle Obama, her project is obesity. And look at her big butt.’”
“That’s basically what he said,” she continued. “It was a combination of her work on obesity and her shape.”
When confronted by a woman in attendance, who sought to highlight Mrs. Obama’s wonderful qualities, Rep Sensenbrenner responded by noting that “Michelle should practice what she preaches – ‘she lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.’”
History reveals that the unmasking and over-sexualization of black bodies is a longstanding practice central to American popular culture. As Bobo (1995) states: “Representations of black women in mainstream media constitute a venerable tradition of distorted and limited imagery” (p. 33). Rather than constituting black women as “specific victims of the lust of [white] brutes,” dominant representations have posited black women as sexually deviant, aggressive, domineering or wretched victims – as mammies or jezebels (Hansberry, 1960).
Black women’s bodies have historically garnered negative attention in the public sphere; the black female form has posed as both a threat and a cheap, yet addictive, commodity within American culture. Within the realm of popular culture Janet Jackson’s breasts, like Jennifer López’s and Beyonce’s behinds, have elicited incredibly prurient commentary highlighting both the exotic determination and demonization of female bodies of color. This history endures through these comments that rely on the fragmentation of Michelle Obama’s body.
Colorlines recently published a 90 second video summarizing the year in race, an amazing feet given what has happened over the year. Statistical measurement define 2011, in many ways:
45 percent of the 131,000 homeless veterans in America are African-American
26 percent of African American families earn less than $15,000
1 in 9 African Americans live in neighborhoods where 40%+ of its residents live in poverty
Black women earn 68 cents for every dollar earned by men; for Latinas this number is 59 centers
16.2 percent of African Americans are unemployed
17.5 percent of black males are unemployed; 41 percent of black teenagers are without a job
11.4 percent of Latinos are unemployed; 21.3% of Alaska Natives and 19.3% of members of Midwest indigenous communities are unemployed
In 2011, blacks and Latino were twice as likely to face home foreclosures
“Between January and June of 2011, the United States carried out more than 46,000 deportations of the parents of U.S.-citizen children”
Yet, meaning of this year transcends these numbers. We have seen ample intrusions of blatant racism into the public square. I recently wrote about this, arguing:
In Two-Faced Racism, Leslie Picca and Joe Feagin explore the ways in which racial performances are carried in both the frontstage (integrated and multiracial public spaces) and the backstage (those private/semi-private all-white spaces where race talk and racist ideas reveal themselves in profound ways). Their research found that the backstage offers whites a place to “perform, practice, learn, reinforce, and maintain racist views of and inclinations toward people of color. These views and inclinations play a central role in generating and maintaining the overt and covert racial discrimination that is still commonplace in major institutions of this society” (27-28).
Increasingly, however, the frontstage is replacing the backstage whereupon whites are publicly performing, learning, reinforcing and maintaining their racist views toward people of color. Evident in college students donning blackface and then putting pictures online, evident in Gene Marks, Newt Ginrich, Donald Trump and their reactionary pals lamenting the laziness of black youth, evident in the usage of the N-word, evident in white-only movie screenings and white-only swimming pools, the lines between the frontstage and the backstage are blurring before our eyes. In other words, the frontstage is now the backstage, leaving me to wonder what sorts of ideologies, stereotypes and racial talk is transpiring in backstage. Or maybe, in a “post-racial America,” widespread racism has returned (did it ever leave?) to the frontstage thereby illustrating the importance of challenging and resisting in each and every location.
From Rep. Doug Lamborn referring to President Obama as a “tar baby” and Brent Bonzell describing President Obama as “a skinny, ghetto crackhead” to Fox’s headline for President Obama’s birthday party –“Obama’s Hip-Hop BBQ Didn’t Create Jobs” and Eric Bolling “criticizing” President Obama for “chugging 40’s in IRE while tornadoes ravage MO,” there have been ample examples of the ways in which public expressions of racism have defined the 2011 political sphere. The racism and sexism directed at Michelle Obama (just one example) and the astounding types of political commercials (just one example) are also evident of the ways in which violent rhetoric has dominated the public square.
Not surprisingly, Rush Limbaugh (calling President Obama a “oreo cookie” and Michelle Obama as “uppity”), Ann Coulter (“our blacks are better than theirs”), Pat Buchannan (“Blacks bought a lot of propaganda of the liberal plantation”), amongst others, all illustrate the ways in which racist language and ideologies define the nature of political discourse during 2011. Beyond the ample instances of racism, it is important to see beyond the starling ease that racism operates within the public square to look at the ways race plays out within the deployed narratives and ideologies. Take Pat Buchannan, who reminisced for Jim Crow during 2011: “Back then, black and white lived apart, went to different schools and churches, played on different playgrounds, and went to different restaurants, bars, theaters, and soda fountains. But we shared a country and a culture. We were one nation. We were Americans.” In language and the vision for America, race defined the past year (and the years before).
The last year has also seen quite a bit of recycling. From the Moynihan Report and culture of poverty, to bootstraps ideology and efforts to blame the poor, 2011 has seen a comeback (not that these racist narratives ever went away) of these troubling ideas. Two of the most illustrative examples were Newt Gingrich and Gene Marks. Gingrich, who has made a career of race baiting (calling President Obama a “food stamp president” and one defined by a “‘Kenyan, anti-colonial worldview’”), recently offered policy prescriptions to deal with black unemployment: teach black youth the value of work. He stated:
Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working. And have nobody around them who works. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash’-unless it’s illegal. What if you paid them part time in the afternoon, to sit at the clerical office and greet people when they came in? What if you paid them to work as the assistant librarian. What if they were the assistant janitor, and carried a mop?
Deploying longstanding stereotypes about black laziness and criminality, all while crafting economic policy based on bootstrapism, Ginrich shows how 2011 has been so much about sampling and redeploying the racist ideologies of yesteryear. Gene Marks, whose article prompted widespread condemnation because of its paternalistic tone and acceptance of widespread stereotypes, is equally reflective of this trend.
I am not a poor black kid. I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.
The prosecution and sentencing of, and the struggle for justice for, Kelly Williams-Bolar is emblematic of many issues surrounding race in 2011. From the criminalization of people of color and the demonization of women of color, to educational inequalities and the generation of kids behind left behind, her case teaches us much about the continued struggle for civil rights in 2nd decade of the twenty-first century. Jamilah King described the case in the following way:
Just in case you haven’t seen this story blow up on your social network this week: Kelley Williams-Bolar is headed to an Ohio jail. The mother of two was sentenced this week to 10 days in jail, three years of probation, and 80 hours of community service. Her crime? Sending her two daughters to an out-of-district school. . . .It’s an infuriating case, especially for anyone who’s even remotely familiar with educational inequity in this country. America still hasn’t made good on its half-century promise to desegregate its public schools, and academic achievement can almost always be measured by zip code.
The demonization of women of color extended into the realm of popular culture as well.
2011 was also the year of The Help, a film that recycled the hegemonic Hollywood trope of “white love” (h/t Elon James White) and racial redemption all while sanitizing the black freedom struggle. Yet, it was also a year defined by the many powerful responses to this film; these effort resisted and challenged the film’s (mis)representation of black women’s work, segregation, social justice, and countless other issues. From the Association of Black Woman Historians’ powerful statement to the many articles from black scholars – Dutchess Harris, Rebecca Wanzo, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Martha Southgate, Mark Anthony Neal, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers – many voices have challenged the narrative and representations offered by The Help, refusing to accept the cultural politics of the mainstream. Yet, 2011 has also seen the release of Pariah, a film that explores the experience of a young black lesbian struggling for acceptance within her family and society at large. Whereas The Help represents blackness as accessory, as the help, Pariah reminds audiences of the power and beauty of black identity, highlighting heterogeneity, diversity, and humanity.
2011 has seen ample moments of resistance, a refusal to accept and tolerate racism, sexism, and homophobia. It has been a year of “speaking truth to power” and refusing the dominant narrative. Following the airing of ABC’s 20/20 special entitled “Children of the Plains,” a group of Native American students from South Dakota produced their own video that refused the images and messages offered in the show: “I know what you probably think of us…we saw the special too. Maybe you saw a picture, or read an article. But we want you to know, we’re more than that…we have so much more than poverty.” Then there were the students from Ohio University, who launched the “We are a culture not a costume” campaign to protest the racist stereotypes and racist images so prominent during Halloween. Youth in California and Alabama fought vigorously to change the tide against anti-immigrant racism. Hotel workers in New York protested Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the victimization of Nafissatou Diallo. And so much more.
The power of new media as a space of resistance has been on full-display, whether the consciousness raising happening on twitter and Facebook, or the ways in which Jay Smooth, Jasiri X, Issa Rae, Amie Breeze Harper, Ariana Proehl. Scholars like Alondra Nelson, Koritha Mitchell, Nicole Fleetwood, Danielle McGwire, Kellie Jones, Evie Shockey, and Manning Marable (who we lost this year) have also published important works that advance the study of race, gender, and sexuality in both history and our current moment. In the face of erasure, dehumanization, and persistent inequalities, scholars and artists (see Lisa Thompson’s discussion of black women in theater), activists and organizers, and people from community big and small have met the racism and injustice with force. There has been so much to challenge in 2011 yet the many instances of injustice have not killed our “freedom dreams.” While these dreams will be deferred until 2012, the struggle will continue.
The Frontstage is the New Backstage: Racism in the Public Square
by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
Three stories have captured the imagination of social media recently.
A Buffalo High school suspended several members of the basketball team because its members allegedly regularly chant racial epithets prior to each game. As reported in the Buffalo News, “Tyra Batts, the sole African-American on the Kenmore East High School’s squad,” said “her teammates would hold hands before the game, say a prayer and then shout “One, two, three (n——).’” Batts, who was suspended because of her involvement in a fight resulting from the repeated use of the N-Word by her teammates, disputed claims that it “was just a joke.” The efforts to defend its usage and to deny the racist and violent history have set off anger and debate throughout the web.
“Remember all of those debates we’ve had about whether or not the n-word is just another word?,” writes Britini Danielle. “Usually, our conversations dealt with white and non-black rappers and entertainers using the word ‘as a term of endearment,’ but this time we’re heading into the tricky world of high school.”
Not to be outdone, a P.h.D student at Rutgers University invited her white classmates to a screening of the Disney Classic Song of the South. An editorial in The Daily Targum describes the circumstances as follows:
This email invited “her fellow non-racist racists” to a private, guilt-free viewing of 1946 musical Song of the South in her home, where together they could engage in celebratory mocking of stereotyped 1940’s images of southern blacks. This was an event hosted by a “ragtime/minstrel loving fool” who was due “for some rollicking Disneyfied Ole Darkeyism.” The postscript read, “If you do come, hooch is most welcome, as are straw hats and other Darkeyisms. I might even buy a watermillyum if I get enough interest.” It specified who invited guests should bring, given that “I might yell racist things at the TV.” The author of this email articulated the hope that the experience would be a “communion with her shamefully preferred era of Disney.”
The celebration of dehumanizing representations, the efforts to create a segregated space, and the replication of longstanding stereotypes provoked outrage, condemnation, and ample conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Citing it as evidence of the absurdity of a “post-racial America,” the instance became another moment to protest the persistence of white supremacist ideologies within contemporary America.
Yet, none of the outrage would compare to the anger, protests, and denunciation that has followed Gene Marks ode to paternalism in Forbes Magazine. In “If I Were A Poor Black Kid,” Marks provides “advice” that rehashes bootstraps ideology all while playing on longstanding stereotypes about black laziness and disinterest in schooling. Following in the footsteps of Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump, Marks recycles those arguments that link black unemployment and poverty rates to work ethic and personal choice.
His comments have produced a strew of commentaries that have condemned the article for its arrogance, paternalism, and overall erasure of structural inequalities. “Mr. Gene just wants to give us some of that patented #WhiteLove™ that he has laying around the house,” writes Elon James White. “With a healthy sprinkling, poor ignorant black children can rise above their station into the magical world of reasonable participation in society! Mr. Marks has a step-by-step booklet for you to get your school game on track, not your wig pushed back … by poverty.” James, like so many of the responses, identified the arguments offered in Forbes as not a peripheral aberration but instead a central white racial frame within contemporary culture. Evident in The Help and The Blindside, reflected in political and academic discourses, and central to white racial framing, the narrative focus on black pathological failures and the potential through better parenting, better choices, and better work ethic, guides American racial discourse.
Politics as Usual: Decoding the Attacks on a Liberal Education
by David J. Leonard, Mark Anthony Neal and James Braxton Peterson | NewBlackMan
Few university courses generate much attention from mainstream media, but Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson’s course “The Sociology of Hip-Hop: Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z” has drawn national attention from NBC’s Today Show, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, USA Today, and Forbes.com among many others. To be sure such attention is not unusual for Dyson, who is one of the most visible academics in the United States and has offered courses dealing with hip-hop culture, sociology, and Black religious and vernacular expression for more than twenty-years. Yet, such attention seems odd; hundreds of university courses containing a significant amount of content related to Hip-hop culture and Black youth are taught every year—and have been so, for more than a decade. In addition, there are dozens of scholarly studies of Hip-hop published each year—Julius Bailey’s edited volume Jay-Z: Essays of Hip-Hop’s Philosopher King, among those published just this year—and two Ivy League universities, Harvard and Cornell, boast scholarly archives devoted to the subject of Hip-Hop.
Any course focused on a figure like Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter), given his contemporary Horatio Alger narrative, and his reputation as an urban tastemaker, was bound to generate considerable attention, but the nature of the attention that Dyson’s class has received and some of the attendant criticism, suggest that much more is at play.
In early November, The Washington Post offered some of the first national coverage of the class, largely to coincide with the arrival of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne tour to Washington DC’s Verizon Center. Jay-Z dutifully complied with the attention by giving Professor Dyson a shout-out from the stage. The largely favorable article about the class, did make note, as have many subsequent stories, about the cost of tuition at Georgetown; as if somehow the cost of that tuition is devalued by kids taking classes about hip-hop culture.
Other profiles of the course and Dyson have gone out of their way to make the point that the course had mid-term and final exams, as if that wouldn’t be standard procedure for any nationally recognized senior scholar at a top-tier research university in this country. Such narrative slippages speak volumes about the widespread belief that courses that focus on some racial and cultural groups, are created in slipshod fashion and lack rigor; it is a critique that is well worn, and that various academic disciplines, such as Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies and even Sociology have long had to confront.
Over the summer, Ben Shapiro, while making an appearance on Fox News’ Hannity, “jokingly” announced his desire to “cap” the characters of Sesame Street. He followed this up with more “serious” criticisms, denouncing America’s favorite kid’s show because of its “soft bigotry of low expectations,” its promotion of “gender neutral language,” and its advocacy to “give boys dolls and girls fire trucks.” The other members of Hannity’s “great all-American” panel similarly spoke about the downgrading of America’s moral fabric, seemingly linking the messages of Sesame Street to the cultural wars. The Huffington Post describes his criticism of Sesame Street in the following way:
Chief amongst Shapiro’s alleged liberal offenders is Sesame Street, the Jim Henson-created educational show carried on PBS, the public network with few conservative fans or defenders.
Citing interviews with one of the show’s creators, early episodes of the show featuring hippies and racial reconciliation and, more recently, incidents such as 2009’s “Pox News” controversy, Shapiro writes that “Sesame Street tried to tackle divorce, tackled ‘peaceful conflict resolution’ in the aftermath of 9/11 and had Neil Patrick Harris on the show playing the subtly-named ‘fairy shoeperson.'”
Patrick Harris, to Shapiro’s chagrin, is gay. And, even scarier, Cookie Monster says cookies are only a sometimes food now; the venerable sweets machine has added fruits and vegetables to his diet, indicating a major liberal plot.
On Martin Bashir’s show on MSNBC, Shapiro similarly denounced children’s television for promoting “a self-esteem ethos, the idea that, to paraphrase Barney ‘everyone is special’; an unearned self-esteem.”
The attacks on Sesame Street (and by extension the liberal media and big government intrusion in family matters) are nothing new. A 1992 column in The Economist similarly denounced Sesame Street as a liberal assault on American values:
The problem comes when the sensible tolerance and respect of “Sesame Street” are mutated into something less appealing. First, it becomes a kind of hypertolerance (which argues, for example, that the canon of black female authors is as rich as that of white male authors); which is merely silly. Second, it becomes an intolerance of those who do not practice this hyper-tolerance (so that anyone who argues that a canon of authors who happen to be white and male is better than the one picked by sex and skin color is a racist sexist); which is pernicious. It is the intolerance that has come to be called “political correctness”—or PC (Sesame Street, the acceptable face 1992, A30).
The criticisms that “multiculturalism” or “tolerance” represents a vehicle for the “intolerance” for dominant values (white, Christian, middle-class) that have purportedly been central to America’s historic greatness are common to the broader culture. Equally troubling to those critics of Sesame Street is not only tax-payer support for a program that is neither intended for white-middle class audiences (Shapiro notes the history behind Sesame Street), but in their mind devalues whiteness for the sake of multiculturalism agenda.
To understand this criticism and to comprehend the right’s denunciation of Sesame Street mandates an examination of this larger history and the ways in which Sesame Street has built upon the civil rights movements and those concerned with justice, equality, and fairness. In 1979, The New York Times identified the primary focus of Sesame Street as the “4-year-old inner-city black youngster.” Jennifer Mandel, in “The Production of a Beloved Community: Sesame Street’s Answer to America’s Inequalities,” argues that while the original intended audience for the show was “disadvantaged urban youth” who suffered because of “the limited availability of preschool education” the appeal and impact of the show transcended any particular demographic. While addressing structural inequalities and countering the systemic failures in America’s educational television was part of the show’s mission, it more masterfully offered a utopic vision of America and the broader world.
“Shut Up and Play:” Racism, Sexism and “Unattractive” Realities of American Culture
by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
My anger and frustration following yesterday’s tennis match has nothing to do with the match itself. While pulling for Serena Williams and disappointed by her defeat, the surprising loss did little to damper my spirits. What has inspired my ire has been the media’s yet again troubling treatment of Serena Williams.
Following the match and in response to her confrontation with the match umpire (see here for details and video), commentators have taken her to task, deploying racialized and gendered criticism. Described as “petulant,” going “bonkers,” as “a stereotypical Ugly American” and as someone whose “ego” led to a “tirade” the media tone has rendered what appeared to be a tame and minor confrontation into a spectacle that rehashes longstanding stereotypes about black women as childish, emotional, lacking self-control, and otherwise angry. In other instances, Williams has been demonized for her “outburst” and “menacing behavior,” for “losing her cool” during an “Ugly US Open meltdown” and the “the menacing tone of her remarks.” Mary Carillo referred to Serena’s behavior as that of an “ass clown.”
The references to her tone and demeanor as menacing, given the ways in which white supremacist discourse has pathologized and rendered African American as cultural, physical, and economic menaces are particularly revealing. “Racial logic has advanced a link between the legibility of black bodies, and a racial being,” argues Delia Douglas in “To be Young, Gifted, Black and Female: A Meditation on the Cultural Politics at Play in Representations of Venus and Serena Williams.” Noting, “that black bodies have historically been designated as the site and source of pathology,” Douglas makes clear that “behaviour and habits are seen as symptomatic of these racial distinctions.”
The hyperbolic and racially and gendered rhetoric is encapsulated by a column from George Vecesey in The New York Times
As she stormed at the chair umpire during a changeover, Williams was reverting to her vicious outburst at a line official that caused her to be disqualified at match point in a semifinal in 2009, the last time Williams was here.” “But at what point does comportment, sportsmanship, become part of the measure of a great champion?” “The tantrum early in the second set caused many in the crowd to boo the decision, delaying the next point. Stosur kept her cool, and Williams never showed a trace of those couple of hard hits. She could have gone out with dignity on an evening when she did not have her best game. Instead, she called the chair umpire a hater, and later professed not to remember a word of it.
Irrespective of the exaggerating and demonizing rhetoric, Serena Williams’ confrontation of the umpire was tame; while angry with a suspect call and unwilling to capitulate to authority merely because of custom, she was clearly composed, calm, and collective; there was no “outburst;” she did not “lose her cool” nor was anything about her behavior “menacing.”
Even the USTA has concluded that the “controversy” was much ado about nothing, fining Williams $2,000 dollars. Explaining the fine, it announced:
US Open Tournament Referee Brian Earley has fined Serena Williams $2,000 following the code violation issued for verbal abuse during the women’s singles final. This fine is consistent with similar offenses at Grand Slam events. As with all fines at the US Open, the monies levied are provided to the Grand Slam Development Fund which develops tennis programs around the world.
After independently reviewing the incident which served as the basis for the code violation, and taking into account the level of fine imposed by the US Open referee, the Grand Slam Committee Director has determined that Ms. Williams’ conduct, while verbally abusive, does not rise to the level of a major offense under the Grand Slam Code of Conduct.
Noting the existence of “similar offenses” during the course of all Grand Slam events, the USTA acknowledges the banality of the behavior from Serena Williams.
Williams has been positioned as yet another black athlete who may have the athletic talent, but lacks the mental toughness and commitment needed to excel on the biggest stages. More significantly, the post-match commentaries reveal the powerful ways that race and gender operate within American culture. Her blackness and femininity, especially in the context of the white world of tennis, overdetermines her positioning within a sporting context. This moment illustrates the profound impact of both race and gender on Serena Williams, a fact often erased by both popular and academic discourses. According to Delia Douglas, “The failure to consider the ways in which sport is both an engendering and racializing institution has lead to myriad distortions, as well as the marginalization and oversimplification of black women’s experiences in sport.” As such, her stardom, her success, and the specifics of the incident does not insulate her from criticism and condemnation, but in fact contributes to the acceptability in fans and commentators alike symbolically shouting and yelling, “Shut up and play.”
Party Like It’s 1899: Arizona Football and Blackface Fans
by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
To celebrate their new football uniforms, Arizona State University officials encouraged students to come to their Friday game against University of Missouri wearing all black. Four students decided to use this moment as an opportunity to party like it was 1899 by donning blackface. The media reaction, thus far, has been muted, not surprising given the persistent intrusion of minstrelsy into contemporary popular culture and the overall dismissal of most behavior from white college students as harmless revelry. Yet, this instance point to several larger issues at work.
The practice of white students donning blackface is not an isolated incident but reflects a larger trend within America’s college’s and universities. While usually taking place at parties, outside the view of the public at large, the minstrel tradition is alive and well. Tim Wise, in “Majoring in Minstrelsy: White Students, Blackface and the Failure of Mainstream Multiculturalism,” notes that during the 2006-2007 school year there were 15 publicly known instances of racial mockery. He describes this practice in the following way:
Given the almost monthly reports that white college students at one or another campus have yet again displayed a form of racist ignorance so stupefying as to boggle the imagination. For some, it means dressing up in blackface. For others, a good time means throwing a “ghetto party,” in which they don gold chains, afro wigs, and strut around with 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor, mocking low-income black folks. For still others, hoping to spread around the insults a bit, fun is spelled, “Tacos and Tequila,” during which bashes students dress up as maids, landscapers, or pregnant teenagers so as to make fun of Latino/as.
At the core of any of these instances is a sense of power and a perceived right to mock and degrade irrespective of its impact; it may also potential reflect ignorance about the larger history and meaning of blackface. In either instance, we see white privilege in action. “It’s certainly true that most whites are unaware of the way that blackface has been used historically to denigrate the intellect and humanity of blacks,” writes Tim Wise. “And most probably know little about the history of how ghetto communities were created by government and economic elites, to the detriment of those who live there. Yet, at some level, most of those engaged in these activities had to know they were treading on offensive ground.”
Whereas in the more commonplace practice of “ghetto parties” or other racial mocking parties the ignorance argument makes less sense given the efforts gone to limit outside exposure, it is easy to see how a lack of knowledge about the meaning and history of blackface might have led these students to attend nationally-televised football game in blackface. Ignorance, however, is no excuse.
The ability to be ignorant, to be unaware of the history and consequences of a person’s action, to simply do as one pleases is a quintessential element of privilege. It reflects a level of power to be either unaware or unconcerned with the potential offense; the ability to ignore and dismiss history is a privilege, one that the state of Arizona promotes through its very policies. “One thing we know about racism is that much of it is learned. We also know that young people must also learn racial sensitivity. In both cases, Arizona State University appears to have failed the test,” writes Boyce Watkins. “Students are a reflection of those who teach them, and it’s interesting that these four white women made the plan to wear black face, went out and bought the makeup, told their friends about their plan, put on the makeup and went to the game, without anyone even taking a second to realize that what they were doing would be incredibly offensive to millions of people.” Watkins’ assessment seems particularly important given we are not talking about Arizona, the epicenter of the anti-ethnic studies movement.
In 2010, on the heals of its decision to institutionalize racial profiling, the legislature followed-up with its ban on ethnic studies classes “designed primarily for students of particular ethnic groups, advocate ethnic solidarity or promote resentment of a race or a class of people.” It is hard not to make a connection here, as well as the larger history of Arizona and race.
Whether arguing that blackface at ASU football game reflects ignorance about the larger history of racism and the potential offense many might take from the sight of 4 white college students reenacting a racist tradition of minstrelsy; or that their decision is a conscious push-back against what they perceive as political correctness run amuck, the larger context is crucial. Ignorance of this larger history or disregard for its meaning is “Decrying the ghetto party as ‘modern-day minstrelsy’ is surely an expression of righteous indignation, but it is only the beginning of the story rather than the end,” noted Jared Sexton in a 2007 piece that I co-wrote for Colorlines. “The persistent challenge is to understand why the perverse pleasure of cross-racial caricature and its disavowed currents of mockery, ridicule, envy and hatred are so powerfully attractive to its participants—participants who, as a rule, rely on the dynamics of racial segregation that have produced the ghetto for the very form and substance of the most public and the most intimate aspects of their social lives.”
In other words, the sight of these four students in blackface is a reminder of the consequences of persistent racial segregation, the cost of a hegemonic multiculturalism that avoids issues of inequality and racism, the manifestation of white privilege, and most importantly, in the context of Arizona, evidence of the importance of ethnic studies as a curricular intervention. It demonstrates the necessity of ethnic studies because those are spaces where the history of and meaning within the tradition of minstrelsy is learned. That is the opportunity to rectify that ignorance or unlearn the acceptance of these practices.
Jay Smooth, in “How To Tell People They Sound Racist,” distinguishes between “what they did and what they are conversations,” calling upon people to avoid the traps that results from the common practice of debating whether or not someone is racist. Whereas the “what they are” conversations focuses on motives and intent of an individual, “the what they did conversation focuses strictly on a person’s words and actions, and explaining why what they did and what they said was unacceptable.” Hopefully, we can use this moment to not only to point out the unacceptability of blackface in any context (“what they did conversation”) but to also reflect on its roots and the broader implications at work here. We need to have “the it’s bigger than this incident” and “it ain’t just about these four students” conversations so that we can maybe stop having THESE conversations so often.
Dr. David J Leonard 