Category Archives: Popular Culture

Antiblack Racism and Moral Panics

Posted on by Standard Reply

September 20, 2014 in News

A National Pastime: Antiblack Racism and Moral Panics

By David J. Leonard

America is a nation bound together by moral panics; in the absence of an actual moral center or a compass of justice, we find power in collective outrage in the absence of self-reflection. And race or antiblackness is often what anchors these fits of moralism.

It is an expert at racial moral panics, a truly exceptional world power when it comes to moral posturing, collective outrage, and the resulting finger pointing.   From the culture wars of the 1980s to debates regarding hip-hop into the 1990s, from discourses around “black homophobia” and “black on black crime,” and far deeper into history, moral panics are often wrapped up discourses of blackness. James Baldwin spoke of this quintessential American tradition in 1960: “I think if one examines the myths which have proliferated in this country concerning the Negro.” Accordingly “beneath these myths a kind of sleeping terror of some condition which we refuse to imagine. In a way, if the Negro were not here, we might be forced to deal within ourselves and our own personalities, with all those vices, all those conundrums, and all those mysteries with which we have invested the Negro race” (quoted by Bouie)

Writing about the 1980s and the demonization of “welfare queens,” George Lipsitz (1995) identifies this history as one where “Americans produce largely cultural explanations for structural problems.” With a long history of scapegoating and locating moral imperatives and cultural impurities through bodies of color, it should come as no surprise that the release of video footage of then Ravens Running Back Ray Rice striking his then girlfriend Janay Palmer has sent America, from The Capital to the American media landscape, from NFL stadiums to Starbucks, into a perpetual state of moral outrage.

The effort to reduce social ills to individual failures, to individual pathologies, and cultural dysfunctions comes through a centering of blackness within these discourses. “What is forbidden in American culture often seems to be projected outward onto the outsider or scapegoat,” writes James (1996). “Blackness has come to represent sex and violence in the national psyche. Although they gain notoriety as the most infamous perpetrators of unrestrained criminality, African Americans are given little recognition in media, crime reports or social crusades as being victims.” The refusal to see or hear Janay Palmer, Kasandra Perkins and countless more makes this all too clear.

Directed at Rice (and several other players), and Roger Goodell for failing to properly control, discipline, and punish the NFL’s “out-of-control,” the moral panic feels less and less about intimate partner violence (IPV), hyper masculinity, a culture of violence, misogyny, or patriarchy, but instead yet another moment to locate social ills within the bodies of black men. Blackness, especially in the sporting world, is “legible” (Neal 2014) only as signifiers of dysfunctional, danger, criminality, and corruption. This has been the case with IPV, and equally evident in the aftermath of Adrian Peterson’s arrest. According to Jamelle Bouie, “It’s reminiscent of other conversations around broad-based behaviors or beliefs that become pathological and purely “black” when displayed by black Americans in elevated numbers.”

As black bodies are ubiquitously imagined as essentially disruptive, uncontrollable, as a source of “cultural degeneracy” the problem of IPV becomes not an American problem and not even one belonging to the NFL — but a problem of blackness. Blackness exists as “a problematic sign and ontological position” (Williams 1998, p. 140). The outrage resulting from Ray Rice reflects the logics of anti-black racism, perpetuating a culture that sees blackness as the problem, one that needs to be contained, purified, controlled, punished, and ultimately eliminated.

The outrage has little to do with the pervasive and endemic problem of IPV within the NFL and society as a whole. In a nation where 1 in 3 women report having experienced IPV, where 1 in 5 men admit to having committed violence against a partner, one has to wonder why now, why did Ray Rice prompt a national soul searching regarding the problem of IPV? In a nation, where the media and the court system routinely rationalize the prevalence of IPV through victim blaming and excuse making, forgive me if I ain’t buying this feigned outrage. The political power structure, particularly the GOP, should have a seat; they should delete their press releases and their demands for “zero tolerance” and simply look in the mirror.   From its foot dragging with the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to its budgetary PRIORITIES, it is clear that the political structure is perfectly fine with domestic violence. Combatting violence against women is not a priority, at least if it requires more than a press conference. In 2013, the National Domestic Violence Hotline was unable to answer “77,000 calls due to lack of resources.” And this isn’t the only example of how the GOP, and the Congress as a whole, has no moral standing with respect to IPV.

“The Republican romance with gun rights has proved deadly. More than 60 percent of women killed by a firearm in 2010 were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. The presence of a firearm during a domestic violence incident increases the likelihood of a homicide by an astonishing 500 percent, writes Katie McDonough. “The Republican-led assault on reproductive freedom has major implications for victims of domestic violence. Republican resistance to mandatory paid leave policies means that women who need time off to leave an abusive relationship or are hospitalized after a domestic violence incident can lose their jobs for missing work.” Congress and their friends at the NRA, like the NFL, is reflective of a culture of domestic violence and a complicit actor in the daily injustices experienced by all too many women and children in this society. In a nation where judges and police officers (“family violence is two to four times higher in the law-enforcement community than in the general population”) engage brutal acts of violence against women with impunity, where ESPN and other sports media, routinely mock and reduce women to dehumanized objects of consumption and ridicule, it is hard to believe in this feigned and surely short-lived outrage about Domestic Violence (DV).

The rampant hypocrisy, the racist moralism, and the scapegoating are equally evident in the types of “solutions” being proposed. In the face of rightful, even when misplaced, outrage, the NFL created a VP position in charge of “social responsibility” (to be filled by Anna Isaacson, the league’s current VP of community affairs and philanthropy) and hired three domestic advisors (Lisa Friel, Jane Randel and Rita Smith). Goodell, the benevolent white father figure whose primary responsibility was disciplining the league’s “unruly” black bodies had failed. In this context, 4 white women have replaced him. The focus on punishment, the embracing of the language of mass incarceration, and the moral posturing should give us pause in that the logics, tropes, and policies that have compelled mass incarceration are the center of the NFL’s reclamation project.   The focus on individual accountability (which needs to be part of the process) at the expense of collective transformation and societal cultural change, the concern with response rather than dealing with root causes highlights the systemic failures to truly address intimate partner violence.

At its core, the post-Ray Rice discourse is not about IPV; it is not about concern for Janay Palmer or collectively saying #blackwomenslivesmatter or #womendeservejustice. It is about racial paternalism and the historic efforts to imagine sports not as exploitation, big business, profits, and a health risk, but one of disciplinarity and moralism. Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson put these narrative rationalizations in question, resulting in panic and further reimagination of sport as a source of good. According to King and Springwood (2005), “Perhaps such public concerns and panics are best understood as a form of racial paternalism in which white America struggles to come to terms with its (exploitative) enjoyment of the African American athlete by advancing a linkage between the ostensibly moral and disciplinary space of … big time sports.”

The selective outrage at players within the NFL (and the league for not controlling them) and not Major League Baseball or Hollywood (Charlie Sheen) or mainstream music industry, or the police, or the military, or every American institution is revealing. The silence regarding Hope Solo, who stands accused of domestic violence, playing for the U.S. National Team is telling: whiteness matters.

So is the lack of moral outrage for Renisha McBride, Aiyana Jones, Rekia Boyd, and countless others. One has to look no further than Marissa Alexander, who faces 60 years in prison for firing a warning shot against an abusive husband whose history of violence has been well-documented, to understand the nature of today’s moral panic. One has to look no further than at the thousands of women locked up for defending themselves against an abusive and violent partner. America’s (so-called) moral center bends not toward, but away from the arc of justice. It is guided by racism and sexism; its compass is profit before people. We need a new compass not a new policy; a moral center of justice not more of the same: we need a new pastime

***

David J. Leonard is an associate professor and chair in the department of critical culture, gender and race studies at Washington State University, Pullman, and the author of a forthcoming book on race, media and gun violence. Follow him on Twitter.

Originally Published at The Black Scholar 

Explaining the Underwhelming Reaction When Black Women’s Nude Pics Are Stolen

Posted on by Standard Reply
Posted: Sept. 8 2014 10:38 AM
Originally Published at The Root

135510399-singer-jill-scott-performs-at-the-nobel-peace-prize

Jill Scott performing in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 11, 2011ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The following is a sampling of headlines about the recent theft and illegal release of alleged nude photos of celebrities:

“Jennifer Lawrence, Others Aren’t Just Hacking Victims”

“Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence’s Hacked Photos to Be in Art Show”

“Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lawrence Allegedly Targets of Massive Celebrity Hacking, FBI Has Launched Investigation”

“Celebrities’ Leaked Nude Photos: Master List Printed, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, Kaley Cuoco, Rihanna, More Names on It”

“Nude Photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Ariana Grande, Kirsten Dunst Leaked Online”

In them, and the hundreds of headlines like them, a theme emerges: white female victimhood. It’s in the choice of subjects, the words themselves and photos that accompany the various online reports. Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton are presented as the faces and bodies of these types of violations.

The flip side of these headlines and the less obvious theme is this: that black women are undeserving of protection; that when their privacy is criminally violated, it isn’t such a scandal. After all, Lawrence and Upton aren’t the only ones who have been violated in this way. Jill Scott andRihanna have, too.

If you didn’t know, that’s because the “leaks” and “hacks” related to black female victims were scarcely covered in comparison with those of their white counterparts.  A Google News search for celebrities’ names combined with “leaked,” while an informal measure, further confirms the spotlight on white female victims. Lawrence and Upton have, by far, the most results (22,700,000 and 126,000, respectively); Rihanna and Scott trail behind with 39,100 and 8,760, respectively.

There’s a disparity not just in the amount of news but in the amount of analysis and outrage when the victims are black. As the Washington Post’s Justin Moyer put it in his analysis of the leaks of recent weeks (Lawrence, Upton and Scott), “White feminists ignore Jill Scott.”

Continue reading at The Root

Dear Tiger Mom: The 1920s Called and They Want Their Racial Theories Back

Posted on by Standard Reply
Dear Tiger Mom: The 1920s Called and They Want Their Racial Theories Back
David J. Leonard
January 13, 2014
Image via Wiki Commons.

“Tiger Mom: Some Cultural groups are superior” – this headline from the New York Post prompted me to tweet the following:

While partly a snarky reaction to a book that invariably will deliver all-too familiar themes, it was equally a comment on the continuity of American racial ideologies across multiple generations, and multiple centuries.

Amy Chua and her antiquated ideologies are back.

The author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which celebrated the superiority of Chinese American parenting styles, is set to publish a follow-up book in February. Co-authored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America appears to be more of the same, expanding her cultural determinist argument, which imagined Chinese parenting as both superior and a pathway to inevitable success, to now include seven more groups (Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Iranian, Lebanese-Americans, Nigerian, Cuban exiles, and Mormons), whose success is attributable to their possessing the requisite values and cultural attributes. The selected groups, all of whom are immigrant groups, the selective grouping (only Cuban exiles; Lebanese-American but Nigerians), the lack of intersectional analysis, not too mention the dehistoricizing, reveals a flawed premise at its face.

As reported in the Post, Chua and Rubenfeld argue that “success” is attributable to three distinct cultural traits: superiority complex, inferiority complex, and impulse control. Simply put, Chua and Rubenfeld seem to argue that a sense of superiority — confidence, purpose, and a belief in excellence — alongside a sense of inferiority — humility, modesty, and determination — are two essential ingredients to success. For the sake of brevity, and my focus on historic continuity between Chua and a larger history of scientific racism, it is important to reflect on their understanding of “impulse control” and how it fits within a larger history of white supremacy, notions of civilization, and arguments about fitness, self-control, and self-governance. “As we’ll use the term,” write Chua and Rubenfeld, “impulse control refers to the ability to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task.”

This argument is not new. Central to white supremacist discourses and practices, from the representations of minstrelsy and Jim Crow, to Native American bordering schools and contemporary mascots, is the idea that “racial others have impulses that demand a civilizing force in order to rein them in.” The inability to exert control over the “impulses” of racial others has also been cited throughout history as evidence of inferiority, reason for inequality, and the justification of state violence. For example, Anglos rationalized the conquest of California by citing the “lack of self-discipline” and “cultural backwardness” of the Californios. In their minds, Mexicans were “indolent people, whose backwardness reflected their having poor personal habits and collective deficiencies such as laziness or a penchant for extravagances.”

Irrespective of intent, The Triple Package builds on a long history of American racism, faux science, and racial discourses that have sought to normalize and naturalize inequalities. It’s a remix of Herbert Spencer, Charles Davenport, The Bell Curve, and countless other theories that have normalized white supremacy and socially produced injustices. Whereas past theories focused on biological differences that located the physical, psychological, and cultural differences within inheritable traits, Chua and Rubenfeld explain away differences and inequalities, arguing that individual values and cultural traits push certain groups to the top of “success mountain” and others into the pits of failure.

The book’s argument recycles longstanding arguments that governed systems of slavery, imperialism, and colonization. On the eve of the Spanish-American War, Alfred Mahan described Asia as “rich in possibilities,” but seemingly in waste because of “negligence and incompetence of its inhabitants.” The irony of Chua and Rubenfeld identifying Chinese or Indians as having the requisite cultural values, given this history, should give us pause. The cultural deficiencies and the lack of “political fitness” meant that the land and resources were underdeveloped and therefore no one had “natural right to land.” As with the indigenous communities, the lack of development within in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and throughout Asia necessitated action and intervention. “Will anyone seriously content that the North American continent should have been left forever in the hands of tribes,” Mahan asked, in justifying U.S. expansion overseas as part of a history of the civilized, anointed by God, conquering “savages who waste land and resources.” Success and failure, civilization and the lack thereof, were tied to culture.

Continue reading at  http://hnn.us/article/154434#sthash.5Lrf6lvt.dpuf

Food Matters: The Work of Alison Hope Alkon and Bryant Terry

Posted on by Standard Reply

 

Food matters – it mattes because it is the sustenance of life; it matters because it a source of pleasure, and nostalgia, a building block of identity, family, and community; it matters because of obesity and starvation, food insecurity, because it is central to global economies – it is a source of profits and profits for some, and despair and anguish for others; it matters because it is local and global. It also matters because it represents a window into broader themes and social realities, to systemic inequalities and persistent violence.   With Black, White, and Green Farmers Markets, Race, and the Green Economy, Alison Hope Alkon makes this clear, illustrating the material and symbolic importance of food. Examining two farmer’s markets in the Bay Area (North Berkeley and West Oakland), Dr. Alkon demonstrates the many ways that race, class, and inequality operate in these spaces, demonstrating how each embodies an distinct intervention against the environmental status quo; they are overlapping poles of a broader food movement.

According to book’s description, “Farmers markets are much more than places to buy produce. According to advocates for sustainable food systems, they are also places to “vote with your fork” for environmental protection, vibrant communities, and strong local economies. Farmers markets have become essential to the movement for food-system reform and are a shining example of a growing green economy where consumers can shop their way to social change.” Situating farmer’s markets in a broader history of the “slow food movement,” Berkeley People’s Park, the Black Panther Party, and countless others challenges to our corporate food hegemony, Dr. Alkon pushes the conversation beyond food as nourishment, and markets as places of commerce to emphasize the ways that these public spaces function in terms of identity, resistance, community, and struggles for change.

Focusing on farmer’s markets as a “cornerstone of food activism,” Dr. Alkon brings to life two spaces that work to challenge everything from food deserts and constrained food choices, to GMOs and the corporate takeover of contemporary foodways. Like other movements, social location and identity impact the goals, methods, and framing mechanism used to galvanize support for the markets and the broader movement of food activism. Racism and differential levels of privilege are visible in these spaces.

The power of the book rests with its ethnographic intervention, with its documentation and how food matters, and its elucidation of food activism; it equally emanates for its willingness to explore and expose the endless contradictions within the food movement. “This contradiction – between farmers markets’ broad, radical aims and individually oriented economic strategies” is at the core of the book. Yet, in focusing on race and class, in examining inequities, Dr. Alkon further reveals the contradictions evidence in those who privilege sustainability and the environment over justice and people.

There is so much richness within this book, as it reveals the ways that “hipster racism” operates alongside of systemic racism; it spotlights the entrenched yet invisible (to some) privileges even among the most progressive people. Dr. Alkon summarizes the markets and the people who inhabit in a profound way:

Many participants envision the North Berkeley Farmer’s Market as a way to improve both environmental and social conditions through green economic exchange. However, environmental themes are prioritized and are thickly interwoven with the farmer’s markets institutional policies…. In West Oakland, the reverse is true. Issues of social and more specifically racial are most prominent, as the West Oakland represents an environmental justice approach to the politics of food. Environmental sustainability underlies the market’s work – the creation of a local organic alternative food system – but is discussed only occasionally (75-76).

Food matters . . . it masks and reveals the persistent inequalities, the contradictions, and the different levels of power and privilege; Dr. Alkon makes this clear over and over again, providing a language for thinking about how foodways and food activism offers spaces of change yet also has workers to maintain the very systems that are supposedly being challenged in a myriad of ways. An important work!

A couple years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Bryant Terry (this was before the publication of his most recent book Afro-Vegan). The interview was never published. As I read Black, White and Green, I thought it was important to return to this interview, to digest the important analysis and profound insights that Terry delivered in the interview.   Each spotlights the importance of not only talking about and understanding food, but food as change, as power, privilege, identity, and both a window into a shade concealing persistent inequalities in American

 

 

 

****

A couple years ago, my friend and colleague Lisa Guerrero bought me Bryant Terry’s cookbook, Vegan Soul Kitchen. Living in a SMALL town, Lisa searched high and low to secure a copy for my birthday, a fact that not only illustrates the kind of a person Lisa is and what a great friend I have, but the power of Bryant Terry’s work. Having now had the opportunity to engage with Bryant on Twitter/Facebook, to learn from him by way of his web show, to read about his newest book, and understand his work as part of longer tradition of activism and social justice work, it is clear that he offers not only food the feeds the body but knowledge that feeds the mind. Terry, a chef, an author, and an activist, teaches the world not only how to cook and do so in a healthy way, but to do so in a way that reflects and reaffirms important values. Like his food, this interview is simply delicious

David Leonard (DJL): Talk to us about your new book

Bryant Terry (BT): The new book – The Inspired Vegan – is a snap shot of where I was at as I was writing it. I thought a lot about my daughter, what type of book I wanted to write, that 40 years from now she would get a sense of the person that I am, what my values are, who my heroes and sheroes are; it is a snap shot of the food justice movement that I am so active in.

I realized that people have a low food IQ. People are so disconnected from growing and cooking wholesome fresh food. So giving people basic skills to prepare a home cooked meal is important. I wanted to give them basic tips and tools so they can make fresh meals for themselves and their families. I also wanted to empower people to put together entire meals devoid of animal of products. One of the critiques of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks is that it is often a bunch of side dishes. People don’t know how to move from a diet where meat is at the center of the plate to a plant-based diet. I wanted to show people that you can have meals that are vegan and also sumptuous and complex, and most importantly delicious.

DJL: You also have a new web show; is the show an extension of your book?

BT: My books are an extension of my politics. I started this work as an activist in New York City. I founded this project called Be Healthy, politicizing young people, understanding that if this food justice movement is going to be successful young people must be at the forefront. The last thing these kids wanted to do was come in for a lecture on structural inequality and food insecurity, especially because in additional to lacking access to wholesome food, they also came from neighborhoods with horrible schools and race issues. One of the creative ways to engage young people was to teach them how to select fresh foods, how to prepare it, which is so important because if they help prepare it they are more likely to try and become accustomed to other types of food. My cookbooks are an extension of this work. I wanted to use the same approach on a national scale. The show is a similar concept, using popular culture to shift people’s hearts and minds.

DJL: What are your goals beyond your work?

BT: My goal is not to convert people to be vegans. While I don’t consume any animal products, I don’t even describe myself as a vegan. I do that very intentionally because I know that for many of the communities I am trying to reach, the term vegan brings up certain images, ideas, and triggers. I want to avoid that.

I also want to avoid the latest fads to seek out remedies. There is no one-size-fits all diets. I really encourage people rather than choosing the label, to think about what your body needs. Rather than just choosing a diet, think about cultural food ways; think about ethics, values, politics, what kind of world do I want to see, what sort of environment do I want leave for my children, how do I want to see animals treated – these are the questions that should guide our food choices rather than a label

DJL: What advice would you give parents about teaching food lessons to their kids?

BT: While I only have 9 months of experiences as a parent, one of the most important lessons I would convey is modeling. You can talk about eating well, but need to model healthy eating habits. Simple things: eating mindfully, not overeating, and taking your time while eating. The basic fundamentals of living are so important. We have to model that for our children. We want to lay down a foundation for her so that when she gets out into the world she can make empowered choices to think about advertisements and peer pressures. At that point, it is about letting them to make decisions based on that knowledge.

Even before our daughter was born, my wife was very conscious of exposing her to a range of taste and flavors while in utero. Now as a child, we are constantly introducing to her to married foods. One of the foundations for our diet crafting an Afro-Asian diet that builds upon African and Asian foodways, so that she appreciates and understands her own foodways. She eats everything from mung beans, to blacked eyed peas, from bok choy to collared greens already.

DJL: How does your work challenge the ways in which healthy eating, organic, and vegan is often imagined in connection to white middle-class identities?

BT: So much of work is response to narrative that concludes that African American cuisine contributes to poor African American health. It is a simplistic way of looking at the public health crisis. It is important to understand that most of the communities with high rates of obesity, diet related illness – cancer, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension – are saturated with processed and fast foods. Focusing on soul food completely erases the issue of people over consuming fast foods, processed foods, package foods, and those high sugar, salt and fat, and low in the nutrients we need. It complete ignores the ranges of oppression and environmental stressors people are enduring that leads to stress, that might lead to overeating. People need to understand the complex reasons why African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans are dealing with these health crises. When we revisit the traditional foodways of African Americans, it is extremely healthy. Sweet potatoes, squashes, dandelion greens, collared greens. These are the types of foods my grandpa was growing and these are the foods that most of people in our communities were eating. These foods are as authentic and traditional as the comfort foods and survival foods so often associated with African American cuisine.

DJL: In recent years there has been an increased awareness and public consciousness about food deserts; what are your thoughts about this trend?

BT: I think so often the focus on food deserts leads to a focus on corporate food interventions. Every community should have a full-service market, but that is not the solution. Food security and increasing food health will come from producing economically empowered communities.   We need to have solutions owned and driven by those living with these communities. Lack of access to food is one indicator of poverty. It has to be about more than food. I also think talking about food deserts erases the ways that people are already combating the lack of choices. We need to recognize there is a lot of knowledge and movements taking place and not imagining these places as deserts that need help.

DJL: We also don’t think about how the term deserts naturalizes inequality; we don’t talk about the production of deserts.

BT: Indeed

DJL: Where do you come down on the term of Soul Food?

BT: When people think about soul food, people are thinking about red velvet cake, fried chicken, and chitterlings.   They are not thinking about sautéed butter beans or dandelion greens or even baked chicken; they are thinking about the heaviest, most indulgent foods. Soul food doesn’t evoke the diversity of the cuisine. I prefer to talk about African American cuisine and to think about how colonization, industrialization, and modernization have impacted our cuisine. Lets talk about that rather than pathologizing our food ways as part of this bigger racist game.

DJL: How does your work recognize the constraints on choice while giving voice, power, and agency in determining diet?

BT: It’s tricky.   When we talk about these issues and only focus on personal responsibility, we don’t understand the larger picture of what’s wrong with our food system. That being said, I will be first to admit it is about personal choice; we all are responsible for how we live our lives, what we chose to consume. But when we think about the reality that people are limited by their choices. People are limited by their understanding of those choices; this complicates our discussion. Don’t tell me it is all about choice when there isn’t safe green spaces, when there isn’t food co-ops, farmer markets, or full-service supermarkets within their communities. There are corner stones that only have processed foods, cigarettes, alcohol, and if they have fresh foods they are 50% more expensive. Understanding the options that are providing in working poor neighborhoods are not there even though people want healthy food options.

 

#Madonna: The Legibility of Racial Slurs – Urban Cusp

Posted on by Standard 1

#Madonna: The Legibility of Racial Slurs

By David Leonard on January 21, 2014

Usually a trendsetter, Madonna follows the actions of Paula Dean, Michael Richards, Riley Cooper, Richie Incognito, countless co-workers, neighbors, and college students to use the “n-word.” With her Instagram photo, she has become yet another white person who either doesn’t understand the meaning and history, or simply doesn’t comprehend or care about the harm, pain, and violence that comes every time a white person utters the word.

Either way, her use of the word provides a window into what Leslie Picca, a professor at University of Toledo, and Joe Feagin, a professor at Texas A & M, describes as “backstage racism” – the utterances, slurs, racial jokes, and other dehumanizing language that is rarely seen or heard, yet has consequences.

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially with a racist hashtag.

Used to caption a picture of her son boxing, she noted, “No one messes with Dirty Soap! Mama said knock you out!” she wrote in the Instagram posting, to which she added the hashtag “#disni–a.”

The combination of her son boxing and the use of this word reflects the entrenched nature of racial stereotypes. I cannot help but wonder if her seeing blackness in relationship to boxing, violence, and physicality prompts her use the “n-word” here. Did the associations of blackness to hip-hop (“Mama Said Knock you Out”) and boxing inspire her to mark this activity with this particular hashtag?

One will never know her intentions and, in fact, her intent is irrelevant. She used this word, and she used it in association with her son boxing. Would she have used this hashtag had her son been practicing piano? What if he was preparing for an equestrian competition or polo match? What about preparing to take a test or audition for the ballet? I doubt it.

The word and its use in association with boxing highlight the entrenched nature of stereotypes. As Mark Anthony Neal notes in his book Looking for Leroy, blackness is often only visible as athlete, as violent, and as a physical body: “When we think about black men and boys, when we see them in certain kinds of roles we don’t even think twice about it,” noted Neal, a professor of African American Studies at Duke University. “When we see a black man with a basketball we don’t even have to process that… we know exactly what that means. If we were to see a black man with a violin that gives us reason to pause.”

For Madonna, her son boxing illustrated his blackness; his whiteness notwithstanding, his body was legibly black. The fact that Madonna saw her son as black, because he was, because it illustrates the power of stereotypes; the fact that she sought to identify this blackness with a racial slur tells us how un-post racial we are.

The faux apology is also a reminder of how far we have to come with regards to race in this country. Responding to the criticism, Madonna sampled from the greatest hits of non-apologies, noting “I am sorry if I offended anyone.”

Worse yet, she apologized for giving “people the wrong impression.” While claiming there is “no way to defend the use of the word,” she does just that with references to her intention and what she “meant.” #Weak! Rather than taking responsibility for her words, choices, and actions, she instead focused on how others may have (mis)perceived her “provocative” words.

Clearly, Madonna is preparing for her next album: “Confessions of White Privilege.” Her intentions for using the word are irrelevant, and to be clear, the word isn’t “provocative,” it’s seeped in a history of racism and white supremacist violence. She doesn’t have the power – much less the right – to simply say, “I mean it to be something else,” or to say, “it’s a term of endearment.”

I can hear the responses already; all of which will emphasize how she is a victim of “political correctness” and that this illustrates America’s racial double standards. Ignoring the fact that this entire piece is “one of endearment,” let me respond: America is a nation founded on double standards that provide daily benefits and structural advantages to whites in America. Madonna’s latest post is just more of the same #whiteprivileged #entitlement.

via #Madonna: The Legibility of Racial Slurs – Urban Cusp.

N-Words, R-Words and the Defense of White Power in the NFL

Posted on by Standard Reply

N-Words, R-Words and the Defense of White Power in the NFL | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

N-Words, R-Words and the Defense of White Power in the NFL

by David J. Leonard and C. Richard King | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

At best the recent news that the NFL would consider instituting a penalty for use of the N-word on the playing field is ironic or contradictory. This from a league that has maintained an active defense of the R-word as a legitimate and honorific name for one of its more popular franchises is At worst, each word highlights the entrenched racism of sports culture, and society at large, and a refusal to confront white power.

One word is read a racial slur, and only a racial slur, and must not be uttered even as the structures of violence, degradation and inequality remain entrenched in society; the other word, despite linguistic, historic, and psychological evidence, is framed as anything but a racial slur which can be used in marketing, media coverage, and fan cheers.

The former word is taken to be a reference to the bad old days of racism, best forgotten; a reminder of the unresolved history of slavery and the social death that rendered Blacks as property to be exchanged and exploited. The latter word is defended as a tradition, ideal or so it is claimed to the so-called time after race, the raceless present, and more a trademark, a valuable piece of property from which Dan Snyder, the league, media conglomerates, and countless others make obscene profits from distortion and dehumanization.

And it is hard not to see in this pattern that some kinds of racism matter; some types of utterances elicit discomfort and unease; some can be seen and described, and demand public action, while others remain invisible, unspeakable, and unmoving.

After a season that began with a white player, drunk at a concert, calling a security guard a n****r because he felt slighted, and ended with a damning report on the culture of the Miami Dolphins’ locker room–in which use of the same word figured prominently in the bullying of Jonathan Martin–it is perhaps understandable that the NFL wants to be responsive to “incivility,” if not outright hate.

Yet, the NFL’s refusal to deal with violence, to deal with racism in its many forms, points to the true motives here. This is ultimately about regulating (black) players’ – their utterances, their agency, and their bodies. Just as the Palace Brawl was used to rationalize and justify the NBA Dress Code, the elimination of straight from high school players, and countless other initiatives that disciplined and punished the NBA’s primarily black players, Goodell is using Riley Cooper, Richie Incognito and the growing debate around the N-word to increase his power.

This is all about bout respect, decency and discipline, as defined by Roger Goodell and his corporate partners. This is all about control, it’s about power, the politics of respectability, disciplining and punishment, selling it’s corporate multiculturalism, and regulating the voices and bodies of its primarily black players. This is why the focus has been on black players, on discipline, on the lack of respect that “today’s players” show for the game, each other, and social norms.

Not surprisingly then, some see in these contradictions as self-serving, even callous cynical hypocrisy. While acknowledging these patterns, we think they are part of a larger, unmarked problem, namely white power. And the proposed rule change and the defense of the Washington DC franchise both must be read as efforts to protect white power while maintain control over discourse and keeping the voices and bodies of people of color in their prescribed places. Despite appearance to the contrary both the refusal to #dropthename and the push to #droptheslur reflect a refusal to challenge racism. Each seeks to preserve white power and the profitability of the NFL; each privileges white desire ahead of anything else.

 

Continue reading at  N-Words, R-Words and the Defense of White Power in the NFL | NewBlackMan (in Exile)#dropthesl