https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_SnW4mJkiE
The film Moulin Rouge (2001) combines a representation of prostitutes with Indian culture to create an image of "illegality" in relation to this particular race. This representation is done through linking these two images to suggest that they share this common element of "illegality". The problematic representation that consolidates this connection, prostitution, is a very common stereotype and image that is always associated with an outside and unlawful presence.
The separation of the Indian Culture from that of the this European society, allows this "illegal" racial representation to be constructed. The connection is made to prostitution through the common element of creating a "commodity". Prostitutes sell their bodies, and therefore become an object for sale. The eroticization of these Indian characters also portrays them as "commodities" for the audience in the film watching the performance. Gender also comes into play. Every female character within this Indian portrayal is a prostitute, suggesting that all female gendered Indians adopt an "illegality" and unlawfulness in their existence. So through this portrayal of gender, race, and the creation of "commodities"in relation to the image of prostitution, the film Moulin Rouge represents Indian culture as an "illegal" presence.
Workingmen's
Friday, October 24, 2014
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Japanese American Labor Pre-interment Camps
Above is a picture of two Japanese American men in a strawberry patch working for the company Driscolls. Before the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, many Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants worked as sharecroppers for companies like Driscolls who specialize in the farming of strawberries. I was very curious about Japanese American labor because my grandmother's family worked as sharecroppers for Driscolls before they were interned in Poston Arizona. My grandmother is a nissei kibei which means that she was born in America but raised and schooled in Japan. She was separated from her mother, father and two younger sisters who stayed behind in America. I was lucky enough to interview my grandmother's sister a few years ago and she told me of her memories on the Driscolls farm in Salinas. There was a massive Japanese American presence in regards to sharecropping and my great-aunt described it as a very close community. I decided to do some research online and found that Japanese American's have been in the strawberry sharecropping profession since before 1917. The term sharecropping is defined as: "supplying land and plants to families who supplied physical labor". Particularly in the article I found, they talked about a certain discrimination already established before Executive Order 9066. One of the men being interviewed said that the sharecropping environment was "just like camp"(in reference to the internment camp). I find this knowledge and research very interesting for we have briefly mentioned Japanese labor in class and it has sparked curiosity of my family's history and the history of the Japanese coming to America. Sometimes I feel like when the words "history" and "Japanese Americans" are put together in a sentence, one just automatically thinks of the internment camps and I'm just curious about the life of a Japanese American before the internment camps.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Peggy Lee- The Siamese Cat Song
Source: Youtube
In 1955, Disney released "The Lady and the Tramp", a sweet story with dogs. In a sense, the anthropomorpholized dogs could be separated by their breeds as humans are separated by their races. For the sake of this blog entry and our discussion, we can flow with this idea and see that the main protaganists are a purebred American Cocker Spaniel (Lady) who enjoys the comforts of a human nuclear family, and a mutt (Tramp), a dog of mixed breed, who is a stray dog living on the streets, surviving on scraps. Class then, is inadvertently present in this sweet Disney movie, even distinguishing which group or what kind of dog they relegate to each.
The focus of this clip though, and one which I would like to discuss, is the portrayal of Asian characters. The clip is a musical scene in which two Siamese cats, with thick accents, moving together, long whiskers which they twirl, and slanted eyes, sing while they cause havoc in the house. Eventually, their antics destroy the house and cunningly, they put the blame on Lady. The cats represent a very "oriental" portrayal of Asians, one which today would be considered an offensive cariacature. One may cringe at the portrayal now, but the reason this made it into the movie was because it echoed the sentiment of most Americans about the image of the Asian, or "oriental" character.
Images like this perpetuated the idea that anyone of asian heritage was foreign-- even applying this to 2-3-4 generation Japanese or Chinese in the US. As in this movie, these cats belonged to Aunt Sarah in her American home, but they were Siamese, and therefore talked and acted in a stereotypically oriental way. Which in popular culture, and the American consciousness, was cunning trickery and opportunistic. With a history of anti-Chinese immigration (they would take all the jobs and were too foreign and strange), and WW2 paranoia about Japanese citizens, Americans could agree with this racist and utterly distorted representation of people from an entire continent (they could be any Asian racial group, it didn't matter in this clip, it applied to all asians), due to viewing them as all the same.
To Kill A Mocking Bird
Harper Lee's To Kill A Mocking Bird was released in the 1960's and the film was released just two short years after. The significance of this novel and film lie in the racist reflections of social attitudes in the United States during both the Post Civil War Era and early Civil Rights Era. This image reflects the message of the novel, and the film gives the audience the feel good attitude through the protagonist of a child who's objectivity, seems to be more important than the prosecution of an innocent man.
Paul Robinson has been accused of raping a white woman and his attorney, Atticus Finch, feels morally obligated to help this innocent black man, depicted through the lense of and as a child. This black man is depicted as a child in the sense, that he is fighting for rights in an adult world: The world of law and politics. He is depicted as someone deserving to be outside of this sphere of intellectuals because of his color.
Atticus Finch, on the other hand, is in his proper social position, as a prosperous white attorney, believes in justice but fails to prove Robinson innocent. This reflects some attitudes which circulated around cases such as the Scottsborro Trials. The audience was swayed into moral relief because both the child and the audience were made to feel that they had no connections to such injustices while also perpetuating a system which clearly favored injustice over black workers who threatened white supremacy.
Paul Robinson has been accused of raping a white woman and his attorney, Atticus Finch, feels morally obligated to help this innocent black man, depicted through the lense of and as a child. This black man is depicted as a child in the sense, that he is fighting for rights in an adult world: The world of law and politics. He is depicted as someone deserving to be outside of this sphere of intellectuals because of his color.
Atticus Finch, on the other hand, is in his proper social position, as a prosperous white attorney, believes in justice but fails to prove Robinson innocent. This reflects some attitudes which circulated around cases such as the Scottsborro Trials. The audience was swayed into moral relief because both the child and the audience were made to feel that they had no connections to such injustices while also perpetuating a system which clearly favored injustice over black workers who threatened white supremacy.
"Peele"ing the Layers of Slave Auctions
Good evening everyone!
I will be talking about the YouTube comedy video created by Key and Peele, two comedians that primarily do sketches about African-American culture and relations.
The video begins with Key and Peele stepping up to the auction block seemingly angry and threatening the auctioneer to "put that whip down and see what happens." We get a glimpse of Peele whispering to Key about "staging a revolt" once he is sold to a new owner. They are put on the block with another individual and are given lot letters so slave owners can bid on them. The first slave (lot A) is sold and K+P show a little disappointment that they weren't picked. The next slave that is sold is a large, muscular individual and K+P have short dialogue claiming that "I would buy that dude" and wondering "how did they catch him". The next slave was old and frail and was sold, thus garnering the disapproval by K+P. The viewers start to see that they really want to get picked. This trend continues until the end where they make their case as to why they should have been picked. Traits such as being harmless and docile show that their attitudes have changed since the beginning.
Although I don't find the video complete laughter-inducing, I find it intriguing to pick out the subtleties of K+P's choice in writing a sketch comedy about slavery. At first, I thought it was distasteful due to the nature of the subject. However, a lot can be said creating a narrative where the slave wants to be sold. This is unexpected due the history of slavery and the violence that comes from being a slave. My assumption is that the humor comes from the fact that it is the complete opposite of what one would expect from a slave, especially how they went from threatening to revolt to "selling" themselves and their best characteristics.
In relation to Kindred, the viewer/reader gets to see how language functions in a different where/when setting. We see that many of the characters have different reactions to how Dana speaks. Being an individual of the 1970's in modern-day California, it is important to note that she speaks "white" compared to the linguistics of the time. This makes everyone uncomfortable: the slaves find it difficult to identify her while the white people find it hard to believe that she speaks just as well, if not better than they do. The modern-day language implemented in the video creates a time distortion like in Kindred. Visually, they portray themselves as slaves but they speak from our modern time. This contributes to the absurdity and humor as their language is out of place along with the idea of creating this type of positive slave narrative.
Finally, we can tie this idea to Marx and his theory of capitalism and consumerism. The idea of wanting a job to support oneself is valid as it is important to be able to live. As K+P are constantly being passed on, they become more aware of the fact that they aren't a desirable "commodity". For whatever reason, they aren't worth the price in the eyes of the slave owners causing them to feel unwanted despite them trying to flex their muscles or showing their passiveness.
I would love to hear what yall think about this skit. Feel free to leave a comment or question below so we all can discuss this video or anything related. Thank you!
-Tem
Violence on bodies of WOC
This is a point that has been made many times before, considering the way that the bodies of women of color are conflated with sexuality, promiscuity and "the exotic". I'm using this screenshot of the google results to the word "latina" to illustrate how what was originally a political, organizing term has been warped and associated with negative and body specific connotations. The importance of this racialized stereotype in connection with labor is the ways that this assumption of latina sexual promiscuity intersects with vulnerability to a disenfranchised labor system which allows for violence against them in many forms.
Specifically, I'm thinking of the femicide in Ciudad Juarez and the border cities of Mexico of women who work in the maquilladoras for low wages, and have been the targets of largescale sexual violence, and murder. The murders in Ciudad Juarez have been called femicide as an organizing term by feminists because women are the targets and are being targeted for their gender and race. This is also an important connection to our class because one of the biggest issues and points of vulnerability around Ciudad Juarez is that many of the women travel there in buses (migration) in order to work, and thus are removed from their communities and any type of protection in order to produce capital. As a result of the labor system which demands low skill, low wage workers the women become commodities, and are treated as disposable.
I'm connecting this with the images on google because it illustrates the ways in which we as a society commodify people and bodies, and how by doing so we permit violence against them. We even support it through a continuation of these stereotypes, jokes, assumptions, and our implicit support of the labor system. The projection of commodified sexuality and compliance on the bodies of women of color is in itself a violent act, which can only lead to further dehumanization.
the minstrel depicted today
Art 21 is a series on PBS documenting contemporary artists who describe and explain their work not only aesthetically, but theoretically. In one episode, artist Michael Ray Charles presents his art — paintings that very explicitly touch on notions of race and race relations by heavily using the minstrel and/or "sambo" image. What is especially interesting about Charles' work is his presentation of the minstrel or sambo in a contemporary, cultural context — the sambo as some sort of punk, the sambo enjoying a basketball as it were a watermelon.
The response to Charles work has unfortunately (and maybe expectedly) been...strange. In the documentary, Charles makes clear that he is often criticized for his depicted stereotypes, playing into them too much. His art and in turn, his race, is questioned.
"I've been called a sellout. People question my blackness," Charles says. "A lot of people accuse me of perpetuating a stereotype. I think there's a fine line between perpetuating something and questioning something. And I like to get as close to it as possible."
What his audience fails to realize is that Charles' intention is to be explicit — to make people uncomfortable, and more specifically, to make people question why they might feel uncomfortable. Charles wants his audience to question race relations, and by infusing two different time periods in one body of work (the punk-sambo, for example), he furthermore allows us to question racial issues today in comparison to those of yesterday.
It's saddening to me the inability to question these issues and more so, the inability to understand these issues are still relevant (this guy is a perfect example). The underlying problem seems to be a denial in recognizing that history continues to play an active role in today's race relations; that slavery has a direct correlation to today's constructs, whether they be political, social, economical, or cultural. There is a denial that white supremacy is still very much alive and it is because of its historical legitimization that it is still alive.
Like Charles, David Roediger also uses the minstrel image/stereotype to elaborate what has been mentioned above. Minstrel shows were a way for white viewers to legitimize their whiteness. In wearing black face, the white minstrel performer came to represent the "other" on stage — creating a new sense of whiteness by "creating a new sense of blackness," as Roediger explains. This helped to cover racial tensions between whites and blacks. This continues to cover racial tensions between whites and blacks.
It's also important to note that the minstrel show laid the foundation for the minstrel and sambo caricature. That years after, the black stereotype would grow to be included in advertisements for food, travel — whatever — romanticizing the black man and woman for exploitive purposes. This is something Charles also highlights in his work, many of his paintings resemble ad campaigns.
And while the minstrel images of the past worked to cover racial tensions between whites and blacks, I would argue Charles' work does the opposite. His art sets tension front and center, allowing for a deeper, more profound and nuanced reading. Unfortunately, much of his audience response has been inadvertently racist — the extent of their reading is the painfully obvious stereotype.
- Joel Escobedo
Watch Michael Ray Charles on Art 21 here.
Tom, Jerry and Mammy Two Shoes...?
Children's are exposed to the media growing up and their effects can be more damaging than first let on. Despite how some people will argue today that our culture is too politically correct, shows that are often instrumental to childhoods often have racist imagery or thoughts that are ingrained without double checking into a starting generation. If a show or a work of media is particularly iconic to the extent where it finds relevance with an audience today, its racial effects and ideas are often downplayed in favor of just how "good" the piece of work is. When this happens to a children's show, impressionable children are often given stereotypical, inaccurate caricatures of how marginalized people live and act which impressions their mind and perpetuates a system they were exposed to at a young age.
A great example of this would be Tom and Jerry, a cartoon that some of our parents might have grown up with. In Tom and Jerry, there is a character called Mammy Two Shoes. Mammy Two Shoes wasn't exactly a complex character. There is very little more to her than cooking, or fussing over keeping a house clean. She is often outwitted or tested by the animals, and has trouble controlling Tom and removing Jerry from her home. Her race is a major component of her labor and character. The work she is doing is stereotypical slave work if you were to live in the house as an "aunt". Her race is also the source of sexualized jokes, and sight gags that deny her of womanhood like how her strong, wrathful body can break down a door with her bare hands or how her violent temper can injure and whip a cat down the street. Either way, there is no personality to the character "Mammy Two Shoes" aside from racial stereotypes that, until a 2005 box set with Whoopi Goldberg providing commentary, were not warned for.
Race, Labor, Capitalism... and Afroman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVqBgIZTP0s
Not even in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned a moment when I would get the opportunity to write about comedic rapper, Afroman, in an academic manner and talk about his lyrics in some relation to Marxist theory... yet here I am, about to have a go at doing just that. Mental.
'Fuck McDonald's and Taco Bell' is a song by Californian rapper, Afroman, that
This comparison between street crime and the crimes of corporate capitalism is prevalent throughout the song. The line: "Steal ya' car battery and sell it back to ya'" reminded me of the discussion we had in class about British imperialists buying up cloth from Indian sweatshops, then selling it back to Indians at a higher price. "Cooking crack like a black Chef Boyardee" is another line that entwines the corporate and criminal worlds. Also, when Foreman states: "Got a cellular phone, and ya really oughta' get it, Fo' a limited time, brother, the chip come with it", it's reminiscent of an advertisement, further presenting the connections between corporate capitalists and everyday criminals.
In the chorus, the lyrics: "Can't see my kids, can't see my wife, Can't see a way to control my dog-on life", I found to be particularly poignant in relation to The Moynihan Report, which blamed absent black fathers for the large population of black families living below the poverty line. As Foreman rightfully points out; the biggest cause of absent black fathers in disadvantaged areas is the way these men are forced to work 14/ 15/16-hour shifts in a minimum wage job in order to survive. Meanwhile, the capitalist- the CEO's of McDonald's and Taco Bell- generate enough revenue to take their families on yet another Caribbean holiday for a few weeks, then have the audacity to blame 'lazy' and 'absent' black workers for their own economic hardship.
Not even in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned a moment when I would get the opportunity to write about comedic rapper, Afroman, in an academic manner and talk about his lyrics in some relation to Marxist theory... yet here I am, about to have a go at doing just that. Mental.
'Fuck McDonald's and Taco Bell' is a song by Californian rapper, Afroman, that
This comparison between street crime and the crimes of corporate capitalism is prevalent throughout the song. The line: "Steal ya' car battery and sell it back to ya'" reminded me of the discussion we had in class about British imperialists buying up cloth from Indian sweatshops, then selling it back to Indians at a higher price. "Cooking crack like a black Chef Boyardee" is another line that entwines the corporate and criminal worlds. Also, when Foreman states: "Got a cellular phone, and ya really oughta' get it, Fo' a limited time, brother, the chip come with it", it's reminiscent of an advertisement, further presenting the connections between corporate capitalists and everyday criminals.
In the chorus, the lyrics: "Can't see my kids, can't see my wife, Can't see a way to control my dog-on life", I found to be particularly poignant in relation to The Moynihan Report, which blamed absent black fathers for the large population of black families living below the poverty line. As Foreman rightfully points out; the biggest cause of absent black fathers in disadvantaged areas is the way these men are forced to work 14/ 15/16-hour shifts in a minimum wage job in order to survive. Meanwhile, the capitalist- the CEO's of McDonald's and Taco Bell- generate enough revenue to take their families on yet another Caribbean holiday for a few weeks, then have the audacity to blame 'lazy' and 'absent' black workers for their own economic hardship.
A Brief Look at Some Interracial Propaganda
This image is a prime example of racism fueled propaganda. Like any other propaganda, it's driving off the fear of the unknown and using that lack of knowledge to introduce full blown lies. It loosely attempts to veil its hate speech in a form similar to a public service announcement. The poster is trying to convince white people that taking the bus will result in you being assaulted by a black person. That buses must be filled with savages that want to rape and eat your innocent white students.
What I found interesting about this piece was the two angles in fear mongering it takes. Not only are these "savage blacks" supposed to extort, rape, and eat you, they'll seduce your white daughters into interracial relationships and bare mixed race children. Which is apparently very bad, despite no real reasoning behind it. The terms "interracial sex" and "A race of mulattoes" are obviously attempting to shock the audience or at least frame in a way that should be opposed. Though oddly enough the picture is of two very natural and happy looking interracial couples embracing eachother. I cant help but think that the image they chose is betraying the message they're trying to get across.
Timothy Beckman on Timothy Wise's The Myth of White Supremacy as socio-cultural echopraxia
Preface/ Links
Here is a 9 minute link from Timothy Wise's The Myth of White Supremacy (Note: taken from an hour long lecture also available on the second link down):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AMY2Bvxuxc
Also, I found a video with both Tim Wise and Angela Davis discussing 21st century institutions like the military and prison industrial complexes respectively and how these inextricably relate to and reify how we ask questions with respect to the Anthropocene, ecological damage and human "thingification"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBPClML6Qc0
Critical Questions and Discussion
The term echopraxia (also known as echokinesis) is "the involuntary repetition or imitation of another person's actions." Often discussed in relation to what are sometimes referred to as culturally bound syndromes, this state or action silhouettes the psychological praxis (process) by which a theory, lesson or skill is enacted, embodied or realized and reified. UC Berkeley alumna Barbara Christian, professor of African American studies, revealingly provides indicting commentary in Ethnic Notions, begging questions regarding the psychological residuals of slavery and segregation in the media and their parallels in the mind. Her poignant claim that "one of the best ways to of maintaining a system of oppression is with psychological control" parallels Tim Wise's pursuit in explaining the unexplainable tracing of what these images, ideologies and cultural infrastructures "reveal about our hopes, fears, fantasies" as symptomatic of exchange values between social totalities.
Below I traced a general outline of some key terms from Tim Wise's lecture that further frame the psychological presuppositions that to a certain extent foment the praxis for how we answer questions regarding who or what counts as economic necessity or political undesirability. In summation, I am interested in further researching the unconscious associations and "echopractic" convulsions that characterize who gets what in the inherently social landscape of exclusivist praxaeology (Physiology, hygiene, medicine, psychology, animal history, human history, political economy, morality, etc. )
Breakdown of key concepts in sequence for the Tim Wise video
1 minute, 33 seconds: "Economic stability, economic justice"
2 minutes, 33 seconds: "50 acres of land" ; "cut you in on this deal, enter into contracts testify in courts" for whom? Previously pennyless, landless white peasant laborers
2 minutes, 43 seconds: "slave patrol" ; "a little taste of power"
3 minutes, 53 seconds: "How do you get poor people who don't even own the shirt on their back, let alone slaves, to go fight to keep your slaves for you?"
4 minutes 25 seconds: "slavery actually undermined the wages and the wage base or economic floor of the typical white working class, low-income person"
4 minutes 35 seconds: "But they were told 'if these people were free they're going to take your job. No fool, they got your job... At some level, working class white people being harmed by white privilege... In absolute terms being economically subordinated by the very thing that gave them a sense of superiority.
5 minutes: Capital, goods and human capital across the U.S/ Mexico border
6 minutes: Post-Hurricane Katrina apart-hood
7 minutes: David Duke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke In this day & age?
8 minutes, 15 seconds: "to pass an ordinance saying that you couldn't rent property in St. Bernard Parish to anyone who wasn't a blood relative"
9 minutes, 5 seconds: "the lure of whiteness has tricked these have nothing in their bank account into believing that they've got more in common with the rich white folks on St. Charles Avenue that didn't lose anything in that flooding than with the black working class folks who live about 500 yards away"
Agriculture, Advertisement, and Black Labor After Slavery
This advertisement for Williams
& Clark Fertilizer Company (dated 1891) associates racialized labor with the
other commodities that fertilizer can help produce: crops. The depiction of an idyllic,
presumably plantation, context upholds a vision of white superiority, which it took
even more effort to maintain against the contradiction posed by the end of
slavery. The image plays off of the informal or extralegal subjugation and
exploitation of black labor during Reconstruction and Jim Crow that helped
create the racial inequality of labor that exists today. The image’s main idea
is that even if slavery is no longer in place, black labor has not really gone
anywhere and can still be all but enslaved
and it capitalizes ideologically on this fact. Therefore, the implied viewer or
presumed customer is unquestionably white, and the depiction of black laborers
working in a cotton field reenacts the position of the master for the person
consuming the image. By purchasing the product, it is hinted that you own the
land and the crops, or that you can feel like, and symbolically be, a master. This
effect would operate just as much if the viewer was a poor white man and not an
owner of property at all, which leads me to associate it with the pacification
of the white working class through anti-black ideology that Roediger ascribes
to minstrelsy.
I was also struck by
the effect of the specific crops associated with this fertilizer. There are
five crops present in the image—corn, potatoes, wheat, and tobacco and cotton—which,
presumably, all can benefit from the use of fertilizer. However, only tobacco
and cotton carry seriously loaded meanings. Not only are there black people (contrasted
with buildings that evoke a plantation house in the background) picking cotton
in the center portrait, but the two fertilizer bags in the right bottom corner closely
associate the fertilizer with tobacco and cotton, more so than any of the food
crops shown. To support the myth that the product can, so to speak, make “your
wildest dreams come true,” as is the goal of advertisement, this fertilizer
company exploits black labor symbolically in a way that relies on but also works
retroactively to justify and support the real economic exploitation of black
people at the time.
Biopower and "The Welfare Queen"
I am interested in connecting the text to the concept of Biopower, introduced by Foucalt, when thinking about histories and narratives of racism and violence in the texts. This concept relates to the ‘practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjects’ through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations.” More simply, I have come to understand this concept as the ‘State’ providing opportunities for life to certain bodies, (i.e. economic, racial, gendered privileges,) by disallowing the same opportunities to others. This concept might be helpful when thinking about the oppressive nature of the state (white supremacy), while thinking about the lethal consequences of cultural production.
This concept of biopower is often absent or ignored in discourses looking to connections between our history of slavery and colonization, to ‘current’ racialized tropes in popular culture. I am horrified by the marketability of the “Welfare Queen” trope used by racists, conservatives, and liberals alike. This is an interesting construction to me for many reasons, primarily because of its blatant denial of historical structural inequality. This trope is constructed along the lineage of “Mammy” stereotypes and problematized, incorrect judgements of a ‘matriarchal’ black family with an absent male role. This stereotype is politically potent and has real economic and social consequences in its proliferation.
By constructing the caricature of a “lazy, young, fat, Black mother of four” as a serious ‘threat’ to economic security and a ‘waste of tax payers money’, the effects can be catastrophic. Not only does this narrative ignore a history of slavery and utter economic disallowment, but more importantly it ignores a violent history of criminalized, targeted, incarcerated, and murdered Black men.
So to position the “Welfare Queen,” the ‘matriarch’ of the Black Family, as a problem to her own family, to her own community, and to ‘the nation’ not only do we continue to ignore a legacy of violence, but we continue to enact a second kind of violence onto the Black woman. By problematizing a position that is in part constructed by the state, or through Biopower, and in part falsely fabricated through cultural production, we frame the issue as her own self- inflicted problem, we tell her its her responsibility, and ultimately her failure for a white supremacist nation state that granted black people opportunities for death in grave comparison to the opportunities for life granted to whites.
So what does this mean tangibly in 2014 for low-income communities or communities of color if that trope still has a sort of political traction, (people still believe it and defend it) yet economic stratification is higher than ever, wages are low, and social programs are cut or nonexistent while criminalization of Brown and Black bodies persists. Cheap labor and a desperate working class are the goals of the white supremacist State. 
(this is my point!!!! racist people believe this)
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
This image humiliates the first lady as woman, as a black woman, and overall as a human being. This suggestion of her being primitive and being backwards even after all her achievements. She is a successful woman being the first lady and making changes in this country and that all fly's out the window with this image. All respect is out the window and she is devalued as human being. Not only humiliating her as an African American but also as a woman. All roots tying back to the idea in Kindred where woman loose sense of being a being by not mattering as a slave and then a woman.
Children and Racism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYCz1ppTjiM
In this CNN report, a race experiment is set out to discover if children see color. Interestingly enough, the documentation of this experiment does show that children are well aware of racism and are perceptive to the skin color of choice when it comes to societal acceptance. There are instances in the video that strikingly contribute to our understanding of racism and the portrayal of it.
At 30 seconds into the video, there is already evidence of children being able to pick up on racism. The white child chooses the darkest colored image and states that she is the bad child because her skin is "black black," emphasizing the image's darkness by repeating the color black. Similarly, a black child chooses the white colored doll image to indicate who was a "dumb child." Because these two children chose kids different from their skin color reminds society that children are perceptive to what goes on around them. The stereotypes that are assigned to ethnicity in America seems to be working at large with how these children perceive the questions that are asked to them.
Another interesting point that is brought up in this study is the act of white bias. According to the video, white bias is act of white people, in this case children, responding to positive attributes with the dolls of their own skin color and negative attributes with the dolls that are black. This reminds me of Simmel's concept of ":The Stranger" in the sense that even though Black Americans have been in this country for over two centuries, the negativity towards their presence has still not been desensitized. This action at large shows that children are not immune to racism and they are molded by what they hear and see around them. And their acute understanding of the importance of skin color is alarming because this shows the beginnings of racism and how it is formed, sometimes unaware by parents or guardians.
In this CNN report, a race experiment is set out to discover if children see color. Interestingly enough, the documentation of this experiment does show that children are well aware of racism and are perceptive to the skin color of choice when it comes to societal acceptance. There are instances in the video that strikingly contribute to our understanding of racism and the portrayal of it.
At 30 seconds into the video, there is already evidence of children being able to pick up on racism. The white child chooses the darkest colored image and states that she is the bad child because her skin is "black black," emphasizing the image's darkness by repeating the color black. Similarly, a black child chooses the white colored doll image to indicate who was a "dumb child." Because these two children chose kids different from their skin color reminds society that children are perceptive to what goes on around them. The stereotypes that are assigned to ethnicity in America seems to be working at large with how these children perceive the questions that are asked to them.
Another interesting point that is brought up in this study is the act of white bias. According to the video, white bias is act of white people, in this case children, responding to positive attributes with the dolls of their own skin color and negative attributes with the dolls that are black. This reminds me of Simmel's concept of ":The Stranger" in the sense that even though Black Americans have been in this country for over two centuries, the negativity towards their presence has still not been desensitized. This action at large shows that children are not immune to racism and they are molded by what they hear and see around them. And their acute understanding of the importance of skin color is alarming because this shows the beginnings of racism and how it is formed, sometimes unaware by parents or guardians.
"White Privilege"—a thing of the past?
Bill O'Reilly Says White Privilege No Longer Exists
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-schmookler/bill-oreilly-white-privilege_b_6009646.html
Fox News’ popular and notoriously cheeky political
commenter, Bill O’Reilly, recently made a statement regarding the absence of
white privilege in America today. But,
as a white man growing up in a middle-class family during the post-war suburban
sprawl in Levittown, New York, O’Reilly’s admirable position as a top-grossing
talk show host is hardly attributable to his motto of being a, “self-made man”.
As Jon Stewart implies in his rebuttal against Bill O’Reilly, the concept of
white privilege is not an illusion, it’s ingrained in the fiber of our
psychological, economic, and social environment.
In an article evaluating Jon Stewart’s rebuke against
O’Reilly’s statement, the author points out right winged Republicans scrutinizing
blacks for their inability to secure jobs and maintain stability within the
home, while ignoring the etymological facts that the society in which African
Americans are brought up in do not provide, “the opportunities to reap the
rewards to which those virtues (job and home stability) are supposed to
lead”. We cannot simply erase the mark
that slavery and the legacy of its
collective ideologies left upon our nation. Nor can we pretend as if society
has, with the passage of time, completely cleared its pallet of nasty labor and
race conundrums, now solving major world issues with its positive outlook and
good intent. While it would be endearing and certainly desirable to live in a
world where the 20th century’s exclusion of black people from
Levittown is no longer relevant to today’s reality, or in O’Reilly’s terms,
“ancient history,” the existence of white privilege and the longstanding values
of a country founded by white supremacists still remain an inherent part of our
culture today.
The graphs in the link above display the presence of white privilege in
percentages that forecasts a poor white child’s prospective income versus that
of an impoverished black child’s. How
can two children of the same poor economic standing acquire, come adulthood,
such a large disparity in total income earned? If all it takes to achieve your
dreams is learning how to become the man you want to be, as Bill O’Reilly
preaches, why does the white man place in nearly two class differences higher
than the black man? Is white privilege truly a term reserved for post-slavery
Jim Crow days, or a concept so deeply ingrained in our culture we’ve long
morphed and re-morphed what it means in today’s day?
The "Black Mammy" vs. Calpurnia (To Kill A Mockingbird)
I wanted to explore the similarities and differences between the stereotypical "Black Mammy" figure in popular culture and the character of Calpurnia in the book and movie To Kill A Mockingbird. As mentioned in both class and the film Ethnic Notions, the Black Mammy was typically portrayed as a large, docile, loyal, Black woman, often seen wearing a scarf on her head and sporting a huge, unrealistic smile on her face. Tying into the false idea that African Americans were always happy to work for their white masters, the Black Mammy figure was rarely shown without a larger-than-life, happy-go-lucky persona. She was portrayed as a desexualized individual, as to not pose a threat to the white housewife.
The character of Calpurnia in To Kill A Mockingbird possesses both parallels and contradictions to this stereotype that are worth noting. Throughout the movie, Calpurnia is portrayed to be extremely loyal to her family. She is often seen wearing the typical apron and dress combination. At the same time, however, Calpurnia is always seen sporting her natural hair texture, a thin build, and a serious facial expression. She is not sexualized, nor is she desexualized. While she acts as a mother figure to Scout and Jem, it is acknowledged that she gladly returns home after a day's work with her white household. These aspects set her far apart from the stereotypical Black Mammy. Calpurnia is a strong-willed, independent character throughout the story, shaping the lives of the children and offering stern guidance when necessary. I thought these differences were notable and aim to defy the well-known stereotype of the jolly Black Mammy.
Trapped: Inherent Limitations
A common theme that most discussions seemed to allude to was the idea of being trapped and the reality of extreme limitations within the realm of slavery. Professor Hong drew out the difference between the "outsider" and "stranger" discussed in Spillers piece, explaining that being an outsider could mean being native to a land but yet not fitting into the new social structure that defines it. Being a stranger, however, is not originating from the place you are currently in. As slaves neither fit into the social ideals of what constituted a human nor were from the land that were taken to, their options were limited by the social marking that Spillers mentions. Being a marked person meant having your own identity not only constructed by the culture norms completely different from your own, but having no input in your future or control over the means in which ones life can be remembered. The inability to read and write contribute to the concept of being trapped inside these inherent limitations.
Professor Hong also mentioned another powerful point as she explained "flesh is a finite text--it dies with the person". The inability to become literate for blacks during slavery is another example of their limitations. Not only can they not write, read the news or perform many daily activities that we take for granted, they are also unable to relay history from their point of view. Their only means of passing down their story was through verbal interactions which were only received by their voiceless peers--fellow slaves. This is a huge infraction of our modern-day understanding of their history and puts into question how our understanding could have been enhanced if a voice was given to the voiceless so that their story could extend beyond the constraints of their finite condition as human to the timelessness of a text.
Professor Hong also mentioned another powerful point as she explained "flesh is a finite text--it dies with the person". The inability to become literate for blacks during slavery is another example of their limitations. Not only can they not write, read the news or perform many daily activities that we take for granted, they are also unable to relay history from their point of view. Their only means of passing down their story was through verbal interactions which were only received by their voiceless peers--fellow slaves. This is a huge infraction of our modern-day understanding of their history and puts into question how our understanding could have been enhanced if a voice was given to the voiceless so that their story could extend beyond the constraints of their finite condition as human to the timelessness of a text.
"Guess Who?" Race, Labor, and Migration in Cinematic Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-w18A2eSQk
The other night, I walked into my living room and my housemates were watching the film "Guess Who?"(2005) which is about an African American girl who brings her boyfriend home to meet her family. I thought the concepts being brought up through this form of media were interesting in how they formed representations of dealing with differences. The comedic genre of this film is formed from both racial and labor-specific differences which these characters encounter in each other.
The first interesting point is this white character's (Ashton Kutcher) migration into this African American household and community. His presence is emphasized to sticked out and in return is noted by every other character around him. For instance, the main female protagonist's sister states that she will from now on be the "favorite child" because she didn't bring a white boy home. This attitude, creating a form of racial segregation in the household is further progressed by almost every character within the film, as they all face problems confronting their racial differences. The concept of Labor furthers these differences, when the white protagonist feels like he must make up a fantastical profession in order to gain the father's approval (as a NASCAR employee). This chosen "profession" is interesting because it is usually attributed to a white population, and therefore it comes as a surprise to the characters when her father turns out to be a knowledgeable fan. The concept of white superiority comes into play, as this character tried to impress this family by pretending to have a mainly white profession. Once the family discovers his facade, however, he is looked down upon even more, adding to this form of racisim present.
Although much of the segregation of race and labor is thought to be a thing of the past, these differences are still engrained into our media culture and understanding of representation. It is woven into the fibers of how we perceive our society and our relationships with those around us. Evidence for this concept resides in the basis of race and labor which this film centers and relies upon.
The other night, I walked into my living room and my housemates were watching the film "Guess Who?"(2005) which is about an African American girl who brings her boyfriend home to meet her family. I thought the concepts being brought up through this form of media were interesting in how they formed representations of dealing with differences. The comedic genre of this film is formed from both racial and labor-specific differences which these characters encounter in each other.
The first interesting point is this white character's (Ashton Kutcher) migration into this African American household and community. His presence is emphasized to sticked out and in return is noted by every other character around him. For instance, the main female protagonist's sister states that she will from now on be the "favorite child" because she didn't bring a white boy home. This attitude, creating a form of racial segregation in the household is further progressed by almost every character within the film, as they all face problems confronting their racial differences. The concept of Labor furthers these differences, when the white protagonist feels like he must make up a fantastical profession in order to gain the father's approval (as a NASCAR employee). This chosen "profession" is interesting because it is usually attributed to a white population, and therefore it comes as a surprise to the characters when her father turns out to be a knowledgeable fan. The concept of white superiority comes into play, as this character tried to impress this family by pretending to have a mainly white profession. Once the family discovers his facade, however, he is looked down upon even more, adding to this form of racisim present.
Although much of the segregation of race and labor is thought to be a thing of the past, these differences are still engrained into our media culture and understanding of representation. It is woven into the fibers of how we perceive our society and our relationships with those around us. Evidence for this concept resides in the basis of race and labor which this film centers and relies upon.
The Huffington Post is an American online news aggregator and blog post. They offer news, blogs and cover a variety of topics such as politics, media, and culture. Although the "Huffington" post is not a very reliable news source, I found this article to be very interesting. It is the story of a man who is struggling to find a job. He states that he has applied in various places and was not receiving any calls back. He decided to drop the "s" from his name turning Jose into Joe and suddenly job offers began to pour in.
Although job discrimination is illegal, it is clearly still around. People are discriminated daily based on gender, race and age. There have also been cases where women have been called because the employer believes they are males due to them having names such as "Alex" or "Robin." Jose was discriminated based on his race. Jose is clearly a Latino name while Joe is a white name.
This article reminded me about the NY times article that was discussed in class. The article that enforces the Japanese are the model minority because they have succeeded despite their racist experiences. The reason why minorities have a had a hard time succeeding is because the idea of whites being superior is still around even if it is at a subconscious level. Jose has a hard time finding a job not because he does not qualify for it, but because of his name.
Although racism has decreased, it is clearly still around. Labor is often invisible but race clearly isn't. Minority races are often stereotyped into being lazy and relying on benefits such as unemployment but the bigger picture is rarely shown. It is more difficult for a minority to get a job when he is competing with a white man despite his qualifications.
Deep within the Mind:
Is Racism Hardwired into the Human Brain?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2164844/Racism-hardwired-human-brain--people-racists-knowing-it.html
From how I was raised throughout my life I never thought racism was that big of a deal. I always thought it was a rather silly thing to do. Why would anyone want to endure so much work just to hurt someone solely because they have a different skin colour than you. But I realised now, it delves a lot deeper than that. A bit more complex. My ethnicity is half Indonesian and half mixed European. My blood consists of multiple races. I have travelled all over the world throughout my life and I have always enjoyed observing people's natural beauty. (Not like a stalker mind you.) But specifically people's physical characteristics in each country. In some ways, I feel as though I see the world in a third person perspective. In class, when Christine Hong explained about the word "foreigner" or as the French say, "flaneur", it struct me. I realised that this is exactly who I am. I don't have that home country I can be patriotic towards. I don't even have a home really. I just go wherever I feel I should go.
So with that said, unless everybody mates with each other, eventually through evolutionary time, in theory we would all end up looking relatively the same. We would all have blended physical appearances from traits all over the world. What then? Would that erase the concept of racism? Just let that sink in.
I wanted to mention that, because I have encountered this interesting article the other day about whether racism is actually in fact hardwired into our brains. I understand this is quite debatable no doubt, but I feel that this is one of the most essential concepts we must try to comprehend in order to understand what underlies our so called humanity.
It states that scientists have found out that there are regions of the brain that hold the ability to represent social groups. The circuits in that part of the lobe contain similar chemicals that are used to conduct emotional decision making. Interesting, huh? So whether you love to boast how egalitarian you are, like "Oh I never judge races.", "Everyone is good." NO. Racism, I think, is an eternal social dilemma. Unless we genetically modify ourselves, there is no way to completely eradicate the notion. We will always "label" and "stereotype"others. It is a trait that so far, humans have survived on. It is there for a reason. It is written in our history textbooks, written in our blood, written in our flesh for a reason. Instead, the only thing we humans can do is to mitigate the negative attitude towards a particular social group if we wish to avoid conflict that can potentially dehumanise others with the use of primeval methods such as slavery, uncontrolled violence, and terrorising fear.
The human mind is absolutely fascinating isn't? In fact, isn't that why our world exists? We exist because our mind made us think we are. Unfortunately I should stop writing now before I catch myself digressing over existentialism matters and getting really off topic.
Popeyes and the Modern Mammy
There are endless stereotypes about minorities that popular American culture has managed to create and perpetuate, beginning in the 1800s and unfortunately extending to our modern day. The history and impact of the caricature of black Americans in particular was chronicled in the film, Ethnic Notions. I would argue that the caricature of the mammy has perhaps been the most everlasting and dominant stereotype in current popular culture. I chose the marketing and advertising of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen as an example of a modern mammy figure. In 2009, Popeyes introduced "Annie the Chicken Queen" as the face of their advertising campaign. Annie is the fictitious chef responsible for continually producing Popeyes' fried chicken according to the original recipe. Even her title as the "Queen" of chicken reminds me of the stereotypes of the controlling "African Queen" or even the more modern "welfare queen."
In the print ad, we can see Annie proudly showing off a table topped with a large feast and a relative mountain of chicken. She appears in a way that is typical of the mammy figure according to Ethnic Notions, in other words, she is happily waiting to serve, wearing her uniform, which of course, includes a large smile. Then, in the first commercial, we see Annie proclaiming that "for years people have been singing about [her] chicken." This is followed by a large gospel-esque choir singing about their love for the chicken. Although not every member of the choir is white, I found myself associating both the song and the love of chicken to Annie and by extension, other black people. This is evidence of stereotypes that are deeply rooted in our culture that subsequently cause these types of cognitive associations within our minds. A stereotype does exist that black people are always singing, as well as a stereotype that black people love fried chicken. Therefore, I do not believe it is by coincidence that we see these images displayed in Popeyes' advertising. Finally, in the second commercial, Annie is telling the audience about "Payday" at Popeyes. Even the name of the marketing has a connotation with labor, and as we are learning in this class, labor and race are inextricably connected. Annie relates to those in the audience who are struggling to make ends meet implying a connection between labor, race, and poverty. True to mammy tradition, Annie refers to the audience member as "honey," which places her in a matronly position. Despite being a young woman, Annie is referenced as a mother or auntie figure. She is not a sexualized figure, like so many women in advertising are, she wears modest clothing and wears her hair up. I have trouble seeing how the figure of Annie in the 21st century is very far removed from the original mammy figure of over a hundred years ago.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Racialized Labor, Immigration, and East Asian Stereotypes on The Office
NBC's "The Office" is my favorite show of all time, but this does not mean it is not problematic. While the show includes a healthy dose of POC representation, with well written Indian, Black, and Latino characters who are complex and challenge racial stereotypes, without decent representation of East Asian characters this picture is incomplete. "The Office" is severely lacking in East Asian characters, and the ones that are present on the show represent this demographic poorly.
In the clip I've pasted above, Heday, a minor character on the show, recalls having been a prominent heart surgeon in his home country of Japan before accidentally killing a Yakuza boss during surgery and escaping to America. Heday brags about his "house, American car, and new woman" and attributes his success in the U.S to Darryl. In about forty five seconds, 'The Office" inundates its audience with stereotypes of race and immigration. Heday speaks in a stereotypical Japanese accent, mispronounces English words, mentions affiliation with the Yakuza, and claims to travel to America by stowing away on a fishing boat. Heday is probably the only recurring East Asian character on "The Office," but he is more of a caricature.
Here, Heday embodies what Georg Simmel calls "The Stranger." While Simmel's "stranger" originally referred to the Jew, the concept also applies to the "immigrant", the "other," etc. Simmel explains that the stranger "is fixed within a particular spatial group, or within a group whose boundaries are similar to spatial boundaries. But his position in the group is determined, essentially, by the fact that he has not belonged to it from the beginning, that he imports qualities into it, which do not and cannot stem from the group itself." The spatial group that Heday is fixed in is the U.S, in a group bound by Western culture. As Simmel mentions, "he has not belonged to it [the group] from the beginning ... he imports qualities into it." The immigrant, or the "stranger," as Simmel calls him, is a vital part of the group, but at the same time is permanently alienated from it. He is defined by his foreignness. Heday's character is only a collection of East Asian tropes and stereotypes. The so-called humor attached to Heday's character lies in his foreignness. His defining characteristic is simply that he is different, and he is different because he is East Asian.
Heday's character also speaks to the racialization of labor in the U.S, and how our society views immigrants. As Jasmine mentioned in her post, "Racialized Labor in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," racialized labor and illegality intersect often, and we see this on "The Office." Heday claims he came to the U.S by stowing away on a fishing boat, suggesting that he entered the country "illegally" and without documentation. Here we see a stereotype that if he is an immigrant, he must be "illegal." Having once been a successful heart surgeon, without documentation Heday must work in a warehouse, organizing, storing, and delivering paper. Rather than being bitter, he is grateful, and thanks Darryl - an American - for the new life he has. Because Heday is a caricature of East Asians and of immigrants, his transition from doctor to warehouse worker paints a bleak picture of the way we look at immigrants in our society and what roles we expect them to take as far as labor goes. A stereotype like Heday suggests that we value immigrants as servants to perform unskilled labor, rather than as educated individuals on equal footing with their non-immigrant counterparts. Not only that, but we expect them to be grateful and want to make this sacrifice in order to live in America. At the end of the video, Heday reveals that he killed the Yakuza boss on purpose. He knew he would have to sacrifice his career and his life in Japan and travel to America for an uncertain future. Furthermore, we expect them to be grateful for their subordinate positions in American society. Heday regards Darryl as a savior for giving him a job. He brags about his "house, American car and new woman." But did he become a U.S citizen? He doesn't say. The fact that he lives in America and performs unskilled labor seems to be enough of a success.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
racism, specifically
"Racism, specifically, is the state-santioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death."
- Ruth Wilson Gilmore
"We are not looked at as leaders, rather, just a labor force where the money is generated. Plantation capitalism is still alive today."
"We are not looked at as leaders, rather, just a labor force where the money is generated. Plantation capitalism is still alive today."
- Anthony Prior, Former NFL Player
This week's discussions, centered around the historic/recurring failures of US institutions & the government to analyze/criticize/change social structures involving issues centered around race/gender (i.e. the article Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe examination of the black matriarch) got me thinking just how hard it would be for anyone "not rich" or "not white" to rise above these structures have been held in place for so long, in such hateful, violent and even lethal ways.
Like I said, I do not follow the NFL, but I think the graph above should be noted for it's breakdown of league by race in comparison to the overall population. These guys are rich, worshiped, considered heroes. So how can there be any chance of racism? Or are we paying them enough to turn a blind eye to it as a crowd and keep the mouths' of the players shut? Using Gilmore's definition of racism specially ("group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death") I'd like to explore how racism and the NFL correlate.
I'm sure there are many more, much better examples I could use of Gilmore's definition, but since so much $$ is in on this (to the tune of a $765 million lawsuit) and time (people's entire sundays) I thought it was worth mentioning.
In the wake of former Patriot's player, Junior Seau's 2012 suicide--- who post-mortem was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) that directly caused his subsequent death-- the NFL is being sued for their alleged concealment of concussions and brain-traumas associated with play injury. NFL players are at twice the risk of suffering from Lou Gerhags and Parkinson. If the NFL is hiding information that directly linked nuerocognitive problems with athletes' injuries, I don't know how else to define Wilson's use of the operative term "exploitation."
There is hard data proving these premature deaths too. Considering the NFL, the MLB, and ESPN record and analyze hits, yards, passes, sacks, injuries, dates, temperatures, and consistency of bowl movements on game day, it would be surprise me if they did not not have adequate data about brain injuries and the health of their athletes/ex-athletes on hand.
The whole situation almost reminds me of Gladiators fighting; hoards of crowds cheering, yelling, going crazy for sport when someone might get hurt if not die. I wonder if this is a bit of a stretch as all NFL players are arguably treated the same regardless of race? Are players only discriminated based on how they play -- better players versus inferior players?
Google racism and the NFL, articles about Coach Sherman's forced resignation for his racist comments is the first to pop-up. The institution is touchy about PR issues, but is racism more deep rooted and hidden within the system? Is this tied to class structure and limited opportunities for minorities?
I found this interview with former NFL player Anthony Prior who wrote and published a book called, The Slave Side of Sundays. In the interview he talks about black athletes' lack of control within the NFL and over their careers. Prior notes that THERE ARE NO BLACK OWNERS IN THE NFL. He asserts that the black athlete is a submissive and obedient servant; forced into a type of "mental slavery."
"Black played in the 60s were united through their oppression and the black athletes of today are divided through their successes."
---------------------
"If we’re 70% of the NFL, we generate the money, we’re the oil, we’re the engine behind this industry, because without the black sweat on Sunday afternoon, leagues would crumble. The NFL would crumble, so we need to have more say-so. We need to have our own democracy […] The person that can make the chance is the assembly of black players. "
* Check out this link to a webpage for the book and an extensive interview: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060309_anthony_prior_nfl_racism
I would love to get your two-cents. If you think this is relevant to any class discussions we have had? Is there racism in the NFL structure? Is it okay to ignore because we pay the players so much $? How does Gilmore's definition relate? anything else you want to add! Thanks --S
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