Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Whose Post Racial is it Anyway?: Performing and Theorizing Race in the Post-Racial State
What do we mean when we say post-racial? Whose post-racial is it anyway? Liberals? Conservatives?
For some, notions of the post-racial implies some sort of utopia where racial injustice, social and economic disparities and the "possessive" investment in whiteness ceases to exist. For others,the post-racial refers to a rearticulation of existing racial categories what might help us find ways to counter racisms and the hegemony of whiteness. How do we arrive at such a moment? What is it about the existing racial hierarchy that does not hold in this particular-historical moment? How has our exploration of shifting theories of race and performance informed your understanding of the post-racial? You may respond with any text you choose.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mAZniR-IDQ
ReplyDelete“Latinoamérica,” by Puerto Rican duo Calle 13, is a call for pan-Latin-American unity based on cultural pride, a connection to the land, and a common enemy in the economic imperialism of the United States. For me, it evokes the post-racial by creating a class- and experience-based identity across races; however, unlike the class studies criticized by Omi and Winnant, it constantly evokes the racial and cultural multiplicity of Latin America in its use of images and languages that represent the experiences of separate groups and their pride in cultural individuality. It thus encourages racial identification while claiming that this should not impede solidarity and understanding. Racial difference and mixing are further emphasized by the other singers it features – Toto la Momposina (Colombia), Susana Baca (Peru), and Maria Rita (Brazil) – representatives of countries in Latin America where you are most likely to find a true fusion and/or co-existence of European, indigenous, and African cultures. Baca is a particularly interesting case in the greater recognition of racial minorities: Afro-Peruvian culture constitutes a significant but relatively small portion (less than 5%) of the population. Long considered one of the leading representatives of the Afro-Peruvian community, this past summer she became the first black person to be named a cabinet minister –Minister of Culture, a significant recognition of the importance of African culture. Her most recent CD, Afrodiaspora, is a musical exploration of the mutual influence between different African communites of the Americas, evoking Weheliye’s distinction of identifying with,while not identifying as, other African diasporic groups. For me, this is the challenge of the current (potentially post-racial) moment: to achieve and encourage “identification with” across national, ethnic, linguistic, and racial lines, thereby decreasing racial prejudice, without forcing members of a race to stop “identifying as” racial subjects in the interests of ignoring past injustices and their influence on the present.
If there is one thing that this class has continually emphasized for me it is the fact that race is everywhere, talked about in everything, and inflected in all aspects of USamerican culture, art, politics, etc. Race work is being done when race is being ignored. Race is part of the palimpsest of USamerican culture regardless of what or how much is covering over what I will call the racial trace. Driving this point home was my thanksgiving trip to the movies to see The Muppets by Jason Segal. Halfway through the movie (or round about), I was greeted by the Moopets . . . (see picture in below link)
ReplyDeletehttp://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Moopets
This group of Muppets played the part of representing the supposed contrast between what might constitute sweet, innocent, dancing, and singing Muppets with what you see above—racialized copies of the same Muppets made out to be criminal, violent, and greedy. The assumption that racial minority equals evil Muppet band, sadly, does not even register in the minds of many of my friends and family. They might say I’m reading too much into the movie, but the racial trace is so apparently obvious I now dislike my phrasing of “racial trace.” Race is everywhere. Conversations and discourse about race must continue to point out how race inflects our everyday life. As obvious as it seems after taking this class, or studying race, or growing up in a world where your race is disparaged with negative images many people (mostly white) miss the “racial neon-glowing-sign” that is the above depiction of minorities in USamerica.
In the midst of the Civil Rights movement, in 1963 Marvel Comic published a superhero book which functioned as a metaphor for the on-going national conversation: the Uncanny X-Men, “the strangest super-heroes of all”, were a group of teenagers who, through a quirk of evolutionary genetics, were blessed with incredible powers, and who were “sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them.” Professor Charles Xavier, their leader, had a “dream” of peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans. Their arch-rival, Magneto, a childhood victim of oppression in the Warsaw concentration camps, saw no such utopic possibility, choosing instead to promote domination over the lesser-human beings. The political implications were clear: the X-Men (although, problematically, all were white) were meant to stand in for any persecuted minority seeking a peaceful resolution to national racial tensions; Magneto was the radicalized Malcom X figure.
ReplyDeleteFor the last forty-eight years, Xavier and Magneto have been arguing the relative merits of their points, albeit through cosmic scale, world shattering superhero battles; over the last forty-eight years, the USA has been having much the same argument.
If we can saw the American concept of the racial is imaginary, then it seems fair to argue that the American conception of the post-racial is equally as imaginary. (Or is an imagination within an imagination! RACIAL INCEPTION!) It resists an easy definition, and so gets defined in easy and non-productive ways; its deployment is redefined by each use, and is weaponized by the end user, either as an indictment against perceived racial conflicts (“we have a black president, so we cant be racist anymore”) or as the admission that race is still a problem (“we have a black president, and look at how little has changed.”) What counts is the context of the deployment, which can help define what “post-racial” means as it is being used.
Being conscientious of the methodology of definition is the most vital part of determining whose post-racial "it" is. After all, if the superheroes, never a group for stopping to define terms before rushing headlong into an awesome, special effect laden super-battle, haven’t been able to figure it out, what chance do we have?
I spent a lot of time last week thinking about what I wanted to teach on the final meeting of the course I teach, Introduction to American Studies. All semester, I’ve been borrowing ideas and concepts from our class for my own teaching, and I think this class in particular has helped me become a more refined thinker and teacher when it comes to the social construction of race and how to teach it.
ReplyDeleteI used Langston Hughes’ essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” in conversation with the Barack Obama speech we looked at last week, “A More Perfect Union.” One of the great takeaways from this course that I wanted also to instill in my students is the potential for problems of purchases that are made on ideas of the post-racial. The day after Barack Obama’s election, one of my college professors walked into class, raised his arms triumphantly, and declared, “Today, we have entered the post-racial moment.”
There wasn’t anything wrong with wanting this so badly to be the case on that important day. However, much like the progress-oriented narratives of modernity (“Hope”) we hoped to find from the outset in the texts we read this semester, this moment was part of an excellently-sketched-out post-teleological triad examination of racial pasts, presents, and futures.
Barack Obama’s ascension to the presidency begs questions about a supposed triumph that has still problematically occurred within the Master’s House framework that Audre Lorde and others have so passionately cautioned against. Notions of race (whiteness/blackness; non-race-ness/otherness) are variable, culturally-constructed property—invoking them is a highly politicized action. I think, more than anything, the myriad texts this semester provided me welcome new theoretical lenses with which to sift through the imbricated politics of race in America.
Kanye West’s Runaway is a beautiful, artistic short film that plays like an extended preview of his album accompanied by visual representation. The countless references to and influences of performance art, ballet, painting, etc. are a great blend of what we discussed last week. Weheliye’s look at sonic-Afro modernity, the sounds of Black culture and their ties to technology, particularly the remix, and Nyongo’s examination of visual remixes, the “parallax”. Though it is difficult to distill his express purpose, it is still a fascinating text to try to unpack with the tools we have acquired throughout this course. On the other hand, as heavy and depressing as Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled” is to watch, I think it is also a great text to end our class with. Ripe with references and nods toward the various depictions of race in American performance history, it is much more overt and obvious in its commentary. Like the course itself, it covers a lot of ground, from the caricatures of Uncle Tom’s Cabin to discussions of the “post-racial” (and there is even a hint of an Afro-Asian inquiry there since the characters are constantly eating with chopsticks from Chinese take-out boxes!). While “Runaway” may disrupt preconceived stereotypes about hip-hop as merely ghetto ethnography and usher in a sort of cross-over that beckons to what the mainstream considers high-art, Kanye and Lee are doing some similar things. I believe West’s first hits were “Through the Wire” and “Jesus Walks”, the former being an autobiographical account of him ‘rising up’ from a terrible auto accident in which his jaw was broken. And Runaway begins with a car accident, references a phoenix motif, and has a Last Supper scene with West right there at the middle of the table a la Da Vinci’s painting. So obviously, Kanye has a bit of a Jesus complex. Bamboozled’s main character just happens to be named Delacroix: “of the cross” (and I don’t think the significance is rooted in the fact he is the son of comedy god Paul Mooney). These are not coincidences! It is begging for a more in depth look at their amalgamations of the sacred/secular. In the end, this course and the wide variety of texts we have considered have left me with more questions than answers, which is a good thing. As a developing scholar interested in the history of race and its effects on American culture and society, theories of its performative aspects are a key component that I will certainly be utilizing in the near future.
ReplyDeleteHello all,
ReplyDeleteThis is my last post for the semester. Since we were told we could do whatever we wanted that struck us, I have a few youtube clips. This whole semester has been quite eye-opening for me and from the beginning I have been contemplating how my daughter is viewing race in certain ways. One way, of course, is with the media and television programs she watches. Below are three youtube clips of Sesame Street which I found curious to note the multiracial aspects of...however I Im still looking for signs of the post-racial. Maybe someone out there could help me out?
Circa 1974: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TjX5r37V0Q
2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SprRX6mSsEg
Just found this interesting (this is from 2010, I believe): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enpFde5rgmw
It was wonderful sharing a class with you all!
~Lynn
Though we have discussed race in film, theatre, and music I think it is interesting to see how fashion tries to play with the boundaries of race, acts ignorant of race’s significance, or remains aloof that fashion is a predominantly white enterprise. Kanye’s Runaway and his fashion ventures reminded me that in the world of fashion, where the visual is crucial, race often finds itself on uneasy footing. I’ve included a snippet of Robin Givhan’s article that explores this idea. Though I couldn’t include some of the images I emailed Nicole, you can see some of the same imagery in Givhan’s article here: http://nymag.com/fashion/11/spring/71654/
ReplyDelete..and an excellent blog on race and popular culture, including some fascinating work on fashion, at www.racialicious.com.
----Why Fashion Keeps Tripping Over Race by Robin Givhan----
The guests at the Lanvin show in Paris had all been waiting more than an hour for the presentation to begin, and they were getting restless….
In a presentation that had (philosophically) been about female power and (aesthetically) about layering, the final moments were punctuated by a group of black models all dressed in tropical fern prints. The flora had nothing to do with any other element in the show. And frankly, the clothes were hardly showstoppers. But that didn’t seem to matter, because when the five models marched down the runway en masse—the five black models—large sections of the audience broke into applause for the first and only time during the presentation.
They were cheering the black women, but not because they had performed dramatic runway pyrotechnics. They were cheering the women for the great accomplishment of simply being black, which, one might argue, in an industry that remains stubbornly homogeneous in many respects, is a feat worth getting excited about.