Blackness … in so many Faces: (on Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”)
Blackface is a performance. Like the Invisible Man having to take himself by the throat and choke until his eyes bulged and tongue hung out (Ellison, 432) in order to appease those in control, make them happy. With or without the coal Black makeup and grotesque caricature, mainstream Blackness has been made into a performance in our modern day.
Spike Lee offers up examinations of Black masculinity; some of them are performances, others are lived experiences; most are both. In and out of Blackface, these men are navigating racial performativity and the puppetry of the White man who has thusly facilitated the need for any performance at all. Lott situates Blackface within a culture borne out of white fear and desire. The need to mock Black sexuality stems from a white fear of it. The joke takes the power out of their desire. What is it that they fear? Let us begin the list.
There is one moment in the film sequence when we first meet Junebug, which Spike Lee offers as a glimpse into the potency of Black male sexuality. Junebug, de La Croix’s father, remains one of the few unsatirized characters throughout the film. He holds true to his own principles, his proclivities as a heavy-drinker or womanizer irrelevant because he lives and accepts his actual experience. The scene: when de La is in his father’s dressing room after the show at the comedy club. We meet Junebug’s girlfriend; he executes a subtle show of power to which she acquiesces. She leaves the father and son to catch and when she bends over to exchange ‘I love yous’ with Junebug, the camera shifts to mirror Junebug’s view of her rear-end walking out the door. Slowly, with appreciation, he takes in her form, following her ass out the door. Junebug carries some of the Black male sexuality that white men both fear and desire. He is sexual, not violent, confident, blunt, straightforward. He refuses to be silenced or castrated. Unlike Manray, he does not have the insecurity of young Blackness, attempting to hold on to self while selling soul to Hollywood. Junebug escapes Lee’s satirization because Lee wants us to see the sexuality that is real and unaffected, which is more than can be said for de La, who uses his sexuality as a power play, as seen later with Sloane, played by Jada Pinkett Smith.
Sloane operates as a focal point for Manray (Savion Glover) and de La’s sexuality. In the auditions, a man shirtless, chiseled, playing the didgeridoo was heavily satirized (as were all the auditions) and made comic by Sloane’s overreaction to his sensuality. At first viewing, the performer who plays an African instrument and has returned to his roots is an admirable figure. At second read, think about what he’s auditioning for; he’s still performing and what is seen is a primal Black male sexuality that reads as animalistic thus proving in white minds that the hypersexualization of Black men is accurate. Interesting, having watched the film multiple times, is the look de La gives Sloane as she swerves to the wavering music. A first time viewer wouldn’t know this, but Sloane and de La have slept together. However, the look adds a layer because now Sloane has pitted de La’s brand of sexual masculinity against this performer’s.
Pierre de La Croix performs safe Blackness, which is uncomfortably close to neutered whiteness; de La has appropriated power, gleaned from playing white. The set-up of the shot after de La has just finished telling Sloane she can’t sleep with Manray anymore is fascinating. de La is behind his desk, signifying his protection, However, Sloane stands while de La sits. While on the surface a simple matter of the privileged sit while the lesser stand, I see the scene as allowing Sloane more power and agency. She, though not blameless, is less satirized than de La. In the next phrase, protected by his desk, a sign of power appropriated through white puppetry, de La proceeds to call Sloane ‘the help’, saying he should never have gotten romantically involved. A slightly high angle grants Sloane power as she gives de La a piece of her mind in a less cordial manner than she set her brother, Big Black Africa, played by Mos Def, straight when he called her a house nigger, positioning himself as a field nigger. Within this context, Dunwitty is a massa with his Black mistress and pickaninny chillun runnin around, enabling him to affect mainstream Black male sexuality and drop the N-word, not his to say.
Light skinned, yella you could say, Manray receives the harshest treatment on screen. Blackface eliminates Black differences that indicate miscegenation, allowing white anxiety over the cultural borrowing they are witnessing in lighter and lighter Black faces, to be calmed. Funny, since there would have been no such mixing if not for rape in slavery times. White anxiety over miscegenation is born out of shame over their own desire. Consider why Manray’s death is made spectacle. Mantan, turned back to Manray once he removes Blackface, is a walking example of White shame and desire; he is too light without Blackface. He is the sexual product.
Sloane asked Manray, but that point in the film we may CALL him Mantan, if he knew his history. He blew her off. In the scene when Womack and Mantan snap, Womack asks, “Do you remember me?” Mantan never knew, rather never understood, the history of Blackface. He forgot his history with Womack and he forgets the history of our race. Spike Lee pans up Womack’s body as Womack shifts his face in a dead bulging-eye dumb nigger façade. Close up as Womack performs minstrel character out of Blackface. It’s not about the makeup. It’s about the performance. Womack’s repetition of “massa” reminds us that the economic component has never left Black and white relations. The names, titles, and performances have shifted slightly but the same discourse is repeating itself. Womack scratches his head, eyes wide, playing the buffoon from days of not so long ago as some would like, his lack of Blackface jarring home the realization that the performance is not as far-fetched as the absurd red lips would have you think. The performance, not that was desired to give, but that was necessary in order to survive; in the times of slavery so as to not be beaten half to death; post-reconstruction in order to get work. In Manray and Womack’s time, the choice was either to perform with integrity and almost starve or perform to whitey’s proper standards, make him laugh, and live the good life; just play the idiot clown. “Same bullshit, just done over,” says Womack. History repeats itself and the “New Millennium Minstrel Show” holds the responsibility for it. The film acts out modern day slavery. The discourse has not changed.
What exactly is a manifesto? And why should a blog have one?
A simple definition of “manifesto” as laid out by Merriam-Webster: “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.”
Well, declaring ones intentions, the impetus behind the writing of such a statement, and making known one’s views seems a straightforward enough task. However, I find myself thinking there should also be a certain affect of dogged determination in the language of a manifesto, a clear understanding that the words are meant to enact something.
So why should a blog have a manifesto? Because otherwise, there is an aimlessness to the work, a lack of focus, a lack of cohesiveness.
I ask myself a series of questions every time I begin a writing project. What’s my purpose? My backbone? What’s the running theme? The connecting string? What is that something which I am trying to enact?
With this blog, my purpose is to provide information through a diverse lens, focusing on maintaining an academic, editorial and at times, journalistic voice.
The backbone of this project will be conscious engagement with whatever topic is at hand. Conscious engagement in the context of this blog should be understood as the desire to truly understand the subject matter to be tackled, as well as honing the ability to see multiple perspectives on an issue. (This very topic begs further research, perhaps looking to something called the “History of the Manifesto, Successes and Failures.”)
When it comes to the running theme, I do find myself struggling. Awareness and knowledge come to mind most immediately.
The connecting string? The voice that I attempt to bring. Whether I’m writing on socio-political injustices, food, vaping, or the automotive industry, I hope to always offer a deeper analysis of what impact certain spheres of our lives have beyond the scope of our regularly scheduled days.
As for the something I am trying to enact, I don’t know if I have that figured out yet. It’s all well and good to provide knowledge and opinion but is it doing anything? Is it changing the world? Is it altering how people think? Can you ever know if yr work is actually making a difference?
With art, the drive is to make people feel. I run a daily creative writing blog under a pseudonym and I’ve had followers thank me for pieces I’ve written. That gives me a feeling of accomplishment.
With journalism, academia, the drive must be to make people think. Therein lies the source of my consternation; can that really be the only end result to my writing? A close friend of mine once called liberal arts and the work we do, intellectual masturbation. What have I created in the grand design of the universe? Is to spark thought, enough?
With the wavering I’ve done, could I call this piece a blog manifesto? Probably not.
But I’ve dug holes, decided which seeds to plant from the vast assortment of options available to writers with a plan to take their futures, happiness, into their own hands. I know that much, at least, is my intent.
Situations in which being non-white or non-female can be Problematic in The Bubble.
(The Bubble is the term used by Mawrtyrs to describe the sheltered environment of Bryn Mawr’s College campus)
(originally written as an article for the campus newspaper)
All opinions stated hereafter do not necessarily represent those of The College News.
1. A Black man [me] walks through a dorm (other than Radnor, that is) passing maybe four or five white girls, not speaking, not staring, just minding my own business. Not ten minutes later, PubSafe (Public Safety’s nickname) has pulled up and is doing a non-routine walk through of the building. Lucky that I’ve been here long enough for them to know the difference between me and another suspicious male on campus.
2.Yr walking along and notice new admissions campaign flags on the light posts. Nice faces, you think. One or two of these people are your friends. The majority you’ve never seen before. And there sure is a lot of diversity up there. Then you begin to realize that all those faces are standard feminine faces. There isn’t a single butch represented on those flags. And you certainly don’t see a transman, someone who represents you, despite the fact that you are not the first or last transman who will graduate from Bryn Mawr. And in that moment, you being to wonder if the college would rather more conventional XX-owners were attracted to our less than perfect queer haven.
3. Maybe this next incident is my fault for not speaking up. Maybe the problem is that I didn’t feel like I could. I used to be in an a capella group that wanted to buy t-shirts. Unconcerned with the diversity of genders in the group, a member took it upon herself to design a tight, low-cut V-neck shirt that oh so conveniently accentuated the female shape. As only one of two gender variant members in the group at the time, our voices went unheard. We never did wear those shirts with the rest of the choir.
4. A white teacher attempts to teach an African-American literature class without providing the cultural context to properly engage with heavy texts by creators the caliber of Spike Lee and Zora Neale Hurston. As a result, white students don’t know when it’s appropriate for laughter or silence. Black students scoff at the white teacher who presumes to be woke enough to teach Black culture, even daring to teach white authors ahead of Black, perpetuating the same discourse of power that has happened since slavery era. In the words of de La (from Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”) laced with sarcasm, “Oh teach me, Great Niggerologist” is the sentiment I felt every day of that class. I vowed never to submit myself to another class masquerading as an investigation into Black culture through literature when it’s really a class teaching mostly white people what another white person THINKS they know about Blackness.
5. I think if Bryn Mawr were an institution that publicly accepted transmen and transwomen then the first question asked of me upon saying that I attend Bryn Mawr College wouldn’t be “how??” Instead, it would be “what a great school, what are you studying?” And in that instant I’d be able to tell first WHAT I DO instead of WHAT I AM.
I sometimes wonder if the trans community, hell trans people, at Bryn Mawr were more visible, if we were publicly acknowledged as belonging to the community, not as an anomaly on precious grounds, would I be more likely to feel a greater connection to the school? If Black professors weren’t so few in number, would I feel a cultural awareness in classrooms that sometimes felt absent? I think so.
TKEW // originally written circa 2013, 2014 // edited 08.14.2017
How many of you have heard the saying, “I don’t see skin color.” or “America is a melting pot?” Pretty common sayings, yeah? Well, they’re also pretty common microaggressions.
University of Illinois Professors Harwood, Huntt, Mendenhall, and Lewis credit Black psychiatrist Chester Pierce for the term microaggressions. In 1978, in an effort to describe post-civil rights era race relations, Dr. Pierce coined the term racial microaggressions, to mean “subtle, shocking, often ‘automatic’ and frequently non-verbal exchanges which are ‘put downs’ of Blacks by perpetrators.”
Over the years, microaggressions have been studied not only in terms of race, but also gender, sexuality, and disability. Minority and marginalized populations encounter microaggressions in almost every public sphere of life, from residence halls and classrooms, to workplaces and restaurants. But with so many people and so many spaces, how does one know when a microaggression has been committed?
The following three categories, microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations will help to more easily identify the ways in which microaggressions function.
Let’s start with microassaults; this form of microaggression is the most comparable to good old fashioned discrimination. Like an assault, the attack is consciously meant to harm or oppress the target. But unlike the casually tossed racial slurs of the 50s and signs reading “Whites Only”, microassaults function when three conditions, as denoted by Professors Shelton and Delgado-Romero from the University of Georgia, are present.
The first condition is that there must be the assurance of anonymity, that the perpetrator’s identity won’t be linked to the act.
Second, the agitator has to feel safe, that they share the company of others who feel similarly prejudiced.
And third, the aggressor must have control over the situation, the ability to hide offensive beliefs. When control is lost, the blatant prejudice tends to slip out.
One day in Philly, as I was walking down the sidewalk, day off from work, minding my own business, a cop car nearly hit me turning out of a lot. I scowled in his direction but didn’t say anything. The cop, who was Black, took it upon himself to lean out of his window to say to me “Lazy nigga, get a job.” and then continued to trail me as I walked home.
In this experienced microassault, the offender’s goal was to intimidate and actively harm me in terms of threatening my safety and potentially my freedom.
As a cop with the ability to drive away at any time, he had an assurance of
1. anonymity and the hierarchical positioning to call me a liar if I were to report his actions.
2. safety due to the uniform linking him to others who may share many of his sentiments and
3. control over the situation in that his Blackness would allow him a denial of racism.
Because of these three conditions being enacted, this Philadelphia cop was able to perpetrate an intentional microassault against me.
Now, while a microassault is always intentional and conscious, that’s not necessarily the case with the next two categories of microaggressions.
Let’s take microinsults, which tend to be unconscious, unintentional, and the most difficult to grasp. They function by being “insensitive, rude, or inconsiderate of a person’s identity.”
For example, asking an Asian-American person, “Where are you from?” implies that they were not born in America. Telling a Mexican-American that they speak “English so well” also implies that their nationality, and perhaps citizenship, should be in question.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve been told that I am “articulate” or “well-spoken”. Seems like a compliment, right? What’s actually happened is that in telling me, a young Black male, that I am articulate, you’ve implied that I have somehow surprised you and appear to be an exception to the offensive assumption that the rest of my race is inarticulate.
Often, targets of microinsults who speak up or report such treatment, are dismissed as being overly sensitive. This very dismissal brings us to the third major category of microaggressions -- microinvalidations. Microinvalidations are subtle, often unintentional “behaviors that minimize the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiences of targets” and considered by academics, including our aforementioned professors from the University of Georgia, to be the most dangerous of microaggressions. Why? Because microinvalidations allow for the erasure of culturally differing experiences.
Do you remember the first two examples from the beginning of this talk, “I don’t see color” and “The US is one big melting pot?” These are microinvalidations that erase and ignore the experiences of people of different cultures. When someone from a majority demographic says that they don’t “see skin color”, the minority culture is being told that their reality of getting tenure as a Black professor being exponentially more difficult, is incorrect or not actually related to the state of race relations in our country. Being told that the US is a melting pot erases the cultural differences that many people have worked hard to hold onto, from differences in religion to eating habits. The assumption that we are all culturally homogenous, culturally the same, invalidates experiences and erases the struggles and histories of generations, those very things which establish cultural identity.
Microaggressions are attacks on an individual’s cultural identity. It is a broad term that encompasses behaviors, verbal and non-verbal, intentional and unconscious, that tell a marginalized population that they are less than, deviant, intellectually flawed and ultimately unwelcome.
As I’ve said, being able to identify microaggressive incidents, the mishap made by the perpetrator, and their effect on the individual, can be a difficult task made more manageable by categorizing microaggressions in one of three ways --
as microassaults, (somebody yells faggot out their window as I drive by)
microinsults, (Oh, I just assumed I’d be working with a guy).
or microinvalidations, (assumptions of straightness.)
At this point, you may ask, well now that I can better identify microaggressions and understand more about how they function, what do I do with this information? That, my colleagues, is entirely up to you.
TKEW // originally written 09.20.2016 // edited 08.14.2017
How many of you are irritated that the electoral and popular votes don’t match up this year?
The American voting system as it has been created has stripped the American citizen of their actual voice. The electoral college decides the President of the United States, not the popular vote, a rule that has been present in the Constitution since the inception of this government. As a result, many people feel disenfranchised from the system and grow apathetic instead of finding ways to take other action. The issue is that government has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, including our bedrooms and bathrooms, and so it feels that in order to accomplish any task, one must act within the system in place.
However, the system in place does not always work for all members of society. The vast majority of those in control are straight, white, men. This American culture is born of genocide, rape, and slavery. More than that, as detailed by Toni Morrison for the New Yorker, American cultural identity is rooted in skin color and how one carries the ideology of whiteness. As fear of loss of control sets in, those in power act without fear of punishment as they persecute those who are different.
Government, laws, and legislation exist to criminalize the “other”.
Anarchy offers another solution.
What exactly is Anarchy? Many people simply think of it as absolute chaos due to the lack of government. In actuality, Anarchy is a socio-political philosophy that, according to the Salem Press Encyclopedia, advocates for the abolition of coercive and controlling forms of government that put emphasis on private property in favor of a form of willful participation in society with a preservation of individual freedoms.
Now, the issue often appears when people ask how Anarchy could possibly come into effect.
Change comes when direct action is taken.
Look to the failure of the legal system when four white police officers were acquitted of the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1992. According to All Things Considered on NPR, this verdict was met with 5 days of a city on fire, over 50 people dead, and $1 billion in property damage.
Property damage usually catches the attention of those in power; in a capitalist government, money always talks. In the years following the riots, police chiefs were fired and the administration revamped. While LAPD brutality has decreased in the 20 years since these riots, there is still a failure of the system in that police brutality across the country is still rampant.
The point here, is that rioting did enact change, but because it was still within the framework of organized government, the change was not able to penetrate the entirety of American culture.
And how could we expect it to? In response to the protests of Trump’s election, a journalist from Al-Jazeera News Network asks what it is the protesters hope to accomplish. “Do they imagine that any arm of government has the authority to quash the results and start over?” The general tone of her article is overwhelmingly condescending and I respond that, no, there is no functional limb of this flailing creature that we call our government, that can fix what it has birthed. And neither the right nor left arm is willing to relinquish power to the masses.
Too often has the left, in terms of our binary political spectrum, been in favor of non-violence as a method of resistance. Turning the other cheek does not work when the enemy stands with assault rifles, tear gas, and police batons. We’ve seen the current images of Ferguson and Baltimore bearing a disturbing resemblance to the Palestinian border.
Historically, look to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, during which violence was an effective method of resistance for those far outside of the conservative value spectrum. For people who fall under the queer umbrella, Stonewall shifted the way in which gay men, lesbians, and trans people fought for the right to exist and be acknowledged as human beings. According to eyewitnesses who were in New York during the riots, including renowned feminist author Rita Mae Brown, the Stonewall Inn, a queer bar that allowed same-sex couples to dance together and didn’t count the number of “gender-appropriate” garments, was raided under the guise of busting the Mob. This ruse was revealed when police officers began to abuse lesbian patrons outside of the bar. The crowd turned on the police officers, who cowardly barricaded themselves within the bar. Back and forth, the fighting began to see who would win the fight for the bar, for the upper hand. This battle continued in the streets for 6 more days.
The beauty of the Stonewall Inn Riots is that they sparked action. That night in 1969 gave birth to coalitions such as the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activist Alliance. Today gay marriage has been legalized and trans people are able to come out of the shadows. As stated in the Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, the roots of LGBTQ actvisim and rights can be traced back to that fateful night which sparked civil and violent unrest.
This snapshot of history, is a prime example of how actions outside those sanctioned by the state, can shift public opinion, policy, and the general well-being of those who had formerly been deemed ill.
With the course of history seeming doomed to repeat itself, wolves in the hen house no longer disguising themselves, the question comes, what action can you take, will you take, when the time comes to defend yr right to live, to walk down to street without the state imposing its will upon yr very body?
A useful framework for how to take violent action and still remain ethically responsible can be found in the Harry Potter Series. Are most of y’all familiar with the premise that Voldemort and the Death-Eaters believe that pure-bloods are the only valid wizards and that everyone else must be eliminated and bow down to their demands? The Dark Lord and his followers share the attributes of Nazis and Fascists. When met with this challenge, Harry and his friends joined forces with the persecuted, the minorities, met in secret, spoke truth to power, and most importantly, as illustrated in the final battle, learned to protect themselves from deadly force. In the fashion of Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of the Phoenix, we must also ready ourselves for the battle that is not such a stretch of the imagination as white supremacists are now considered to be alt-right.
Looking again to Harry Potter, a wizard or witch would be caught literally dead without a wand. Harry and his allies never used the worst of the Dark Arts, but they learned how to repel those spells which would have killed them in an instant. Back in our dismal reality, those who rail against imaginary enemies trying to take their guns away, are willing to unload bullets, then cry that they were afraid for their lives from an unarmed Black teenager. The time has come for those who refuse to be oppressed, to take up arms in self-defense. If guns aren’t yr weapon of choice, look towards archery, sword work, and knife work.
The very first step any of us can take is to get in shape. That can be as easy as working out in yr home. My favorite method: going hard with free weights to blasting music. If you do nothing else to understand the necessity of violent action as demonstrated in LA, in New York, re-read books 5 through 7 of JK Rowling’s harrowing series. Or watch the films.
I ask you to prepare yrselves and to be willing to destroy what must be dusted away and remade in an image as motley as the crew of the world.
Works Cited
Anonymous. "Haymarket Massacre." Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, Gale, 2006, pp. 9-11. Global Issues in Context, <cmclibraries.coloradomtn.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3456600018/GIC?u=colo90289&xid=58ce8c11.> Accessed 6 Dec. 2016.
Bauer, Edgar. "Edgar Bauer Promotes Anarchy." Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, Gale, 2006, pp. 4-7. Global Issues in Context, <cmclibraries.coloradomtn.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3456600016/GIC?u=colo90289&xid=f56a2a8a.> Accessed 7 Dec. 2016.
"Colleagues Recall L.A. Riots Unfolding Like 'A Movie'" NPR. Morning Edition, 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2016. http://www.npr.org/2012/04/13/150509967/colleagues-recall-l-a-riots-unfolding-like-a-movie.
Kahn, Carrie. "After Riots, Scandal Sparked Reform in LAPD." NPR. All Things Considered, 25 Apr. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2016. <www.npr.org/2012/04/25/151354376/after-riots-scandal-sparked-reform>.
Lasky, Jack. "Anarchy." Salem Press Encyclopedia (2016): Research Starters. Web. 6 Dec. 2016.
Picano, Felice. "The Remains Of The Night: Six Observers: Felice Picano Talks With Eyewitnesses To The Stonewall Riots." The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 4 (2015): 29. Academic OneFile. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.
"Riots rock America's democratic foundations." Gulf News [United Arab Emirates], 14 Nov. 2016. Global Issues in Context, <cmclibraries.coloradomtn.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A470637235/GIC?u=colo90289&xid=90aa5ebd.> Accessed 7 Dec. 2016.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter Series. Vancouver: Raincoast, 1999. Print
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