George Aiken's play adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Toms' Cabin marks one of the first nationally acceptable forms of popular entertainment that simultaneously stole the dignity and experience of African Americans as it ventriloquized their quest for freedom and justice through blackface. The intention of Stowe's abolitionist text was lost in cross-racial translation as melodramatic performances mocked the suffering of black slaves and embossed indelible images of blacks as Uncle Toms, Topsies, Mammies, Tragic Mulattos, and Black Bucks into the American racial imaginary. The first module of the course attempts to charts the discursive and visual architecture of the black-white binary as a hierarchy of power and privilege. How do the readings and performance couplings in this module attempt to articulate critiques and resistances to the institutional and structural racism in the United States?
Monday, July 15, 2013
Week 1-Exploring the American Racial Imaginary, Module A
George Aiken's play adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Toms' Cabin marks one of the first nationally acceptable forms of popular entertainment that simultaneously stole the dignity and experience of African Americans as it ventriloquized their quest for freedom and justice through blackface. The intention of Stowe's abolitionist text was lost in cross-racial translation as melodramatic performances mocked the suffering of black slaves and embossed indelible images of blacks as Uncle Toms, Topsies, Mammies, Tragic Mulattos, and Black Bucks into the American racial imaginary. The first module of the course attempts to charts the discursive and visual architecture of the black-white binary as a hierarchy of power and privilege. How do the readings and performance couplings in this module attempt to articulate critiques and resistances to the institutional and structural racism in the United States?
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The texts and performances of week one point to the pervasiveness of stereotypical images about Blacks in the American racial imaginary, formed in the course of slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow.
ReplyDeleteAiken’s play Uncle Tom’s Cabin introduces African American types such as the Mammy, the Uncle Tom, the Picaninny, and the Tragic Mulatto, which still reappear in contemporary cultural productions, maintaining a black-white-binary that reduces African Americans to demeaning caricatures. The potential for resistance that these characters contain is frequently ignored; Uncle Tom’s faith in a Christian God, for example, can be read as a form of resistance, as he uses the Christian faith to empower himself. Similarly, James Cone uses the Christian symbol of the cross and likens it to the lynching tree, arguing that the suffering of Jesus and the suffering of Black people are closely interrelated, and showing how Christianity functions as a source of strength and endurance for Black people.
The film Bamboozled critiques the appeal that caricaturistic performances of African Americans in blackface still hold in contemporary society and how the entertainment industry profits from that appeal. Bonilla-Silva’s argumentation of a racial grammar that structures all racial matters also applies to the film industry, where representations of African Americans are either absent or stereotypical, and are thus speaking to a white audience and rendering whiteness as a universal norm. The film Crash, in fact, does attempt to deal critically with race struggles in Los Angeles, representing characters of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. However, it glosses over the systemic nature of racism by implying that the characters’ racism is only based on misconceptions that can be solved easily by really getting to know each other.
Cheryl Harris adds a legal perspective to the issue of race, arguing that whiteness entails an interest in property that is protected by law, giving Whites access to privilege and social benefits from which Blacks are excluded. Murphy’s sketch White Like Me parodies this nicely when “white” Eddy Murphy gets a generous loan at a bank that would have been denied to him if he had appeared as a Black person.
In all, the theories and performances outline the wide-reaching net of the racial imaginary: from 19th century drama to 21st century film, from religion to law, and from the individual micro-level to the institutional macro-level of society.
The case of Trayvon Martin is the perfect example of structural racism. A white man shooting an African American high school student was acquitted because of lack of evidence and his right to defend himself. In history structural and institutional racism is nothing new. The readings and performances of this week criticize it and try to point out many ways of resistance.
ReplyDeleteConsidering Uncle Tom’s Cabin slaves had two options to help themselves in their misery. Fleeing to Canada or believing in God. Eliza, her son and her husband escape from their masters. Uncle Tom on the other hand believes in God and his divine power to lead him the right way. Stowe tries to convince the reader that slavery is evil and intolerable and that no Christian should be able to approve slavery. James Cone basically agrees on it, that Christians should tolerate African Americans. With him saying that Jesus might have been black, he unites being black and being Christian in order to unite America.
To teach this tolerance is also the attention of the Jim Crow museum. It tries to support social justice by discussing race throughout history and by showing all the inhumanity that was and still is going on. In the movie Bamboozled, Lee makes clear that the past still impacts the present and he criticizes racism on American television. The white population being the superior one and setting the rules, this is something Bonilla-Silva argues about and wants to change. Murphy also complains about white superiority and gives attention to the exclusion of African Americans in the clip White Like Me. The movie Crash deals with stereotyping and racism in LA. Unknowing racism, for example when Jean Cabot moves closer to her husband when seeing two African Americans wearing hoodies, plays an important role for Haggis and people should try to get over this subconscious racism.
When Trayvon was killed he was wearing a hoodie as well. After the trial and the unfair outcome people started wearing a hoodie, too, to show resistance and protest. The readings and performances of this module as well as the people now wearing a hoodie for Trayvon have people to think about racism, not only nowadays, but also about the happenings in the past, and its consequences.
The dominant narrative of American history through the lens of whiteness as explored in the first week of our course is a perspective that will continue to influence and enhance my work. Although, James Cone is perhaps not the obvious choice at first glance when discussing the racial imaginary and all that it entails, yet he sparks a dialogue about religion and the way that Jesus Christ is represented in the mainstream, and then re-signifies Jesus’ body as black. So, although Cone’s background lies in theology, the questions that he raises concerning race, religion and the legislative powers that be, cannot be answered without taking a more interdisciplinary approach. Not only is Cones’ re-signification of Jesus’ body controversial in nature since America is a nation founded on European Christian values, one might also deem such inflammatory statements as blasphemous. Discussing His body and the nature of His divinity is offensive to many who consider it self evident that Jesus is white, and that ‘White America’ is fashioned in the image of God . Because the normative idea of America, and the cultural history tied to it, is associated with whiteness, it is safe to conclude that Cone is disrupting the racialized privileges that whites have assigned to themselves by introducing new hierarchal signifiers that elevate the status of people of color.
ReplyDeleteCone introduces God as black, and infers that people of color are created in His likeness. In this way, he interrupts the dominant discourses surrounding race, religion and belonging, and succeeds in creating a new ‘imaginary’ where Jesus is a rebel much like some slaves were, who were longing to break free from their chains of oppression. Jesus and black men are given a shared history of struggle and perseverance, and Cone is able to make Jesus a universal figure for all people of color instead of a figure that only represents one dominant part of society.
In the wake of the George Zimmerman trial, I see a chance to discuss the perfect merging of some topics discussed in class. Does race matter and how the law legitimates and recognizes the property of whites and the right for exclusion is played out on the stage of this trial and the not guilty verdict that followed. I stumbled across an article and video in the Huffington Post on July 14th and find the topic quite pertinent.
ReplyDeleteDr. Anthea Butler, the author of a blog post in Religion Dispatches (RD) who came under a great deal of scrutiny and criticism, is an Associate Professor in Religious Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the Graduate Chair. She classifies herself as a historian, and wrote a piece in RD where she said, “I know that this American god ain’t my god. As a matter of fact, I think he’s a white racist god with a problem. More importantly, he is carrying a gun and stalking young black men.” When taken out of context, it might sound like Dr. Butler is a blasphemer and racist. What I immediately understood after reading her blog post, and after our first week discussion is that she was and is trying to spark discussions about race and religion and how the two work hand in hand in America. Zimmerman stated that he believes that the whole incident including the death of Treyvon Martin was “apart of God’s plan”. Butler’s response can be interpreted to mean that god can become anything that you want… if you give it a personal agenda. If the Christian God in America is on the side of white men, then it could be inferred that he is against black men and their causes. God, (not the omnipotent but the constructed) can be used to project meaning and give legitimacy to any cause when they succeed, and I think that is in some ways what Anthea Bulter and James Cone were both trying to introduce in their speeches and articles. While we explored themes addressing pre and post Jim Crowe legistlation, Bulter concludes in the Huffington Post article with a statement that we can all contemplate on: "People say we are post-racial, but we are anything but post-racial. We are in Jim Crow Part II. And that is what's going on. It's tiring, but I am resolute."
sources:
Huffington Post article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/anthea-butler-god-white-racist_n_3610342.html
Religion Dispatches: http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/antheabutler/7195/the_zimmerman_acquittal__america_s_racist_god/
"part of God's Plan": http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/07/14/zimmerman-found-not-guilty-believed-it-was-gods-plan-for-him-to-kill-trayvon-martin/