Omi, M. & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation. In Racial formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s (pp. 53-76). New York: Routledge.
Frankenburg, R. (1999). Introduction. Displacing whiteness: Essays in social and cultural criticism (pp. 1-34). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Farred, G. (2007). The event of the black body at rest: Mêlée in Motown. Critical Inquiry, 66, 58-77.
Omi and Winant start with the premise that alone and collectively we are shaped and haunted by race. And yet, we are unsure of what race and racism really denote. Historically and socially the dominant discourse oscillates between constructing race as an intrinsic essence versus an extrinsic illusion.
Race is defined as “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (p. 55). The role of critical race theory is then to explain the representation and structuring of race in the social world; this is bound to the evolving understanding of hegemony. This should be done without essentialist premises or imaginary utopias extraneous of racial identities and prejudices. Racial formations describe the creation, transformation, and destruction of racial categorization. Racial projects seek to amalgamate race’s position in multiple discourses and the mechanisms that facilitate the penetration of these discourses into individual and structural experience.
To address macro-level racial formation Omi and Winant outline how race is integrated into the political rhetoric of neoconservative, far right, new right, and left wing ideologies. Similarly race is understood through common sense, large-scale meaning, and policy, each influencing everyday individual experiences. However, these knowledges about race are destabilized through social struggle. The development of modern racial comprehensions are traced from European exploration and Christian understanding of the human being, suggesting that different races may instead be different species. Yet, as biological race claims were disavowed social elucidations are offered in their place. As the USA moved from “racial dictatorship” to “racial democracy” the concept of racism is demarcated as separate from bigotry.
Frankenburg provides a number of descriptors for whiteness including: an empty signifier, pluralistic, a daily practice, a social construction, in flux, a cultural assemblage, and cite of identification and identity. From this perspective scholars in this anthology articulate that whiteness can only operate because of its invisibility, which facilitates its position as the hegemonic standard juxtaposed against all persons of colour, non-whites, racialized individuals and groups who are located as the “Other.”
From the onset of racializing discourses, race has been attached to hierarchical power structures. This was accomplished by naming whiteness as Anglo-Saxon, superior to non-whiteness, and as a stable, readable, and exclusive category against all Other races. Other races became named against whiteness, and were decreed inferior. Thus, from the emergence of race as a social construction it has been enmeshed with racism. Over time whiteness accomplished invisibility by defining itself by what it is not: such as black or enslaved.
Frankenburg outlines that critical whiteness studies have been picked up across myriad disciplines, each finding unique ways of incorporating whiteness their analyses. Critical whiteness studies facilitate unveiling the mechanisms by which whiteness is inaccurately naturalized. This work has the potential to affect the cultural understanding of immigration policies, crime crackdowns, social welfare, and hiring policies. By denaturalizing whiteness we can broach the question of how the nation (in this case the US but also Canada) constructs citizens and Others. However, Frankenburg warns us of potential pitfalls of critical whiteness studies put to poor use including the risk of: privileging white narratives, “me-too-ism,” and forgetting the varying degrees of power available to white bodies.
In “The Event of the Black Body at Rest: Melee in Motown” Farred is employing Badiou’s philosophy of the non-event to analyze the violent eruption that took place between basketball fans and Ron Artest (Pacers player) in a game against the Pistons. Firstly, for a quick and assessable outline of Badiou’s philosophic work I recommend visiting http://www.egs.edu/faculty/badiou.html. Farred draws our attention to the way that temporality is experienced differently in sport than other areas, by players as well as sports fans.
Farred is particularly interested in the moment of the Melee in Motown after Artest committed a foul against Ben Wallace, which Wallace responded to by violently shoving Artest. Artest responded by walking away from his confrontation, and laid down upon the score’s table. This is the moment of non-event, which Farred cautions us against confusing with an interstice and instead challenges us to see the symbol of this moment in and off itself. Farred argues that by examining this moment and the violent response white fans had to it, we can see how the black athletic body interacts with space. In the case of this sporting event it points to the role of the black body as spectacle; one that need always be in motion and be performing for its audience. Farred alludes to Artest’s body upon the score table as reminiscent of the historic ways that rest has been utilized as points of resistance (Rosa Parks seems the most obvious example, though he does not mention her by name). This moment had the power to change, if only for the moment it lasted, the way that sport was understood.
Given the thematic nature of these readings my questions did not often discretely respond to a single article and instead came from the way they followed after one another, so I have decided to not separate the questions by article and instead let them flow one after the other.
Who does the discourse of colour blindness serve and why does dominant discourse still cling to it as the answer to racism?
In addressing the history of racist perspective Omi and Winant point out that several of the founders of Western intellectual thinking espoused racist propaganda masqueraded as philosophy and fact; how do we address this in curricula that still draws on these thinkers but seeks to erase this history?
Is it important, and if so why, to delineate between different kinds of oppression; separating classism, racism, ableism, homophobia, sexism, and more rather than discussing bigotry and prejudice?
Can we compare Artest’s body at rest as a site of resistance to the resistance of actions such as die-ins over HIV?
Is it ever appropriate to compare resistances across different kinds of oppressions?
Thinking back to a few years ago where a student dressed in black face for Halloween on Queen’s campus, what does it mean to wear race as a costume? http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2005-12-01/news/race-racism-and-blackface/
To reiterate one of Frankenburg’s questions “What, or who, do white people want to be?” (p. 16).
What do people think about the move from whiteness as a racial categorical to a cultural one?
Why is it that a crowd responds more violently to rest than acts of violence between players? Is it that we hate laziness and quitters more than aggressors, or is it something else? Or is it as Farred postulates that it is too paradigm shifting for a white audience to see the black body resting?
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7 comments:
First of all, great job summarizing Kat. I like how you posed your questions in an almost stream of consciousness type manner – I’m not entirely sure how to respond… I do, however, have a clarification question – what are “die-ins” over HIV? This isn’t a term I’m familiar with and Google was unhelpful…
I’m not sure what I think of the last question, or maybe more importantly what I think of Farred’s analysis of Artest’s body (being at rest) in general. I knew about the “Motown Mèlèe” before reading this article, and had never thought about the analysis of the ‘non-event’ the way that Farred does. I thought it was more the fact that Artest was vulnerable/exposed and that the ball wasn’t in play… that the only level John Green was thinking about the body “at rest” was in the context of his being incredibly upset/ defensive of “his own” players foul, possibly a little intoxicated (?), and of simply exploiting the opportunity (when Artest wasn’t running down the court) to provoke an “enemy” player. There’s also a part in the article where Farred suggests that the issue is about race because “black fans (didn’t) join with the white fans to vent their hostility toward the Pacer players” (p.72) – but if you look at the footage of the event there is a black bodied/ black skinned fan who does in fact punch a Pacer player. What does that mean? Are we giving John Green too much credit in this random (and provoked) act of violence? Or is it that we’re opposed to “laziness” or rest in sport?
I did find an interesting connection between the passing mention of Kobe Bryant’s “sexual indiscretion” in Farred’s article and in Frankenberg’s idea that the “man of color… is sexually rapacious, sometimes seductive, usually predatory, especially toward White Woman” (p. 12)… why do Kobe’s “indiscretions” warrant so much negative media? Why don’t other (white looking) players’ off-court activities have the same coverage? Are these underlying “assumptions” about “White Man” and “Man of Color” still that alive? This seems to be the “explanation” for the “rape laws” we read about in Stoler’s article last week – the colonial rape laws that were unilateral (rape of white woman by black man) seem totally based on these underlying assumptions…
I like your question about wearing “race” as a costume Kat… but I feel like we can’t answer it… any answer would make us either hypocritical or would perpetuate these assumptions about race being only about colour. The articles seem to be trying to talk about race outside of skin colour (and to “disprove” this definition of race; ex, Susie Guillory Phipps at the beginning of Omi & Winant’s article), yet at the same time can’t escape talking about it like that because skin colour is still such an ingrained assumption when we’re talking about race. I don’t see how we can say that dressing up as Ms. Ethiopia is any different than dressing up as Ms. Canada, Mr. T or Britney Spears, or that if we do say it is different, where that leaves us? I don’t know how to resolve these ideas and feel even more overwhelmed when thinking back to Fanon’s suggestion that “Blacks wear their colour” while “Jews can hide their Jewishness”… we can’t escape talking/ thinking about skin colour – is there any way we could make this into a positive, or less negative, reality?
Frankenberg was writing during the 1996 U.S. Federal elections, and I found this to tie nicely into the same election, twelve years later, that will be happening as we’re discussing these articles in class on Tuesday. This idea of “blackness” has very much been a part of this U.S. election… Three of the top hits when you Google “Obama” are related to skin colour or ideas of “race”…
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1584736,00.html; http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/09/btsc.obama.race/index.html; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/us/politics/02first.html?_r=1&em=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1225584071-d/0DIEDXQV/ozf/3EWT2Cw&oref=slogin; and each of these website’s (Time, CNN, New York Times) articles have the word “Black” in their titles. What does that tell us about current issues in race politics? Or race Party Politics? Or race in the U.S?
Die-ins:
Dies-ins have been a part of HIV activism where HIV activists, persons at risk of contracting HIV and PLWHA will en masse pick a location and perform “dying” together to protest either lack of access to ARVs, the high costs of HIV treatments, or governments not showing their support for HIV research (either because they do not fund it, do not fund it enough, are not supporting harm reduction initiatives to quell the spread of the virus, or are just ignoring the virus and those infected/affected by it). They have been performed outside of pharmaceutical companies’ research laboratories and offices, city halls, and other government locations. Die-ins have elicited mass media coverage in ways that other activism in the beginning of the HIV epidemic simply did not. While I do not know how effective it was in changing policy, it did successfully make the issue visible in media coverage.
I don’t think that die-ins are perfectly comparable actions (or non-events) to Artest’s laying down upon the score table for many reasons. Die-ins are actions decided in advance by a number of people to consciously protest something they have decided is wrong as opposed to Artest’s reactionary non-action. So I am not trying to say that these are the same things. I guess what I am wondering about is whether die-ins (not the performative part where they are dying, but once the activists have ‘died’ and are bodies at rest on city hall’s lawn, drive way, wherever) could also be considered a non-event as Farred has described Badiou’s theory. Would looking at the ‘dead’ bodies tell us something different about activism than looking at the performance of dying, as looking at Artest’s body at rest tells a very different story than looking at his confrontation with Wallace? Can people think of other ways the non-event has been consciously appropriated as a part of activism?
NB: My knowledge of die-ins is founded in HIV activism but it has also been used as part of peace protests.
Yes Kat, great summary. I have to apologize for making this two weeks in a row where I completely disagree with an article, but I cannot not accept Farred’s argument at all. His discussion of sport philosophy and the big ‘moments’ which contrast with the ‘non-events’ is interesting and I do not disagree with any of that theoretical aspect of his article, but the racialization of the ‘black body at rest’ prompting violence in the Ron Artest example, I find contrived and completely ridiculous.
Would this article have even been written if it a black fan threw the cup of beer on Artest as he lay on the courtside table? Or if the same white fan threw beer at a white player laying on the table? My qualms arise in Farred’s argument of the ‘non event’ in which Artest lay ‘at rest’ on the commentary table, going against NBA the “law”, in which black players always must be performing for the largely white audience, caused the brawl. This ‘non event’ moment supposedly spurred a racist act of violence epitomizing the vulnerability of the black body at rest, rather than understanding it as just another act of drunken fan violence, which unfortunately occurs quite regularly in many sports.
We can see this kind of violence going back at least as far as December 1979 at Madison Square Gardens when the Boston Bruins played the New York Rangers. During a fight in the corner, fans reached over the glass and grabbed the player’s sticks and started hitting the Bruins with their own sticks. This spurred the Bruins to climb over the glass, go into the stands and fight back. Mike Milbury of the Bruins is famously known for taking off one of the offending fan’s shoes and beating him with it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8K7roZu3WU) In this case both the fans and players where white, and hockey sticks are much worse than half filled plastic cups of beer.
A better example may be Tie Domi in 2006, where he sat in a penalty box (at rest) and a fan behind the glass began berating him, hanging over the glass and throwing things. Domi reacted by squirting the fan with some water, making him angrier and causing him to fall over the glass into the penalty box where he received a beating from Domi. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNTX6W8SXc) Calgary Flames assistant coach Guy Lapointe suffered similar fan abuse when sitting on his bench; an opposing fan poured his drink on him, inciting several of his players to jump the glass for more of the same violence. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwCmzJYuP6o)
Arguably the worst example can be seen in 2005 at a Championship League game between city rivals AC Milan and Inter Milan where Inter fans bombard the AC players with lit flares. One of the dozen or so flares thrown hit the AC Milan goalkeeper in the head. A fight against the crowd did not materialize, but nevertheless spectator violence spurred from something other than an inactive, vulnerable body at rest. There are plenty of other examples of this kind of spectator on fan violence that make it difficult to accept Farred’s analysis as the correct motivation for the Artest incident. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqusgVk4xRE)
Farred states that “Artest was attacked…precisely because he is vulnerable…the black body at rest represents the provocative body, the body whose flaunting of its restfulness is read…as taunting, directed at the opposing fans…”(69) Would these other examples of the same (but arguably more violent) fan-based violence follow the same theory? Or could it be just as simple as drunk fans of the opposing team getting upset and out of line? The interpretation of these kind of events can come from all angles, and Farred’s is an interesting one, but considering the nature of fan violence across all spectator sports, is ‘the black body at rest’ argument really sound? If it had been Jeff Foster (white) of the Pacers who was in the fight and laid out on the commentary table, I think the drunken fan would have still thrown his beer.
Thank you for the clarification Kat.
I think that in that sense (that die-ins end in a moment of rest, of silence) die-ins could be considered a "non-event" as Farred defined one...
I've been thinking... and am still hesitant to read into the non-event in terms of the Artest incident - like Andrew mentioned, and I already mentioned in my post, I think we're giving far too much credit to a random act of violence in a sport event. Like Andrew showed, fan violence isn't a new phenomena, and it's hard to say that race is the culprit here. I think that by reading into the act in terms of body colour that we are actually perpetuating ideas of "racisim" in sport - and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Farreds analysis.
However, I think that the idea of a non-event could be a very useful way to look at other events (I would be interested in learning about peace keeping events - as it seems that "silence" or "rest" can be a very powerful (political) statement)...
On another note, I saw pictures today of a friends Halloween Party in Toronto... and a group of girls dressed up as the Spice Girls... so one of them painted her body brown in order to "become" Scary Spice for the night. Like Kats question about "dressing up as race" - do we think this is problematic? Or do we think that because we think it's problematic, that then it does become problematic? I've seen so many different examples of this over the past few nights (this being the weekend of Halloween) but have yet to hear anyone discuss the problems associated with "wearing race" as a costume. Do we think that maybe we're simply analysing things a little too much?
Without wanting to turn this week’s readings into a debate I feel it necessary to firmly plant myself on the side of saying that wearing race as a costume is at the very least problematic. I wonder what you mean by us reading too heavily into things and seeing prejudice/racism when it just is not there. I feel like the persons I know who were most upset by Miss Ethiopia on campus were not coming at it from an ‘over-thinking’ academic lens. They saw someone who has the luxury of white privilege wear her body for one night as an impoverished black body; wearing it as though this body was either scary or funny. Those outraged knew the history of black face and were sure that the person wearing this as costume has not fully thought out her relationship to globalization when she did turn the black body into spectacle like the minstrel. I feel like modern day black face is a pretty obvious form of racism compared to the Artest case. It is not just the wearing of race as a costume that is the problem, it is the history of whites mocking the inferior body that it speaks to that is the problem. It is problematic because persons with white privilege are wielding that privilege in ways that are injurious without giving a thought to that action, partially because in Canadian curricula we try and erase the history of racism and thus allow it to repeat itself.
I am anticipating an argument that retaliates saying that people need to just read less into it and be less sensitive, the “she didn’t mean anything by it argument.” I would like to lastly say that it is not about whether or not someone meant something by it. It ties into the way we each live in the world and understand our body in relation to others. I cannot pretend to know where to even start when it comes to addressing the racism (or classism, ablesim, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and it goes on) in our culture (Queen’s campus, Canada, the world via globalization politics). When trying to conceptually problem solve I am no more certain about how to go about addressing the -isms and -phobias that pick me as a target than I am about those that I privilege grants me access to the role of oppressor if I forgot my role in the world. However, I suspect that acknowledging one’s position of privilege and the different ways this privilege can be utilized is somewhere on that list.
Last note: I wanted to apologize. I threw the question of how do we read modern day black face in the Halloween context naively assuming that we would all be on the same page that it is at least problematic if not racist. I was hoping to get at the multiple ways this action can be read (as it ties into issues beyond just race such as class, nationalism, globalization, beauty norms). I really did not mean to set up an argument to then just refute it. Sorry team.
Speaking of timing, I was fortunate enough to tune in to American History X last night. The movie reminded me of the feelings of entitlement that fuel white supremist ideology. Also for those of you that haven’t seen the movie, it does a terrific job of complicating racism and demonstrating how racism shapes social relations as well as individual experiences, to both the detriment and benefit of individuals.
Thank you Kat for your thoughtful questions. To answer your first question about discourses of colour blindness; I think it is so popular because it is a theoretical anecdote to racism. If I cannot see colour, I cannot be racist, colour is not a factor. Colour blindness also lends itself to the utopia of a meritocracy which is often put forth as an alternative to affirmative action. I call a meritocracy a utopia because it sounds reasonable and rationale however when it is unpacked further I find myself asking the question, well what is merit in our society, and how does one possess it? In the current social context here in the west, I think merit could be synonymous with education or training. I know from applying to law schools all over the country that there is recognition and action being taken to get more racial minorities into post secondary education (my friend is on a full ride minority scholarship in the US). Merit is therefore not something that is really colour blind. If we were to promote a meritocratic system and suspend all affirmative action initiates, we would most certainly still have issues of one-sidedness, lack of diversity, and maybe colour blindness where we see no colour, just white.
Second, I would like to talk about the Ms. Ethiopia Halloween costume. I actually know Sarah, we have been friends since middle school. I was not at Queen’s in 2005 but did hear about the incident from Sarah. Sarah’s favourite holiday has always been Halloween, her whole family gets very into it. Despite Sarah’s minor in drama, she did not anticipate that her costume would be interpreted as black facing (I don’t think she knew the term before this). I think Sarah’s oblivion is very interesting, the fact that she did not anticipate that her costume would be construed as a racist act. I think it would have been different if Sarah dressed up in a negative black stereotype like a cotton picker or a ‘slave’. Why is that she is confined to costumes of her own race (Ms Canada, Ms USA, Ms White)? I think by setting parameters on race bending we might be reinforcing the ‘us and them’ dichotomy.
I am fascinated by the idea of skin colour as the foundation of racism. For instance, what would it be like to be a white child raised by black parents or a black child raised by white parents? Skin colour is complicated, I keep thinking about when people refer to a person of colour as being ‘white’. This means that whiteness is more than just the colour of one’s skin. I also have a friend who is ‘black’, but albino, so his skin is white. In an age where you can change almost everything about yourself, your hair colour, your eye colour, your shape size, your sex organs, will changing your skin colour become a commodifiable procedure?
If the idea of skin colour is not as black and white as I wish to have demonstrated with my examples, what is racism really all about? Andrew and Nat both talked about the racial overtones of the Artest incident as appearing potentially contrived. So is the answer to be ‘colour blind’ and report the incident for its facts and not assume racial overtones? Then we might be in the same position as Sarah, oblivious to the racial dimensions of our actions. I do not have any answers, all I know is that race still dominates our society (as Nat pointed out with the Obama google hits) and the way we talk about it shapes discourse. No one is colour blind, unless they are actually blind except for Michelle. I worked with her a few years ago at a women’s shelter, she was trying to identify one of the clients to me whom I did not know by name. She said she had large glasses, was middle aged and commented on what she was wearing. The woman we were talking about was the only black woman in the program; if she would have said she was black I would have been able to identify her right away. Michelle said she did not see people’s colour and it didn’t occur to her to describe her as black. I don’t really know what is the difference between describing someone’s hair/eye colour and their skin colour. The connotations of black and white are extremely moralized in our society and may contribute to why skin colour is different than other visible characteristics. I am looking forward to class!
Thanks, Kat, for your summary and your continued interaction as this week's discussion has unfolded. Thanks to everyone else for their comments and the "back and forth".
The nice thing about the blog is that we are able to pursue tangents that might otherwise have been pushed aside in the compressed time period we have to discuss issues face to face. Here then is my disproportionately long contribution to the tangent:
1) Re: blackface. Kat gave a nice summary of the problems with this practice. Karima responds by asking: a) if the performance of a positive stereotype is more acceptable than the performance of a negative stereotype; and b) why whites are confined to dressing up as whites, and if such confinement doesn't itself reinforce racial dichotomies. There are a couple of ways to think about these questions and the discussion that preceded them:
First, there is a specific historical context in which black face emerged and through which it still signifies (see, for example, Eric Lott's [1995] Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class; the introduction is available on google books and I encourage you to read it before class if you have time). There is no performing or interpreting blackface outside of this history (regardless of the intentions of the performer or the racial consciousness of the audience), even if the way it signifies is complex and dynamic (as Lott argues, minstrelsy does not simply reflect racial aversion, but also desire). Omi and Winant remind us that we can't simply wish away racial dichotomies, regardless of whether or not they are ideological fictions. Dichotomies exist and they have real effects on people's lives. The challenge is to analyse and understand racial projects (Lott writes: “Only by beginning to inventory the deposits of feeling for which blackface performance has been responsible can we hope to acknowledge the social origins and psychological impulses, reckonings, and unconscious reactions that lie so deep in most Caucasians as to feel inevitable and indeed natural” [p. 11]) and ultimately dismantle them. It doesn’t seem to me that performing blackface achieves either of these ends.
Second, while I can’t imagine a good argument for white performance of blackface, I’m sure there are more or less egregious examples of this practice. In other words, all blackface is not the same. It will signify differently according to who is doing it, for whom, where, when, and to what ends. To address this question sociologically, then, we need to think back to Omi and Winant’s discussion about whether all racism is identical (p. 71-76). A racial project is racist, they argue, “if it creates or reproduces structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race” (p. 71). Our challenge here is not to call a particular project racist, or not, and to leave it at that, but rather to show how or why the project reaffirms “structures of domination” and with what outcomes. It seems to me that the Miss Ethiopia example meets these criteria. The costume would have made no sense, would not have been “humorous,” had the student not traded in essentialist racial categories. Had she, for example, dressed up as Miss Canada and not painted her face black, or indeed had she dressed up as Miss Canada and still painted her face black, my guess is that her audience would have been thoroughly perplexed. Beyond its dependence on racial essentialism, the costume reproduced structures of domination including the perpetuation of whiteness as the unmarked universal.
2) This provides a nice segue into the discussion of the Farred piece. Unfortunately I am way over my word limit, but suffice it to say that I think we also need to consider his piece in the context of Omi and Winant’s framework. To my mind there is no getting “outside of race” in the NBA or the NHL or any other social formation for that matter (as Farred writes: “basketball, like all American sport, is always spoken in a language that is historically racialized” [p. 71]). Again, this is not, in itself, a particularly penetrating observation, any useful analysis must go much further in terms of understanding how race is produced, differentiated, institutionalized, and experienced in any particular realm (or “event”). But I would like you to think about my claim before class tomorrow and come prepared to discuss whether it is ever possible to step outside of power relations and the historical trajectories through which they are shaped. In a similar vein, there is also, from my perspective, no such thing as a “random act of violence….” Why? I will leave that question unanswered until tomorrow. After all, we need to set aside some problems for our face-to-face discussion. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts tomorrow.
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