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March 26, 2007
me and shirley q liquor
Not really, but I did get quoted in a Lexington Herald Leader article about Charles Knipp's blackface act:
The debate over Shirley Q. Liquor -- for the most part previously confined to the black and gay media -- is about to spill over into the mainstream, with among other things a profile in Rolling Stone magazine. The issues have raised questions about whether Knipp is shining light on something that the rest of the country has politely refused to discuss for decades. It has called into question the motives, as well, of his audience. That is, if we laugh at Knipp, who are we deep down, anyway?"Blackface is a charged and wild symbol," says journalist Gary Dauphin, who is black. "It gets out of your control quickly no matter your intentions."
Dauphin, a film critic for The Village Voice and for Essence and Vibe magazines, has written extensively on race and blackface. The problem with Knipp is that he doesn't realize that "things are bigger than his intentions," Dauphin says. "You have to have the maturity to say some things are bigger than me."
[...]
Many in the black community, even when not backing Knipp, do not support Cannick's protest.
"I'm not interested in banning and boycotts," says Dauphin, the journalist, adding that he doesn't think Knipp is a racist, but "I do think he's being kind of a jerk." [full article]
[Sweet, sweet networking! Those of you wondering how they found me in Kentucky can blame this gent, as he also writes for the Herald Leader.]
Three comments: First off, I don't remember, but I hope that what I really said was "I do think he's being kind of an asshole," as that gets you closer to my thinking than the wan, family-paper-friendly phrase "jerk."
Second, I was a film critic for the Village Voice once upon a time. I'm not any more and although I worked at the Voice for about a decade my back goes up a little anytime it shows up in a bio, especially after Voice stalwarts Greg Tate and J. Hoberman chose not to include me in their Voice 50th anniversary recaps. Such are the vicissitudes of institutional memory and crewism, and, anyway, given the VV's current sorry state I'm fine with striking it from the record. Was, is what I'm saying.
Lastly, it's not that I "do not support Cannick's protest," it's that "I'm not interested in banning and boycotts," especially media-related bannings and boycotts. I know I'm splitting a hair, and that I blog about media-related outrages all the time, but I'm pretty much of the First Ammendment absolutist, "bad speech calls for good speech" school. I also view the boycott as being most appropriate for addressing corporate, institutional or labor-practice level issues. Boycotting, like, a dude strikes me as being a bit like breaking-up with him; it's personal and involves dynamics of betrayal and rejection that make me hesitant to label my refusal to consume or patronize said dude's comedy a "boycott," this even if I get a 1000 other people to join me.
I also have to confess to long harboring a fear that we go after offensive images only after we've lost every possible other battle. (That, or we've won every other battle, and so have the leisure to focus on glamour outrages like who won an Oscar.) Happy-go-lucky media people tend to be more liberal, more susceptible to shaming and easier to stare down than, say, fundamentalist terrorists and warmongers who think god talks to them, and so whenever I meet a self-described "media activist" I'm like: what? Working on housing equality involve too much heavy lifting?
But I'm exaggerating and self-denigrating, of course. Keeping folks honest about their racism is important work and I'm glad people like Jasmyne Cannick are out there doing it. I think it's fine to educate people about Shirley Q. Liquor and to also urge them not to give Charles Knipp their money, I just dunno if you will be able to get me up on a Saturday morning to physically picket a comedy club. But e-picket? (iPicket?) Absolutely. That not only jibes with my own slothful, late-sleeping habits, but the frame - word vs. word, image vs. image, code vs. code - strikes me as being better aligned as well.
Posted by ebogjonson in me me me, media, race and other identities, on March 26, 2007 10:00 AM
Comments
Ebo: Long time reader - first time (but not last time) commenter.
I find this latest post mindboggling. I just cant imagine the controversy, here. Jasmyne says it best (and repeatedly):
"No, it is not possible for Charles Knipp, a white man, to help heal years of mistreatment and racism at the hands of his people by putting on a wig, speaking Ebonics, and in blackface."
Ummmm...is that statement somehow unfathomable to large numbers of non-colored people??
The "subtle" use of blackface -- ok, I can understand the intellectual arguments in favor of it. Not agree with, but understand.
But making money by "acting" like a member of another race - when that act means depicting "other" as ignorant, immoral, etc. is just like - DUH - racism.
I guess it baffles me that this is an issue at all.
Perhaps you can explain what is so hard for so many white folks to rationally accept that simple premise?
Posted by: ProblemWithCaring at March 28, 2007 1:24 PM
(I was on my second cup of coffee and feeling my oats when I decided to comment, so here I am, diving into a pool whose temperature I haven't fully researched.)
I think you're being nice ebog.
Hate to get all Black Panther, but look...
Black people can say and do anything they want in regard to blackness.
A young man on a San Francisco bus can stick his head out of the window and, for no reason at all, call a dapperly dressed, sable-skinned old man (whose just sitting on a bench watching the sunlight)Kunta Kinte.
Black women can, as I hover over the lunch-meat in a supermarket isle, stop, cock their heads and eye my swamp of dreadlocks in order to derisively mumble, 'he could be kind of cute, if he wasn't so jungle looking."
Dave Chapelle can portray a black, blind Ku-Kluxer, and we can laugh, and rewind, and laugh again.
How come?
Because black people have paid the very heavy membership cost to enter this club of unrestrained exchange. Anyone else wanting to join should come pay their dues first.
We'll be waiting.
Posted by: Rend at April 4, 2007 11:33 AM
okay, I'll take guilty as charged on niceness, Rend, although, I think you underestimating my disdain for idiots.
I guess my preference for "idiot" over "racist" in this case is largely rhetorical. Someone like Knipp wants to be called a racist; why else go through the trouble of putting the cork on every night? I imagine he quite literally finds himself through the process of being misunderstood. Telling someone like that he's an idiot short-circuits the expected (and I would argue quasi-erotic) charge of being (in his mind) mis-recognized yet again.
Posted by: gary/ebog at April 5, 2007 2:56 PM
I'm poor. If he would just give me money I'd be rich.
I'm fat. If he would just never say I'm fat I'd be okay.
I'm a woman. If he wouldn't look at pictures of beauty queens I'd be happy.
I have a problem. If he would just...
Posted by: Pondering at April 6, 2007 11:01 PM
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