How many times can you replicate an experiment before its underlying questions and possible conclusions turn banal? You’d think the conclusions of the 70 year old Kenneth and Mamie Clark doll experiment would have seeped into Latin America’s public consciousness by now. Apparently not, since the Mexican anti-racist campaign doing their version of the doll experiment quickly went viral recently, as if they saw it for the first time. Of course Mexican kids are no different from the ones in Clarks’ original setting. Why would they be? Some Mexicans hold views about black people that belong in the United States circa 1930. And if the makers of the video below — in an attempted parody trying to acquit Mexico as a country from the campaign’s accusations — think the kids prefer the white doll over the black doll not because the black doll represents a black person but because it is black (with its what they consider typical Mexican associations of superstition, black cats, black death, or “a psychology of colors”), they miss Clarks’ point completely: it is a segregated society that breeds distrust and internalized racism. Which makes Mexico a very ordinary society. The punch line: “I’m not black, I’m a mechanic.” [Read more...]
The Year of Frantz Fanon
Four moments that stirred heated debate in France this year were the cases against rapper Youssoupha and IMF Head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the unveiling of the Paris exhibiton Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage, curated by former French footballer Lilian Thuram, and the 50th anniversary of Frantz Fanon’s death. With the latter came the publication in French of Fanon’s Œuvres (La Découverte, 800 p.), with a preface by Achille Mbembe (‘L’universalité de Frantz Fanon’). When we approached Mbembe for an English version of the text, he sent us the following shorter essay — which we offered to translate from the original French.
I remember Black Pete*
As a child, I never believed in Santa Claus.
I believed in Saint Nicholas and Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). I remember waking up as a child on December 6, 1983, three hours before daybreak. I also remember waking up early on December 6 for years afterwards. Always early, always too excited to go back to sleep the night Saint Nicholas came by our house. Over the years, I got to share this rush of euphoric anxiety with my two younger brothers. We would be jumping on our beds, calling our parents, yelling out to ask whether it was time yet. They were never amused. My brothers and I knew there was no way we could pussyfoot downstairs into the living room to see which presents He had left us. Because each year, Saint Nicholas’s black servants, those sneaky Black Petes (‘Zwarte Pieten’) would have locked the room’s door on their way out. My parents held its only key.
You know Black Pete?
Ingerland, Ingerland, Ingerland
Late last month the English goalkeeper David James wrote in The Observer that he was surprised at the accusations of racism against his national teammate John Terry. The latter was accused of racially abusing an opponent, QPR player Anton Ferdinand. James also claimed racism has been rooted out of the game a long time ago. James suggested that racism was now limited to a small number of fans.
Louboutin’s Emancipated Breast
Christian Louboutin is known for the same impossible stiletto heels as Jimmy Choo, but with an added attraction: a strip of carmine-red leather, sewn to cover the underside of each shoe. As a woman walks (or totters) off in those 5-inch heels, she leaves a flash-trail: an infinitude of sexual invitation. Or, as my uncles say, “It’s like a lady baboon’s red arse. Seeing red as she walks away means she’s sexually mature and ready.” (Indeed, some in the hip-hop mogul community call Louboutins “Red Bottoms”.)
And so far, that’s all I had to beware of when I strumpeted around in my only pair of Louboutins: that I was sending ‘lady baboon’ signals (also that I’d permanently damage my ankles, back, feet, and feminism). But for Louboutin’s Fall 2011 ‘Lookbook’, he teamed up with photographer Peter Lippman to re-envision a hodgepodge of Rennaisance-y/Restoration-y portraits that recreate paintings. Each ‘look’ showcases a specific portrait, but also the fall collection; there’s sumptuous costumery, heavy symbolism, heaving fruit, the hint of spilling bosoms, and well-placed products: sky-high heels.
There’s Georges de la Tour’s “Magdalene and the Flame”: instead of Magdalene’s intensity and longing, intensified by the presence of the flame, in this arrangement, the flame is reduced to a secondary player – it is the extraordinary boot that gets her smouldering stare. Francisco De Zurbaran’s demure “Saint Dorothy” gazes not heavenward, but at a platter topped with a purple shoe. Even James McNeil Whistler’s “Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother” (popularly known as “Whistler’s Mother”) is given the glamour of a feather-topped bootie.
But wait! Black people are represented in Louboutin’s spread, too!
The New South Africa
UPDATED: The blogs have rightly been outraged at a white couple, “Dave and Chantal,” who decided on a “colonial” (and Apartheid) theme at their wedding in South Africa complete with an all-black waiter staff in red fezes. Like it was a scene out of the film “Out of Africa.” (Turns out the happy couple asked for a recreation of the film. Serious.) The wedding was held in Mpumalanga province on the border with Mozambique. The wedding organizers got the props–which included “antique travel chests, clocks, globes and binoculars and an awesome Zebra skin”–from a “prop house” in the capital Pretoria. This kind of thing which is apparently the in-thing (i.e. sold as “tradition” and “nostalgia” by events companies and venues), would have passed unnoticed, but for the internets. The couple or their photographer felt pleased enough to post the pictures on a photography site. Then it was spotted by the American blog Jezebel (part of the Gawker empire). Once it became viral (and the couple their photographer and wedding planner were ridiculed) some of the photos (i.e. those with blacks in subservient positions or white people hamming it up in pith helmets) have been taken down. Here’s a link to the “cleaned-up” cache-page since the page has been deleted. Luckily for us screen shots of the pictures exist. And the venue still has pictures of guests in pith helmets play acting shoot outs on its website. (see some of the pictures below).
Of course, not surprisingly, some white South Africans are defending the couple. Although one commenter to the Jezebel post did write the truth: “Most white folks’ weddings in [South Africa] are colonial not by design, but by default.”
Which is why we’re surprised so few are asking–as RK points out in a comment on this post below–what makes venues like the Cow Shed (where the wedding was held and events company Pollination, think it is okay to throw colonial/Apartheid throwback weddings for white South African and European couples. The Cow Shed has since issued a lame press statement to still defend its decision to host the party.
At least they can’t blame Julius Malema for this.
Above and below are some of the offensive photos. Then following the photos, at the bottom end of this post, see commentary from Neelika.
The Restaurant Manager
If you missed this: Lilian Thuram, the former footballer who won a World Cup medal with France in 1998 and sometimes philosopher, was in Brussels last week to promote his anti-racism campaign. While having lunch at a restaurant, the staff there told him that the toilets were “reserved for clients.” The manager David Martin is quoted as saying it is all a “misunderstanding,” and “… we didn’t know he was a client and I admit I didn’t recognise him. There was no wilful discrimination.”
Martin has offered his apologies: “I also told him I would love to cook for him. But (Thuram) didn’t want to stay. I really regret I am being accused of racism. I grew up among Algerians in this neigborhood and I have two blacks and a Morrocan guy working in my kitchen.”
It’s Time To Be Offended
If the murder of Andries Tatane is a watershed moment in public perceptions of state violence after Apartheid, it is also teaching us a thing or two about South Africa’s media.
Had this police murder happened in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya, we would probably all be glued to our TV screens, praising the BBC or Al-Jazeera for their coverage in bringing images that brought home the extent of the oppression in those countries and the bravery of protesters.
What do we do in South Africa?
‘An All Dutch Affair’
The Dutch could not win the World Cup (of football) so now they’re trying to ensure they win something. By changing the rules. The organizers of this year’s Utrecht Marathon has decided that while foreign, especially African, athletes can participate in the race, they can’t win any of the prize money on offer for the winners. The reason: the Dutch are tired of foreigners winning the race.
Serious.
