Lupita Nyong'o's performance in 12 Years a Slave was transcendent. The humble grace of her acceptance speech and honoring of those ancestors who are lost, but still with us, from the killing fields of white on black chattel slavery, to the "post racial" present, was an act of gracious humility, class, intelligence, and generosity.
Lupita Nyong'o removed the "I" and the self from her wondrous sharing of thoughts and ideas and emotions that came with her winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Matthew McConaughey did the opposite when he was awarded the Oscar for Best Actor. He offered up a vainglorious speech that was a tribute to self-motivating, self-fulfilling, and self-praised ego. I am not criticizing Matthew McConaughey; I am making a basic observation.
I am very concerned about the present state of black respectability politics. The title of this project--We Are Respectable Negroes--is a naked tell in that regard.
I have this concern not just because of an unapologetic love of black people in America. Black respectability, and its various tones, hues, challenges, and travails, are a barometer for American political and social life. My concern about African-Americans in this regard is an act of patriotism.
What are black Americans if not a people who love a country that more often than not does not love us back?
I will proceed carefully.
Parrhesia ought not to be a phrase to sound cool with at the bar or riding on the bus with the knowledge that others are listening. Parrhesia is a life principle.
There are many millions of ways to be "black" in America and across the Black Atlantic. Blackness, to borrow from the late and incisively brilliant Stuart Hall, is many things. It is beautiful, ugly, smart, stupid, grotesque, inspiring, awesome, humble, grand, insecure, libidinous, chaste, anxiety filled, confident, mean, and kind.
As human beings, stereotyped, commodified, and often misrepresented, black people are many things. None of these things are simple.
Moreover, blackness takes on many forms when we openly discuss and acknowledge how people of color, and the Other more generally, often do not see themselves with their own eyes. Rather, the power of The Gaze is real. It hampers how too many of us understand the limits and boundaries of our own humanity.
As I watched Lupita Nyong'o speak at the Oscars, and then reviewed her beautiful words at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon, I could not resist the comparison between her manner, intelligence, and grace with the grotesque way that black womanhood is often represented by and through the mainstream mass media.
My claim is not that women (or any other group) are accurately represented by a medium that is prefaced on a "mediated" reality, what is a stand-in for real people and their/our experiences and humanity. However, the historically laden, potent, and particular intersections of blackness and gender cannot be eschewed in favor of some flattened and catchall protest at something vaguely and often imprecisely identified as "misogyny".
There are many ways to be black and female. Lupita Nyong'o is the exception to the exception to the exception ad infinitum. Lupita Nyong'o is a star. By definition, her star persona is a product and a performance, one that hopefully, will continue to receive many opportunities to blossom and grow.
I am interested in the energy she exhibited via the persona channeled at the Oscars.
In too many homes and neighborhoods (across the colorline) Lupita Nyong'o's poise, intelligence, and grace would be considered inauthentic, weak, selling out, or "acting white". Some of these reactions are a function of how in a harsh and mean world such traits are considered signs of vulnerability which signal that one can and should be taken advantage of.
In many communities, such a calculus is the norm and a necessary survival strategy.
Such logic masculinizes some black (and other) women in the worst way possible as it robs them of the best of what it means to be feminine.
How can we in the black American community raise and encourage a model of black womanhood and femininity among the ghetto underclass that is closer to Lupita Nyong'o than the disposable street authentic "strong" black women who are nightmare caricatures better suited to the worst examples of carnivalesque and burlesque negritude as seen in commercial rap videos and elsewhere?
And is it possible that Lupita Nyong'o can become a role-model for graceful intelligence and wit for all young women...and perhaps how such habitus can become an idealized type?
13 comments:
From my personal experience during elementary school I remember feeling a sense of shame for being the poor child of a broken home. Whether it was internalized or said directly to me or both I don't recall, but I do recall it not being cool to have a mother who was on crack. Nor was it cool to have to wipe myself with newspaper because we had no toilet paper, or to wash our clothes in the bathtub and dry them on the oven. As I got older I made more school friends, and eventually we visited each others homes. What I, what we all began to realize was that there were more poor kids from broken homes than we thought. So much so that it was comforting to say "hey man I didn't know your mama was a crack head, mine is too?" All of the sudden the kids from broken homes outnumbered the kids from "good" two parent homes. Suddenly the things that marked us as broken became a badge of honor, because we had power in numbers, and making fun of one down on his luck kid was making fun of us all. Anyone who shared tales of struggle in the hood was embraced, while anyone who could not identify was treated with hostility, because they were seen as a part of the group that made fun of us for not being "normal". Now you had black kids from middle class, two parent homes making god awful decisions to fit in at the top of the inverted hierarchy.I suppose this is where the whole "acting white" mentality came from. It's being anti-anything that smells of the dominant culture that looks down on poor people of color.
Is it possible for some of us to stop celebrating the terrible decisions that were handed to us, to stop purposefully making new ones so as to not alienate ourselves? I believe it is. But, it would have to come from learning how to hold our heads up high in spite of our rough circumstances not because of them. To embrace brothers of all walks of life, not just the ones who hurt like you for fear of being ridiculed by the ones without matching wounds.
How can we in the black American community raise and encourage a model of black womanhood and femininity among the ghetto underclass that is closer to Lupita Nyong'o than the disposable street authentic "strong" black women who are nightmare caricatures better suited to the worst examples of carnivalesque and burlesque negritude at the intersection of the commercial hip hop imaginary and the prison industrial complex?
rotflmbao...., http://youtu.be/a88Z7YOh_us
We can't even get black football players from hurling racial slurs at each other in anger or as part of shared in-group status. And some appear to be angry about the possibility of being asked to stop. So no, people want to act like they act and consume the cultural products which they do. To change that would take centuries. It's not impossible but it is extremely difficult and won't happen in my life.
For me? Us? Or everyone?
Micro-politics brother. I think you are right in terms of a the broader culture industry. But, I do have hope that the silent majority will do something, they have too me thinks, in order to stop the conflation of ghetto negritude with blackness.
Powerful sharing. I always try to clarify. For me this isn't about money. I don't come from it. My grandmother and mother lived at times in public housing. I was taught that class was something from the inside out. You can be materially "poor" but that has nothing to do with how you behave or value yourself. Is that easy? Hell no.
This was provocative:
"Now you had black kids from middle class, two parent homes making god awful decisions to fit in at the top of the inverted hierarchy."
Slumming? Or some type of inverted incentive structure for "street" credibility?
"In too many homes and neighborhoods (across the colorline) Lupita Nyong'o's poise, intelligence, and grace would be considered inauthentic, weak, selling out, or "acting white". Some of these reactions are a function of how in a harsh and mean world such traits are considered signs of vulnerability which signal that onecan and should be taken advantage of.
In many communities, such a calculus is the norm and a necessary survival strategy.
Such logic masculinizes some black (and other) women in the worst way possible as it robs them of the best of what it means to be feminine."
I had a conversation with a friend about this. To me it seems that white supremacy still manages to be a part of even this conversation, to them it was a form of anti white racism.
I am very thankful that I got the black single mother who understood class and the value of education. I saw you mentioned below class being inside out. Got that lesson, too. I was also surrounded by elders who expected a certain level of behavior and poise. As a kid, the strictness of it all got pretty old. But it was the best gift in now I can communicate and get along with people from all walks of life.
Except the ghetto underclass.
The rest of us will be here, when they're ready to abide by the social contract. There's a reason only ghetto people think acting ghetto is cool.
such harsh judgement towards a group of people who dont know anything better
The first step would be to stop watching VH-1. The truly sad thing is that there really isn't any kind of interest or audience for dignity or intelligence in entertainment involving black women, for the most part.
Lupita Nyong'o is absolutely stunningly beautiful. She carried herself with such grace and poise on Oscar night. Her acceptance speech was humble, eloquent and inspiring. Maybe too inspiring. After all, she is the exception to the exception to the exception. Not everyone's dreams are going to come true. Not even close.
Could she be a role model for all young women? Certainly. But ghetto culture is not the problem. The real problem is poverty cause by systemic and institutional racism. US imperialism has to justify to white Americans that the people they conquer and subjugate deserve to be conquered and subjugated. (White) American exceptionalism - that's the big lie. Under our current system, many POC will not be given the chance to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and succeed in the American dream which is getting harder and harder to achieve.
The US is setting its sights on Africa. Africa has tremendous resources and US corporations would like to secure them for themselves. Note that Europeans settled South Africa but were not able to settle tropical Africa. They tried and failed. Global hegemony and racism are inexorably tied together.
Re: How can we in the black American community raise and encourage a model
of black womanhood and femininity among the ghetto underclass that is
closer to Lupita Nyong'o than the disposable street authentic "strong"
black women who are nightmare caricatures better suited to the worst
examples of carnivalesque and burlesque negritude as seen in commercial
rap videos and elsewhere?
Raise our girls to respect themselves. Then if the people in their lives (especially those in close relationships) don't show them respect, they will know how to handle the situation properly.
internalized oppression, internalized racism. white supremacy infects everything.
as someone from the white underclass, this is something I think of as a theme in America, there is this fine balance, a very narrow line between 'slumming' to be cool and making the grade to be successful. I largely think the anti academic aspects of our society are responsible for this as well as the idea of living life through by what defines good and bad experiences in our lives.
As a child I was encouraged to make the grade from adults in my life, but my peers were heavy on making fun of the academic crowd. Then you have the party aspect of American life, everything is about the party, e.g. the movie American Pie. Walking that tightrope, people plunge, and our vices are addictive, alcohol, drugs, sex.
Not rambling. Good points. By color line I meant both among black folks and all Americans--that was some imprecise writing on my part. Precious is pathology porn. It is also something else in terms of genre that I will leave film types to figure out. Tyler Perry makes money. Simple model. Steve McQueen makes challenging films. What does the public want to see?
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