It’s finally Friday, and that means another edition of my bi-weekly video review!
Comment and rate it, even if you hate it!
“Racism (and Misogyny) in the Elevator” video:
It’s finally Friday, and that means another edition of my bi-weekly video review!
Comment and rate it, even if you hate it!
“Racism (and Misogyny) in the Elevator” video:
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31 comments
I agree with you that the "Racism in the Elevator" video may be counter-productive (at least in the short run). However, I think it's greatest asset is that it's completely honest. If we're going to have the dialogue that is to bring about the end of racism and misogyny, it MUST begin with honesty and openness. Anything that gets people talking honestly about the subject (even if we find it distasteful and offensive) will help move us in the right direction.
Posted by Javier
December 19, 2008, 1:29 PM
I didn't pick up on the anti-white woman vibe there but I was disturbed by just how violent the guy was being. I do think there is a legitimate social commentary on racism there, but it is tainted by the misogyny. I liked it, but I like it a lot less now that that aspect is pointed out to me.
On a personal note, I am beginning to see just how pervasive misogyny is in our society but I'm still having problems identifying it for what it is. Thankfully I have great resources like you Jenna and Shameless, as well as other sites like Feministing to help me along the path :) Please bear with me on my journey.
Posted by Beatmop
December 19, 2008, 2:54 PM
i wish the video cut off at 2:18. i'm not with you on "it encourages more fear toward black men." if anything, i think you're pathologizing black misogyny. i know that's not your intention, but people have this nasty habit of calling out something in the "other" community that exists in their own community too (for example, railing about misogyny in hip hop without batting an eye at the rolling stones). granted, i take issue with the use of the word "bitch" in this video -- it's problematic. however, i don't find it threatening in the least. and to call out black men as scary or threatening to white women is really the last thing the world needs. seriously. i don't see how your logic tracks at all on that front. i mean, statistically, you are much more likely to be victimized by someone of your own race than someone outside your race. and that's just personal injury. want to talk about injury to your rights? thing of, for example, the anti-choice movement. know who runs it? white guys.
i'm sorry, but the last twenty seconds of this video just KILLED IT for me. i was with you on calling out misogyny, way to go, but damn "it drips with contempt, and even hatred for white women." i don't know exactly what you are trying to say, but i think your choice of language is irresponsible. we don't need people worrying that a big black man is trying to hurt the innocent white girl.
anyway, you invited callbacks on shit. i invite the same.
Posted by cate
December 19, 2008, 2:54 PM
Cate - Thanks for your response. I meant from my own perspective and I'm tabling my personal feelings. I would love to pretend I don't sometimes feel unease when I am walking down the street alone and I cross a group of black men. I do. I have an image in my head about black masculinity that I am trying to deal with and overcome
Watching the video I cited made me feel unsafe and hated. It is encouraging more fear from me personally.
I agree that singling black men out is problematic, because never in my prior posts have I said "white men" to describe a group although in my mind it was implied. This isn't to excuse that and only raises more issues of privilege and visibility to my attention.
I also feel a lot of people would agree with you Cate, that "to call out black men as scary or threatening to white women is really the last thing the world needs." However, I'm sick of this idea that because I am a white woman my voice somehow automatically loses legitimacy on subjects of race relations and that black men don't have their own responsibility in representing themselves.
Posted by Jenna
December 19, 2008, 3:38 PM
I'm not sure the point that people tend to point out misogyny in "other communities" rather than "their own" is relevant here, in the sense that we're talking about a particular ad that attempts to make a point about how racism affects white women (privileges) and black men (oppresses) and whether the strategy that this particular ad engages in is useful, and where it goes wrong. The point of Jenna looking at the video is to see if it is successful in its anti-racist message-- not to hate on black communities.
I completely understand the man's anger in the video -- he lives in a racist world that commits injustices against him everyday, but I do think the violence/misogyny that comes across in his speech is highly problematic, and questionable as strategy -- it's not just about the use of the word "bitch," but the context as well. does the video point out how on simple levels racist injustices occur and build and add up to making people feel righteously angry and frustrated? yes. does it shift that racist social script that has helped maintain white supremacy in the US of "white women need to fear angry and violent black men"? or does it reinforce it, rescribe it? I'll need to think about this point more because I'm not sure it does.
the fact is the logic of white supremacy constantly tells us to fear black men (although I'm not sure if they tell us to fear light-skinned black men in three piece suits, a character choice i find interesting), and the fact that the narrator in the video engages in violent language towards a white woman is something to explore. Maybe it is successful at disrupting the discourse, maybe it is not. But let's talk about it-- and respect the ability of people on this board, no matter how they are positioned, to engage in critical discussion about these issues.
Posted by Sheetal
December 19, 2008, 3:47 PM
What's with the disdain towards black men in particular? Where is that coming from?
Posted by Jessica Yee
December 19, 2008, 3:53 PM
Jessica - well I'll table my feelings more about this. After watching the elevator video it got me really upset and it reminded me of an experience I had at a party once. Since I had already chosen to critique the film "White Chicks" (which I think is hilarious by the way) I incorporated the other video as well.
Basically, I went to a party with friends and one of them brought their brother (a black male). Me and this guy had fun chemistry for a while and riled each other up - but then it went too far and he would use some sexist insults towards me, including bitch. This really offended me and he just made a mockery of that.
Eventually, my Women's Studies degree came up and all the guys - white ones too -- were looking down their noses at it. Afterwards the N-word somehow came up as being entirely off limits. I didn't use it - i just remember that issues of race/white supremacy appeared to be accepted as more legitimate and this guy who worked for what I believe a Carribean assocation felt completely comfortable supporting his cause while denigrating issues of gender and sex.
Why did I say I sometimes have fear for black men? A black man has not been more physically violent towards me than any other white man, so I must have learned it another way. It's most likely from poor media representation and other learned racist assumptions.
My point in criticizing the video the way I did is that I believe the spoof is targeting attitudes held by me and people like me. It's great that maybe other people are laughing and feeling validated by it as a form of expression, but I think it misses the mark in changing the minds of people who need them changed.
Posted by Jenna
December 19, 2008, 4:17 PM
Carole Stabile has a really excellent book called "White Victims, Black Villains" that traces how news media works to criminalize black men, especially with reference to crimes against white women, and how this social and political construction goes as far back as anti-abolitionist sentiments in the 19th century, if not even earlier.
It's a must-read if you want to get to the root of societal anxieties surrounding black men and white women.
Posted by Anna
December 19, 2008, 4:29 PM
Oops, sorry, that's Carol not Carole.
Posted by Anna
December 19, 2008, 4:32 PM
I'm going to go a little larger-picture here, and look at the roots of colonization (as I usually do).
I'm just wondering where people think the institutions of misogyny came from? I certainly know how my community learned it.
We are currently living in a world that favours White success and White ownership over everything. Internalized oppression, like your "learned racist behaviours" exists in communities of colour as well.
And I have to agree with Cate that people come up pointing fingers at other communities forms of misogyny, without critically looking at their own, is definitely relevant. Sometimes we pedastool people, issues, and things without realizing it, or recognize what we are representing when we call shit out.
Was Jenna's take on the video ever not going to be bias? She's a White woman admitting her privilege, so no. Was it going to be equitable? I don't personally think it was, but she's admitting her experience dictated what she said. I appreciate that honesty.
But we also have to understand the roots and generations of things that have been pent up inside us, so we can understand a little bit about why we exist the way we do .
Posted by Jessica Yee
December 19, 2008, 4:48 PM
Jenna, on this:
I also feel a lot of people would agree with you Cate, that "to call out black men as scary or threatening to white women is really the last thing the world needs." However, I'm sick of this idea that because I am a white woman my voice somehow automatically loses legitimacy on subjects of race relations and that black men don't have their own responsibility in representing themselves.
Well, I'm a white woman too. I don't think it's about your race. I just think it's about owning your context. "Black men as a threat to white women" has been around since we invented the concept of blackness. And the sheer number of black men that have been lynched for "disrespecting" or "threatening" a white woman makes this an intensely loaded discussion. I'm not saying your views are illegitimate, but you are opening a vicious can of worms in this discussion. Historically, black men have much more reason to fear harm from white women (or their protectors) than vice versa.
About your discomfort seeing groups of black men... yeah, that's just upbringing. I grew up in pathological whiteness. Then I moved to New York, and then a few years later, New Orleans. A good percentage of my friends, and a number of men that I've dated, are black. Living in a dangerous, poor city with a high black population just helped me to figure out what the REAL clues are of danger. I'm not afraid of black people: I'm afraid of crack heads, and teenage kids. A working man has no reason to mess with me. I see someone walking around the French Quarter in chef pants, what do I care? He's got no reason to mess with me. No fear.
Perhaps it's just my bias, but I think the world would be a much better place if people smiled more at black boys. One of the guys I dated talked about having to smile in public (when I was talking about ownership of women's bodies and how men would tell me to "smile!") so that he wouldn't be perceived as threatening. And I tried to imagine the psychic toll it would take on a person to be constantly under surveillance, to be viewed as "scary." I may walk around and look like a "mark" or "victim," but at least I know that I'm not "bad." And if I call the police, they'll come, and they won't beat me.
That's all I can unpack right now. More when my brain functions again.
Posted by cate
December 19, 2008, 5:40 PM
okay, I figured out the other thing that was bothering me. You see, the sexism is pervasive, like air. His usage of the word "bitch" is extremely casual. I think that's just the nature of sexism, honestly. It's been around a lot longer than racism (because things like "blackness" didn't really exist more than, say, 500 years ago), and is, in a sense, more personal. Negotiating gender is something that everyone does, whereas privileged white people (like me!) can avoid dealing with racism in most of their lives.
Okay, so back to my point... His use of "bitch" is casual, shorthand. And he is calling this woman out for her racist actions. But he is not calling her out for her womanhood. He's calling her a bitch because he's angry, which is wrong, but he is not attacking either her femaleness or her whiteness. He is attacking her racism. Now, he does resort to ad hominem attacks (stupid white bitch), but there is a difference in how loaded terms are. I don't think any "out-group" person should use an "in-group" term (i.e. I say bitch, cunt, slut, and whore, but if you're not female-identified, you probably shouldnt)... however, I think there's a difference between bitch and n*gger. They're both off the table, but I do think that n*gger is more loaded. Perhaps that's just because I see specific crimes tied to that word, and the nature of crimes against women is that they are, generally, private and shunted. Perhaps it's just a personal failing on my part.
My point is that, unfortunately, due to the pervasive sexism in our culture, I think people use "bitch" without as much thought as they use n*gger. And therefore it is less loaded, although not rightfully.
So my point, circling back, is that while he calls her a bitch, I don't think he's attacking her for being a white woman, which is why I think positing this as black men vs. white women is the absolute wrong thing to do. It's just misogyny (which happens to take place in an anti-racist message).
Posted by cate
December 19, 2008, 6:58 PM
Cate - I'm not trying to conclude that every white woman shares my viewpoints on the basis of sex and skin colour. My point is that because I am calling someone of colour out on their offensive behaviour towards me I feel that racism is trumping sexism instead of forms of oppression being viewed as intertwining and more complex than that.
I do agree that the black male/white woman relationship is very contentious and has a horrible history rooted in white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy and I'm not about to downplay that. I'm also not going to overlook how I only called out black men and not white men in this particular video nor Jessica's insightful comments on the effects of colonization by white folks.
I agree with you saying that bitch is more accepted while the N-word is not, but I don't think that gives men a free pass in using the word bitch. The word has its own history associated with women as property and violence against us sexually or otherwise. I feel its really faulty logic to say that because the word bitch is so pervasive and its roots in sexism are not taken seriously that we shouldn't hold it against someone who employs it. I feel like that calls for further investigation into why it is viewed as soo ok for them to do so.
I also don't understand how you could say the video isn't targeting white women - if you watch it again you'll see it is explicitly about how "every 45 minutes a black man enters and elevator and some stupid white bitch clutches her purse for her dear life."
Maybe I could have done a better job in presenting this; however, I'm a little disappointed in the direction the discussion has gone in some respects, like it's become a battle of oppressions.
Posted by Jenna
December 19, 2008, 7:39 PM
I think what most people have feared for millenia is people who are different from themselves. This means that sometimes people who are male-identified fear people who are female-identified and vice-versa. This also means that even long before there was such a thing as race, people who came from different cultures or had different ways of being, or even (gasp!) different physiognomies - had the choice to either learn more about each other or fear the shit out of each other.
Fear of the other, mixed with curiosity and desire, mixed with flat out power hungry shittiness formed the basis for the rampant exploitation and hate that was colonialism, and I think we are all still recovering (being post-colonial whatever that means) and trying to learn new ways to learn from and love one another.
Jenna I admire your honesty in coming out and saying that this short made you feel attacked, but I think that was the intention, to make white women, or maybe women of privilege, since I am damn sure it's not only white chicks that have been conditioned to fear black men, feel the same sense of not being seen as a person but only as a stereotype. Stereotypes whether racist or misogynist are mean and hurtful, and in this case the juxtaposition of two hurtful stereotypes served to make a point.
I personally cannot stand to hear the words dumb and bitch in the same sentence it makes my skin crawl. The addition of the word white really didn't change much, "dumb bitch" is all I need to hear to know - "Oh someone is trying to dismiss me, and treat me like dirt." But like I said, I think that was the point.
Posted by Mir
December 19, 2008, 11:26 PM
Cate in regards to your comment
"He's calling her a bitch because he's angry, which is wrong, but he is not attacking either her femaleness or her whiteness."
EVERYTIME IM CALLED A BITCH AND I CAN GUARANTEE EVERYTIME UR CALLED A BITCH ITS CUZ UR A FEMALE. AND UR ALSO WHITE. AND YOU CANT SEPERATE RACE FROM GENDER OR GENDER FROM RACE. So yeah that guy in the alleyway, in the back of a honda civic, at the bar, and IN THE ELEVATOR who was callling you or me or anyone else a bitch was doing so BECAUSE your a woman (of whatever race).
Your quote is equivalent to saying "Hes calling him "the N word" because hes angry, which is wrong but he is not attacking either his blackness or his maleness."
Sorry i hate oppression olympic politics and try not to engage in it but since that seems to be the direction of the language of this post I have attempted to us it.
Posted by Rocky
December 20, 2008, 1:34 AM
Also AT NO POINT in her video did jenna ever say or insinuate that white men are NOT guilty of misogyny. I have followed Jenna's posts for a long time and MOST of them are focused on critiquing White men's and all mens misogyny.
So when ppl say that jenna misses calling out misogyny in "her own community" she DOESNT. It this post however she is discussing the misogyny of black men against women when they are addressing issues of racism and how ineffective and oppressing this tactic is.
More over and more importantly this post is missing the point of Jennas comments which could lead to a very productive, effective, anti-oppression building discourse....that "USING ONE FORM OF OPPRESSION TO CRITIQUE ANOTHER IS NOT EFFECTIVE" (i think thats her point) and doing this probably does more harm then good.
And just so you know I also sleep with black men. I thought I should mention that just cuz judging by this convo thats an important fact for you to know so you can judge how legitimate my comments are/ can be. However Ill let my own race/ethnicity remain a mystery. So that way you can attack my argument and NOT my identity.
Posted by Rocky
December 20, 2008, 1:46 AM
from sheetal, above: "I'm not sure the point that people tend to point out misogyny in "other communities" rather than "their own" is relevant here, in the sense that we're talking about a particular ad that attempts to make a point about how racism affects white women (privileges) and black men (oppresses) and whether the strategy that this particular ad engages in is useful, and where it goes wrong. The point of Jenna looking at the video is to see if it is successful in its anti-racist message-- not to hate on black communities."
totally. not only is the "misogyny in other communities" thing not relevant to this discussion, but misogyny in "those" communities cannot be separated from misogyny in "these" (white? middle-class?) communities. there's A LOT going on here (which some people, such as anna, have touched on), like histories of white crises of masculinity that imbued black male bodies with an almost mythical abundance of masculinity (the source of their 'violence' and 'aggression') which in turn positioned white female bodies as special vessels of whiteness, and therefore particularly feminine, helpless, and in need of white male protection (gail bederman has an amazing book about this, including a fascinating chapter about joe louis' relationships w/ white chicks in the 1930s. check it). but i have to say, the discussion thus far's been disappointing. this post opened an opportunity to have some important conversations about intersections of race and gender constructions, which might be uncomfortable, but which are totally worth having. instead it feels like we're reliving the democratic presidential nomination race.
is anyone else is a bit dumbstruck at how this convo has gotten to this bizarre/futile point where people are *defending* threats to beat women, and standing up for using of the word "bitch" by a man to VIOLENTLY DEMEAN someone? are we going to start etching out special rules where that's ok? can working-class palestinian women call black men the N-word cuz their oppressions cancel each other out?
so ya, i COMPLETELY DISAGREE w/ people who think that elevator video was successful at critiquing white privilege. unless you think the formula, "demonstrate the heinousness of one oppression by employing the language of another" is awesome. ya, that's way eye-opening. thanks, three-piece-suit guy. your anger (however justified) manifest as hateful, misogynistic violence really gave me pause.
Posted by sarah g
December 20, 2008, 1:12 PM
I just wanted to say that I find it really offensive that people are still defending that video. I really appreciate the posts of those who are saying that one form of oppression doesn’t cancel another one out, because are we really still there? Using this liberal single-axle approach to oppression is completely alienating an inaccurate.
Some of the language from the commenters above seems to be really, really quick to recognize my biases without recognizing their own. I know I’m a white chick and if you watch my videos I talk from a personal (Jenna) perspective in all of them. Others have the luxury of hiding behind their bodiless words and can even pretend that while they choose their subjects to post about that they are somehow “objective.”
I think some people’s responses overlook the dynamic I’m interrogating and then use it as a starting point to bring up their own personal issues and experience with oppression while others are all to quick to say: “EXTRA EXTRA! RACISM TRUMPS SEX, NO ISSUES OF CLASS, NO INTERCONECTEDNESS, NO NUANCE.”
I think there is a lot of cherry picking going on when it comes to determining whose voices are valid and what the false hierarchy is in discussing oppressions. I think a lot of it is being used as a smoke screen to avoid digging deeper because I’ll be honest here, I feel like people are talking to me like I’m this simple-minded and unworthy privileged white girl.
I have called out white men before on this blog – my only regret is not using the signifier “white” immediately before men when doing so. Expressing my disgust at a video where a privileged black man in a three-piece suit uses violent language towards a white woman is justified and it makes me feel sick that few people are actually willing to go into this into THIS further. Misogyny started from somewhere – but where it now and why are so many of you so quick to de-legitimize me? Maybe don’t answer that because I am really disappointed with what’s been going on and don’t really feel like I want to hear any more condescension.
I’m not the only one that needs to do some personal work, regardless of skin colour
Posted by Jenna
December 20, 2008, 2:29 PM
I'm not going to get into uncivilized discourse, so I'm just going to quickly say this:
Jenna-
it was not my attempt to de-legitimize, i was only pointing out something in your video that i found problematic, much like you were doing. i agreed with the overall message of your video, but i disagreed slightly with some of your language choices. that's all it is. i wasn't trying to be condescending, i was grappling. something about what you said was bothering me, and i was trying to figure out what it was.
Posted by cate
December 21, 2008, 2:24 AM
I would just like to add that what is going on here is very similar to how we feel as women of colour trying to play the intersectionality game and make sure that white folks, or those walking/living/breathing with white privilege get it.
It's exhausting, it's frustrating, and it's scary. And I'm quite hesitant to say that there are more spaces where our issues as women of colour are being adequately brought forward, as opposed to everyone jumping all over the gender card first and then, oh right! adding race in too. Just look at the amount of blogs/websites that specifically exist out there by and for feminists of colour. Your search results will come up rather short. (oh sure, we might have the ones where a few people of colour write in them, but let's not lie to ourselves and say that White women's issues are still not reigning).
So I'm not going to pretend like I have the patience or time to rescue everyone else's issues when I have to focus on defending my own in every space that I enter. I can't always empathize with sexism and White women, because frankly, it's not the same thing, and what's happening to the women in my own community is pretty fucked up. I'm supposed to care about all women's shit because I'm a woman? Y'all aren't doing that for me or my sisters!
I think understanding the "oppression olympics" game and whether or not you are a participant has a lot to do with how you place yourself. And if you are going to get into a discussion about other races, sexualities, and anything where you yourself are not a member of said community, you need to. Am I a woman first and then Native? Nope, not at all. I can't separate myself from my race, my culture, or my community. I wouldn't want to anyways.
I myself fear White men the most, and with good reason. And it's really too bad we forget where a lot of misogyny is rooted in.
Posted by Jessica Yee
December 21, 2008, 4:37 PM
oh man, i hear ya on the fearing white men the most thing (esp privileged frat boys after they've been drinking -- call me harsh, but i think they should be listed as public enemies and hunted down like dogs... but maybe that's just me). which makes jenna's self-awareness about the irrationality of fearing black men, even though she's experienced more danger/harassment at the hands of white men, all the more interesting and complex...
i have to say, though, that the analytical tools of intersectionality are not a game to me, and one category of identification does not come 'before' or 'after' the other (egyptian vs. woman vs. sexuality, etc.). my personal and collective history, and my lived experiences are shaped by all of these factors and spaces colliding, and this in turn informs my thought-processes and activism. for instance, i feel strongly about my egyptian community (as copts, an oppressed minority w/in an oppressed minority), but i also seek refuge from the misogyny i experience both from mainstream (north american) culture and 'closer to home' (even from members of my own family) in my feminist community, which happens to consist of mainly queer women and of WoC (and both). i also recognize that we participate in transnational systems as both colonized (back in egypt) and colonizer (as part of the canadian diaspora)... obviously, this may not be the case for everyone who identifies as a woman of colour, but i just want to put out there that thinking through an intersectional 'lens' has given me a lot of insights as well strategies for forming modes of resistance and solidarity.
BUT... back to the video, again, as i understand it, 'shameless' (the mag, as well as the blog) is all about critiquing, engaging, and challenging media, and i saw this post as a chance to critique a piece of media (the elevator video), which, i maintain, FAILED with flying colours. i don't think anyone here would put "problems affecting purse-clutching privileged white women" at the top of their priority list, but it remains that the (violently misogynistic) technique/language used to address white privilege in this video was NOT effective, for reasons explained above in posts by sheetal, rocky, and myself.
Posted by sarah g
December 22, 2008, 1:22 PM
We live within complex systems marked by white supremacy. Issues being taken up from dominant race/gender/class/sexual identity perspectives will reign in feminist spaces until we can shift the discourse. The discourse will not shift if we, as feminist/anti-racist/anti-oppression/queer/progressive activists are uncritical (for example, making allowances for the elevator video as if its unsuccessful anti-racist ends justified its problematic means), or create a space that is stabilized into categories like Women of Colour/white women that determine legitimacy based on particular bodies full stop rather than bodies and ideas and responsibility.
What I mean to say, is that the discussion on this page has simplified complex struggles, histories and the interconnectedness of issues and discourses and narratives. This discussion has created a division amongst people who are supposed to be working towards common liberatory ends for all people, a divide that isn't necessarily as clear cut as it has been made to seem.
As if women of colour aren't a diverse, complex, nebulous group who (experience and) are complicit in different types of gender, sexual, racial and class oppressions, racisms and colonizations too. I think Sarah demonstrates this above with a description of her own experience.
Whose interest does it serve to dismiss white feminists (particularly those who recognize their privilege and who have some awareness of how oppressive systems work together) who try to include "race" in their interrogation of issues, as illegitimate simply for being "not a Woman of Colour"?
What about people who mean well (my experience with many white, liberal feminist women and brown sisters too), but just don't know or have the critical tools (they are ignorant, rather than willfully blind)? What is the use in alienating them, or thinking the worst of them rather than engaging with them or asking them to go read a favourite book that explains? What about loving critique without condescension? What about righteous anger directed at systems and actors like stephen harper and barbara kay, not those who are able and desiring to be on side?
This is not to say that "WOC" hold all the knowledge and power in these encounters, but that we should speak to our experiences, without being closed off to the experiences of others, or the fact that we might need to rethink our own ideas too.
Posted by Sheetal
December 22, 2008, 2:25 PM
Sheetal, I don't see anyone on this page dismissing Jenna's point of view just because she's white.
Cate (that is, the Cate who has been posting so far) made the point that we need to address issues within our own communities first. But I don't think that means that if you're a white woman you can't discuss sexism that comes from black men. It just means you can't *only* do that, without also addressing sexism perpetuated by other white people. And, as Jessica says above, discussions of sexism have to be considered in their historical context.
Posted by Cate Simpson
December 22, 2008, 3:24 PM
#1 - I think this conversation has been working--implicity and explicitly--to delegitimize Jenna's reading of/ability to read the elevator video
#2 - Check out what Sarah says above regarding "our" and "their" communities (around comment 17 on this page); also, you can see what I say about it above as well (around comment 5)
#3 - both my earlier comments are coming from an explicit (or so I thought) concern for a complex approach to context and histories, so I'm surprised if it sounds like I'm not aware of the historical and contextual dimensions to oppressive dynamics
Posted by Sheetal
December 22, 2008, 5:13 PM
This discussion has gone some distance, I think, from Jenna's original points, and although I think the comments and discussion is very important to have, I do think it has come a bit at Jenna's expense.
Perhaps I am reading things differently than the rest of everyone here, but I never had the impression that Jenna was saying that this video just served as some sort of proof to the detrimental and unfortunately pervasive stereotype that black men are threatening to white women; I thought that what Jenna was saying was that that stereotype needs to be dismantled in a way that doesn't employ the very tools of sexism that it proposes to deconstruct. Jenna's comment about reinforcing racist notions of black male violence, I thought, was a response to the very specific and detailed expression of desire by the man in the ad to commit violence against the woman, not a reflection of Jenna's own opinion of black men or a suggestion of pathological violence among black men.
Personally I found that ad, as Sarah G and others have noted, a complete failure. While the anger is justified, the expression of that anger through threats of violence and name calling is not. Beyond what that says about black men or white women, the ad itself fails to address the institutions and structures that provoke the fear response between black men and white women, instead opting to single out the woman as a "stupid bitch" who is just too dumb to realize that racism is bad. Women who react without provocation with fear to black men are clearly exhibiting a racist response, but calling them bitches only individualises what is a larger social and cultural phenomenon and thus, in my mind, fails to adequately address the issue. Plus, I agree with Jenna that it reinforces animosity between two supposedly separate groups who may find more effective strategies for fighting oppression by recognizing where their struggles are alike and where they intersect.
Posted by stark
December 23, 2008, 7:18 PM
Jenna - your video is problematic for a number of reasons. First - there is no historical context at all within it. It's easy to 'deconstruct' society's view of black men without taking into context the years of colonization that have decimated the black family. Someone very rightly commented on the fear black men have had historically of white women because of power and privilege. It's interesting that as a white woman, that claims to have addressed some of her privilege none of that was mentioned in your video.
You state in your video that in white chicks, it is shown that Caucasian women benefit from privilege in a way black men don't. How has history shown otherwise? As far as I'm concerned, Yes. Without question that is true.
It is easy to separate race and gender when you are only speaking from one particular perspective. It's particularly easy to separate gender as something more fundamentally important when you are not also living as a woman of color.
I think the most problematic thing about this entire video blog is there doesn't seem to be a conscious deconstruction regarding power and privilege. Instead there is a lot of finger pointing at a particular demographic that seems born of stereotypes. Maybe there needs to be more evaluation of personal biases and stereotypes, and an online video blog that deals with personal power and privilege before we can go on with this discussion.
Posted by Hawa
December 29, 2008, 12:47 AM
Hey Hawa, thanks for sharing your perspective. I really do appreciate it because I read all my comments and take them to heart. My entire video blog is a learning experience for me, so I'll really glad I can be honest and receive honest feedback in return.
A minor correction is that I said, "Caucasian women benefit from a white social privilege in a way Black men do not." I did not simply say privilege. This doubtfully changes many of your assessments, however, I just wanted to clarify my words.
I hope I can do better next video!
Warmly,
Jenna
Posted by Jenna
December 30, 2008, 3:24 PM
You insist on framing this debate by using the same spoon-fed, pseudo-Marxist feminist buzzwords to characterize all social relationships as being underscored by identity and nothing more (i.e: race or gender). This overly-conscious debate about gender and identity can become so obsessive that it reduces individual human (or should I say, "animal") behaviour down to some ready-made textbook theory about "identity" and monitors the thought crimes of even those with the best intentions by calling them out on their assumptions and thereby making them defensive.
What is unfair and inaccurate about the video piece is that it depicts a tall, blonde white woman acting tentative and fearful around a short, well-dressed, non-threatening-looking black man -- this is a caricature and arguably does not reflect reality. Let's examine the whole social awkwardness of the elevator. It is one of the few public spaces that imposes on people a confining physical proximity. It is a natural, "human" reaction to draw inward in the close presence of a stranger no matter who it is. Perhaps you should examine the larger social phenomenon of how "human individuals" interrelate in a crowded and competitive urban environment but this would challenge your own comfortable notions of gender-race and identity being the prime, underlying condition behind all discourse. It would mean that you'd have to re-think you're own received theories from tenured, academic-boomer feminists who are still fighting the gender wars of a generation ago. It's rather amusing to watch all these precious and historically 'victimized' groups locked in a petty, hairsplitting debate about "privileging" and who stands on the higher ground of p.c. sanctimony. As a white male who's tired of being reminded of my great sins, I can honestly say that I have been treated the same way in an elevator by white women, black women, white men even black men and I have in turn probably felt threatened by other strangers white, black, yellow, straight, gay, female, transgendered, differently-abled and even black who have conveyed menacing body language. On the other hand, I have been perfectly at ease around other strangers who are more secure in who they are and know how to be civil. It might come across as heresy to many of you, but I will admit that a gang of young black males who are parading around in an intimidating manner and wearing the customary gangsta uniforms makes me feel more threatened and nervous than a group of young black males who look like students or employees -- and this extends to any group of young males. This is called operating on "instinct" and not on systemic racism.
Posted by Dan
January 3, 2009, 8:40 PM
Oh yeah, there's totally nothing societal about being afraid of young black men wearing "gangsta uniforms". Where do you think that instinct comes from?
Posted by Cate Simpson
January 3, 2009, 10:43 PM
bummer: here everyone was busy hating on jenna and then the real patriarch stepped on the scene and we were caught off-guard. i think stark's comments are worth repeating right now:
"Women who react without provocation with fear to black men are clearly exhibiting a racist response, but calling them bitches only individualises what is a larger social and cultural phenomenon and thus, in my mind, fails to adequately address the issue. Plus, I agree with Jenna that it reinforces animosity between two supposedly separate groups who may find more effective strategies for fighting oppression by recognizing where their struggles are alike and where they intersect."
also, thanks dan, for swooping in like the hand of god and showing us the light: that it's all about "individuals" being "civil." it never ceases to amaze me the way privileged white men seem to think everyone experiences the world the way they do (or should); that they inhabit spaces (like elevators, alley-ways, classrooms, their own homes) in some ahistorically universal way that conditions all responses and what you've called "instincts." do yourself a favour, dan: step outside yourself for a moment. your "great sin" isn't being white or male, it's your ignorance and willful failure to recognize your own privilege, and - worse - coming in here w/ some superiority complex like it's your job to educate us on the "real world."
Posted by Sarah G
January 4, 2009, 12:17 PM
Sarah G, your response to Dan said almost all of what I wanted to say but couldn't manage to articulate.
Except for one thing, which is the dismissal of work done by "tenured, academic-boomer feminists" who use "pseudo-Marxist feminist buzzwords". Okay, I know it's cool to have a big hate-on for ivory tower education and the elitism of the academy, and yes, I agree there is indeed plenty to criticize about the university, but I am disturbed by what seems to me like a major anti-intellectual trend and a willingness to dismiss criticism just because it came from someone within an academic institution.
Feminism has a HISTORY, and part of that history comes from academics and intellectual women. These women often had to fight oppressive systems within their institutions, including colleagues who wanted to dismiss their work as unimportant, banal, or narcissistic. Feminism's history also comes from working-class women, activist, grassroots and community-organizing women, women of colour, queer women, and women whose identities are composed of a variety of categories, since none of them are mutually exclusive. These other women certainly don't get enough recognition in how the story of feminism is told, which is something I think we should all be working to change. Nevertheless, to dismiss entire schools of thought because they're based on book-learnin' and the work of mostly middle-class white feminists is just wrong, and it's the kind of attitude that replicates the struggles these women went through "a generation ago" and proves that they're obviously not over yet.
Also, terms like oppression, misogyny, privilege, and institutionalized racism aren't "buzzwords", if that's what you're referring to. They're words used to try to get a grip on very real things experienced by real people every day, so that we can talk about them with each other.
Posted by Anna
January 4, 2009, 1:11 PM
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