In answer to the question above, following
Fridays lecture I would have said that such a thing is impossible. ‘blackface’,
‘yellowface’ (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I’m looking at you) or any form of this
theatrical makeup is easily one of the most overt representations of racism in history. Going hand in hand with the stereotype of the ‘coon’ or
the foolish black clown, it is now strongly taboo and a remainder of much darker
days of racism (please excuse the pun). In today’s society where racism is generally
more inferential, almost all will cringe inwardly at these caricatures of
minorities who were regarded as both incapable and unworthy of representation
on their own terms. Although racism is by no means eradicated, I would have said
that it is safe to declare such explicit examples to be considered universally
inappropriate.
But as I said, this was Friday.
I must admit, looking for
inspiration for these blog posts is the only occasion where I find internet
filtering to be useful over mildly terrifying. My recent focus on
racially-concerned events or opinion pieces has certainly caused more and more
of this content to find me rather than the other way round (don’t be smug
Google, you still haven’t won me over). Anyway, I digress. Whilst on autopilot
scrolling through my newsfeed on Saturday in yet another bout of
procrastination, I saw something which caught my eye (and for once
it wasn’t a cat video) but the headline “German
football team fights racism with 'blackface' photo”.
I actually did a double-take. Fighting racism? With blackface? Surely this headline had to
be the pre-runner to an ironic or satirical article. But no, it was exactly
what it said on the tin.
A regional football club in
Germany posted a photo of the team on social media which was digitally altered
to make the skin colour of every player black. It was designed as a show of
solidarity and support towards one of their players, a Sudanese refugee named Emad
Babiker, who was the victim of a racially-motivated assault over Easter
weekend. With increasing racial tensions within the country as a result of the
refugee crisis, such incidences are sadly becoming more common. Soenke Kreibich,
the teams coach, stated that the intent was“We wanted to make a stand, amongst ourselves but also to the public.
It should make it clear that Emad and Amar are an inherent part of our team,
and not a minority on whom you can use violence to let off your personal
frustration.”
It’s certainly a very striking
image, and one which without context could even be called disturbing as such a
visual subversion of the domination of whiteness. Yet it is undoubtedly a
clever, original and most importantly attention-grabbing way of harnessing the
media’s control over racial discourses and turning on its head to give a
message of anti-racism. By
appropriating one of the most potent symbols of racism and completely
subverting its meaning, it shows that we are not powerless against the media’s
apparently unstoppable narrative of Whites as being ‘outside’ of ethnic
representation whilst minorities are either underrepresented or ignored
altogether.
The use of blackface in this
context is a stark depiction of Stuart Hall’s “Contrasting a Racialized Regime of Representation” as discussed in
the lecture; a rebellion against media ‘whiteness’ and drawing attention to the
plight of refugee minorities in Germany in a true representation of racial
realities. The crucial point here is not of minorities being recognized in a
celebration of difference as the usual message of positive racial imagery, but
the opposite; it is one of sameness. It says quite clearly ‘if you pick on him,
you pick on us’. From a visual analysis standpoint, the picture is an
ingenious representation of the emotional, internalized reality of racial relations which can’t ever
be seen externally in everyday life or the mainstream media; Babiker can no
longer to picked out of the crowd or made vulnerable because he blends in and
is, in the words of the team, ‘one of us’. In their view this is what Babiker,
or any ethnic minority, should be to the society they live in.
On the other hand, some critics
have taken a more cynical approach and labelled the image as simply another product
of assimilationist discourse; it has been cited as another example of the apparent need
to show that minorities are as ‘good’ or as ‘human’ as Whites. Or else it has
been criticized for not truly engaging with the politics of difference, being a
simplified representation of a highly complex and ongoing issue. Of course,
such a bold statement is bound to be controversial; but to call the image
blatantly racist completely misses the valuable message and the whole intent of
the club, regardless of whether or not one considers it an ‘appropriate’ use of
blackface. The fact that its ‘appropriateness’ is even under question I believe
constitutes a valuable victory in the fight against mainstream racial
discourse; it is a sign that it is possible for positive imagery to be leveled
against the media’s supremacy, and a doubly successful one if it can be done by
overthrowing one of the most fundamental symbols of racism and turning it into a
completely contrasting representation of unity.
So what is your opinion to the title of this post? I would love
to know!
Sources:
The original Facebook post:
CNN article:
An interview with Emad Babiker for those who are interested:
Very interesting! Double-take indeed.
ReplyDeleteI believe this sort of ironic anti-racist tactic may be, or at least related to, the concept of "reappropriation". This is primarily defined as a marginalised group grasping a pejorative slur and deliberately "reclaiming" it to take power over meaning and deny the dominant group the ability to use it against them. In this case it's not done by the marginalised group and it's not strictly a linguistic slur, so it doesn't fit exactly. However it still seems like the same general mechanism of taking a pejorative element of mainstream discourse and deliberately flipping it to fight the power structure that birthed it. A sort of "discourse deflection" if you will, turning negative into positive.
I haven't heard of reappropriated colourface before either and I would imagine there is not a long history of this, so it's probably easier to consider related and longer-established tactics to answer if "discourse deflection" can work (as opposed to just remaining universally inappropriate as the cynics say). Consider race-based comedic satire that presents and then subverts stereotypes (e.g. Dave Chappelle): It seems to expose the farcity of stereotypes only if the audience understands the contextual intent. Otherwise the racial meanings revert to the viewer's "default", the system that made it pejorative in the first place, and the stereotypes just get reinforced. In the same way, I would imagine that this example is not so positive if it is distributed without effective communication and understanding of the contextual intent. People would easily read it as regular blackface, with all that entails, because they have been primed to see the mainstream discourse as the "default" system. In that case the intent wouldn't matter as much as the actual effect.
Thus, my answer to the title: There could be such a thing as blackface *intended* to be positive, but whether it is actually positive depends on how it gets disseminated and received on a wider scale. If it achieves something positive against racist structures of meaning, that makes it positive. While this would be unprecedented for blackface (to my knowledge), the existence of successful cases of slur reappropriation and racial satire suggest it may be possible.
P.S. I don't buy the criticism that the image is assimilationist and feels the need to paint minorities as "good" as Whites. I think that would apply if the team were made homogenous by Photoshopping Emad and Amar to be White. However it does the opposite, which I think sends the opposite message.