Ethnic Notions: Stereotypes Constructed for a Malicious Reason

     Ethnic Notions is a film about the disturbing, racist caricatures and stereotypes that were developed through minstrel shows and other media in the Jim Crow period in the US. Many Americans know about caricatures such as the Sambo or Mammy, but not everyone knows the sinister, calculated reasons for them. People who owned slaves, and then wanted to keep their descendants in a cycle of oppression utilized these caricatures to create ideas that would subtly inform racism for generations to come. A chilling example of this is the depictions of black children as animalistic, clumsy, and often in violent situations. This image shows barely clothed or naked children unsupervised and in peril, literally labeling them as subhuman bait. 

   

     Images like this suggest that black children are expendable and unprotected by parents, maybe even not worth protecting. It draws the mind to the scraps of meat usually used to bait alligators: scraps and bits not fit for human consumption. The fact that this was printed on a post card shows that the joke was popular at the time, and people were desensitized to the horrific implications that black children were as expendable as spoilt meat saved for a hunting trip. 

Zach's Reaction to La Concienca de La Mestiza

 Firstly, I found the way this piece was written to be the most intriguing and beautiful in comparison to the other works we have read. Anzaldua's utilization of poetry helped in creating an immediate connection to her writing, allowing me to walk away from the piece with a deeper understanding and appreciation for her many messages and ideas. Poetry is an art form that connects people emotionally and, sometimes, even spiritually, especially with the proper use of imagery and beautiful stanzas.

Anzaldua, being a member of the LGBTQ+ community, effortlessly incorporated that aspect of her identity into her writing; many of her points resonated with me. Her quote on page 380 reads, "As a Lesbian, I have no race; my own people disown me, but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races." This idea of being inherently connected to every race through her sexual orientation was very compelling, and I appreciated how she didn't sugarcoat the fact that homophobia is still a prevalent issue within her community. She states that LGBTQ+ people of color have been at the forefront of all liberation struggles in the United States and that we have "suffered more injustices and survived" (383). Whether intentional or not, she made me extremely proud of those in my community who have come before me and risked their lives and well-being to better the world. Moreover, she repeats the idea of acknowledging harmful tendencies in her communities and holding those accountable. For example, when speaking about Machismo, she first sympathizes with them as a whole, stating: "The loss of a sense of dignity and respect in the Macho breeds also breeds machismo, which leads him to put down women and even to brutalize them" (383). She then asks for an apology and, at the very least, respect for women.

Overall, the messages present in this piece, along with the beautiful poetry and use of her native tongue, create a highly captivating and successful argument.

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The night to his day

  In The Social Construction of Gender by Judith Lorber, one part that stood out to me is the idea of "Doing Gender." 

This idea that we are "Doing Gender" is a funny saying to something that I have found my subconscious doing regularly. After reading this passage, I noticed myself trying to categorize people. I am not sure if I do it because I am trying to make myself feel like I fit in or if the notion on gender categorization is so engraved into my subconscious because of how I grew up. Do you think there is a way to change our subconscious thoughts? What if these subconscious thoughts cannot change/ do they need to be changed?

Hannah's Thoughts

To read my thoughts on the Cultural Exchange Rate, click here.

I read an article on misgendering, and here are my thoughts.

Ray on 'The Five Sexes'

  While researching around about Intersex people I found an interesting point that Wikipedia cites from Julius Kaggwa, a prominent intersex and transgender activist and executive director of intersex support organization: Support Initiative for People with atypical sex Development (SIPD), stating that while the gay community "offers us a place of relative safety, it is also oblivious to our specific needs". Despite being considered a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, an intersex person can still be cisgendered and heterosexual and within the community there is sometimes an assumption that trans protections also apply intersex people but this isn't necessarily the case because it is more a matter of sex than gender. I wasn't fully aware what "intersex" even meant before reading this but now that I have a better understanding I can see why that group, even amongst the LGBTQIA+ community, has a unique struggle for awareness and rights even amongst allies. 

Sex and Gender as Social Constructs: Some Very Scattered Thoughts

The class discussion we had following our reading on sex as a social construct brought up a lot of thoughts for me.  It left me sort of questioning everything I know, which I guess is usually a good thing.  When I think of sex, I think of the way we classify a person's biological, anatomical, or chromosol configuration.  And I understand there are many different ways these traits can intersect or differ depending on how you interpret them.  That being said, I think the problem is that sex is assigned by a doctor upon a child's birth and many doctor's are not trained on how to deal with people who are intersex, and even with cisgender newborns, they immediately project their binary way of thinking onto children.

There is no room for fluidity or ambiguity, it has to be one way or another.  Male or Female.  And with the emergence of these terms for intersex people (hermaphrodites, fermaphrodites, and mermaphrodites), there's more room for self discovery and less rigidity than under a binary structure.  Funnily enough, we were talking about sex in my Critical Theories of Sexuality class on the same day as in this class.  We watched a documentary about the harm of experiments like John Moneys' on David Rimer and how not giving intersex people agency over their own bodies when it comes to their physical traits attributed to their sex is incredibly dehumanizing and destructive.  The documentary just confirmed what I already thought: that binary systems and categories and detrimental to everyone involved, as the human experience is never linear.  People shouldn't have to be forced into a box in any sense of the phrase, and forcing binary's onto people will only ever yield negative results.

But I think a part the reason why it's so hard for me to wrap my mind around this idea of sex is because it's so ingrained within the fabric of modern Western society, where you can change your gender identity but sex is biological, it's literally how you were born.  So deconstructing that idea is difficult for me.  

Also, another thing (unrelated to sex), I found it really interesting that during our discussion and readings about gender as a social construct, there was no mention of nonbinary.  Even in our class, a binary (this one of man and woman) was being centered in discussion, leaving out a large group of people and enforcing the idea of "there can only be two."

Prime Minister of Andorra Comes Out As Gay

Andorra is a tiny country (of 80,000 people) nestled between Spain and France in the Pyrenees mountains.

Monday September 11, the 43-year-old prime minister of Andorra, Xavier Espot Zamora, head of the government since 2019, revealed that he is gay in an interview with a news outlet. The headline says "El presidente de Andorra sale del armario: «Yo soy gay y nunca me he escondido» which I translate as  "The president of Andorra leaves the closet: 'I am gay and I have never hidden myself." In Spanish, the text of the report in The Observer is:

El jefe del Gobierno de Andorra, Xavier Espot, ha hecho pública su homosexualidad: «Yo soy gay y nunca me he escondido». Las declaraciones han tenido lugar en durante una entrevista en la radio pública del país, en la que el líder andorrano aseguró que nunca había hablado de su orientación sexual porque no le habían preguntado, pero que «no debe suponer ningún inconveniente», según recoge el diario Nació Digital.

«Estoy encantado de que pueda servir a jóvenes que están en una situación difícil», ha añadido. Espot ha explicado, además, que nunca ha sentido discriminación por su orientación sexual. Sin embargo, ha remarcado que no puede negar que otras personas sí que hayan vivido este tipo de situaciones por el mismo motivo. «Aún no hemos llegado a la plena igualdad de género», lamentó, por lo que ha defendido la necesidad de impulsar unas políticas públicas que combatan la LGTBIfobia.

This is translated (by Google) as:

The head of the Government of Andorra, Xavier Espot, has made his homosexuality public: “I am gay and I have never hidden myself.” The statements took place during an interview on the country’s public radio, in which the Andorran leader assured that he had never spoken about his sexual orientation because he had not been asked, but that “it should not cause any inconvenience,” according to the report.

“I am delighted that I can serve young people who are in a difficult situation,” he added. Espot has also explained that he has never felt discrimination due to his sexual orientation. However, he stressed that he cannot deny that other people have experienced this type of situation for the same reason. “We have not yet reached full gender equality,” he lamented, which is why he has defended the need to promote public policies that combat LGTBI-phobia. 

Espot Zamora becomes one of a handful of openly LGBTQ heads of state in the world. According to JoeMyGod, the others are: Luxembourg, Serbia, and Latvia. Wikipedia has a longer list (and distinguishes between heads of the government and heads of state). In the United States these are the same person (President of the United States) but in many other countries they are often different roles occupied by different people. For example, in England King Charles is head of state but Rishi Sunak is the head of government.

Do you know of any openly LGBTQ political figures in the USA?  There are currently three (3!)  openly LGBTQ governors in the United States. Name them in the comments!

Thoughts on Ethnic Notions by Quin Lewis

  Ethnic Notions, Race: The Power of an Illusion

    I watched this piece with a group on Monday in the common room of Braun, which made watching more communal. From my personal experience and growing up in the South, the oppression and media surround the Black community has been taught to me in a distant way. Not to say that the impact of the history is lessened or any less valid, just that my knowledge about this subject needs to be examined and broadened. 

    The style of the cartoons of exaggerated black caricatures made me realize how easily these stereotypes are passed down onto children as well as adults. Though it didn't shock me when the iconic Bugs Bunny wore blackface and sang in a stereotypical "Black" voice because it made me reconsider what media I was given and consumed as a child. Bugs was a character I had seen every Saturday morning on the family computer and while he made us laugh, Bugs was also normalizing these grotesque depictions of black and indigenous people, all of whom were either the antagonist of the episode or the butt of a racist joke. It makes me question what other media I have absorbed and unknowingly influenced my thinking of race. 

    The film did a fantastic job at analyzing this media and showcasing how saturated these "scripts" are in American culture. The showcase of these not-so-distant "artifacts" and the analysis shows the importance of speaking about this ongoing issue of discrimination and racist ideas. We must know what did wrong to make it right. 

Thoughts on Ethnic Notions by Eloise Fairbrother

The most interesting part of Ethnic Notions for me was understanding that in order for black people to make it in American theater and film/television, they had to play into the stereotypes and be racist in order to cater to the white audience. Many black actors/performers even had to wear black face to appear “more black”, which is to say, more stereotypically black. This not only caused racism to widely spread in America, as the only media depictions of black people were horrifically racist and stereotypical, it also instilled self-hatred into black people. One example of this was “The Mammy”, a dark and docile black maid on television who appeared as somewhat of an “antithesis to the white lady”. White women were often depicted as beautiful, which meant that their job was to essentially sit still and look pretty for their husbands. On the other hand were black women, who were often presented as ugly but useful, forcing them to be used as servants. This also enforced the idea that black people were only useful to serve white people, which was in turn, enforced by the very existence of the television show. 

In my Migrants in the US Media class, we read an article by my professor, Dr. Katarzyna Marciniak, titled Palatable Foreignness. While all black people in America wouldn't be considered "foreigners", I feel as though ideas brought up in this article are able to relate to what I saw in Ethnic Notions. The distorted depiction of black people in the media helped white people tolerate black people in their society–it proved to white people that black people were there to serve them, whether that be through slavery or entertainment. In the article, Marciniak brings up the idea of a “useful exotic”, as well as ideas of foreigners as healers. Essentially, black people were only tolerated by white people when they found them useful. If black people weren’t able to heal them, they didn’t have a purpose for them. Overall, the depiction of black people in the media in the 20th century severely damaged many white peoples’ perceptions of black people, therefore creating a racist and bigoted environment in America.

Thoughts on Ethnic Notions by Mayara Sharma

 "Ethnic Notions" is a powerful and thought-provoking documentary that delves into the deeply troubling history of racial stereotypes in the United States. Spanning from the era of slavery to the 20th century, the film presents an account of how these demeaning depictions were not only ingrained in popular culture but also perpetuated systemic racism.

One of the documentary's most compelling aspects is its exploration of the evolution of racial stereotypes. It highlights how these images were carefully constructed and manipulated to justify the oppression of African Americans. Whether it was the portrayal of the "happy slave" or the "dangerous black brute," these stereotypes served to dehumanize  an entire community, providing a false moral justification for discrimination.

Furthermore, these weren't confined to overtly racist materials but infiltrated everyday life through music, advertisements, and even children's cartoons. This made it challenging for society to recognize the harm caused by these images.

The documentary also portrays the power of media and culture in shaping perceptions and attitudes. It reminds us of the responsibility that creators and consumers of media have in challenging harmful stereotypes and promoting more inclusive narratives. This message remains relevant today, as we continue to grapple with the legacy of these stereotypes and their impact on contemporary issues of racism.

In conclusion, "Ethnic Notions" is an eye-opening exploration of the history of racial stereotypes in the United States. It forces viewers to confront the uncomfortable truths of our past and serves as a reminder that combating racism requires vigilance in challenging harmful narratives and promoting a more inclusive and equitable society.

"Free Papers" by Wideman

 

I love having Daniel Wideman's "Free Papers" as the first reading in the Queer 3.0 class because of the lyricism of the language and how it sets the town for what the themes of the class will be. The "Justice/Just us" homonym is catchy but meaningful at the same time.

The piece allows us to use what will become our standard mode of textual analysis, with a clear Thesis, determining Audience, analyzing the Method/Rhetorical Strategy, the author's Objective (reason for writing the piece) as well as their Assumptions/Perspective.

As a logophile myself, I actually enjoy the fact that Wideman uses numerous "five-dollar words" like the following:

• admonish
• ameliorate
• antipode
• facile
• furtive
• hegemony
• moniker
• mundane
• obviate
• ossify
• Pavlovian
• pernicious
• predilection
• Prometheus
• schadenfreude

In the comments, feel free to define these words (and add them to the Vocab page)

My favorite part of "Free Papers" is towards the end, where the writing becomes almost poetic, this excerpt:

A life free of scripture and stricture---each man free to write his own script, invent his own life. Part of the power of authorship is the power to write your own rules and enforce them, to harness the power of the word to military might. Thus the primal acts that inscribed you as a citizen of the world (an autonomous author) were voting and bearing arms. The right to write and, if pen did not prove mightier than the sword, he means and privilege to tote both and draw either indiscriminately. We enjoyed no such powers. We could not officially script our lives, so we developed the most sophisticated sense of subversive narrations inn the world: We acquired an endless fascination and proficiency with the insurrectionary properties of language.

What's your favorite part of "Free Papers"? 

First But Not Last Blog Post!

Hello class!

This is the first blogpost of the class, but hopefully not the last!

I want to welcome you all to this group blog for #FYS6: (Queer 3.0) LGBTQ Rights in the Internet Era, my FYS class for Fall 2023 at Occidental College. The course description is: 

This course is about the past, present and future of the fight for equal citizenship for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, commonly known as the “gay rights movement.” A fundamental tenet of the course is the idea that gender, race, sex and sexual orientation (among other aspects of one’s identity) are social constructions. We will analyze the historical treatment of LGBTQ people throughout history with a specific focus on the Internet era: the time period from the Internet’s birth in the 1960s to the present day. We will examine the historical, cultural, religious, legal and societal significance of marriage and deploy this analysis as a lens to view the myriad ways that civil rights and fundamental freedoms are often mediated by identity and contingent on circumstance. Texts in the course will include academic articles, court cases, legal briefs, popular media, fiction, blogs, videos, tweets and images. We will use networking tools and social media (e.g., Slack, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Blogger/Wordpress, etc.) to facilitate students’ development as both consumers and producers of intellectual, academic material. The ability of students to produce and critique online content is a learning outcome of this class. No previous knowledge of any particular internet tool is required.

Feel free to use this space (and your own personal blogs) to highlight and comment on issues that involve LGBTQ rights that occur in the media or news during the semester. One of the central outcomes of the class is for you to see each other as producers, and not just consumers, of intellectual content.