Feminist Law Professors

Before I begin, let me announce in advance: even as a progressive, Race and the Law teaching, feminist black woman, I DO have a sense of humor about race, gender and other matters of identity.   Really.   I’ve even been known to laugh at things that some people find distinctly unfunny.   Take for example the”mockumentary”film Borat that I recently watched again for the nth time. I find it hilarious. In Borat, comedian Sasha Baron Cohen reprises one of his roles from Da Ali G Show, one wherein he depicts an uncouth, brazen, bigoted foreigner out to make a documentary in America and along the way decides to meet and marry actress Pamela Anderson from the television show Baywatch. In his travels he encounters real, non-actor Americans. Unbeknownst to them, Cohen uses his fictional persona to make many of the people he encounters objects of derision. Some viewers found Borat, like the Da Ali G Show itself, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist, especially in the way it portrayed black women. The black woman character in Borat was a scantily dressed, middle-aged, overweight prostitute that the main character takes as his escort to a Southern white dinner party. (As part of the delicious irony, the character is actress and comedienne Luenell Campbell, one of the few”non-real”people in the film). At the end of the film, the Borat character marries the black prostitute character and takes her home to his  “native”Kazakhstan, where she is greeted with reverence by villagers. Borat was funny because of the way that these images and situations were used to make fun of Western mainstream society’s ignorance, fear and hatred of the Other.

I suppose I could say that The Root’s“The Blackest White Folks We Know“falls somewhere within this genre of over-the-top, offensive humor that makes a point about social bias. I could say that. But I think I’d be wrong in saying so.   The problem with”The Blackest White Folks We Know”article and the accompanying slide show is that, while tongue in cheek, it offers what may be interpreted as serious commentary about the black bona fides of the white people it features (let’s call it their blackafides).   Reading across the comments (e.g. Phil Jackson’s”moves,”Justin Timberlake’s”curly ‘fro,”Nicole Austin’s portrayal of a  â€œbootylicious video vixen,”Kim Kardashian’s”Booty Pop physique,”and Bill Maher’s”obsession with black women”–notice how many of these comments are about black women’s bodies or white women with”black”body styles? I sense a pattern emerging…) the underlying message is that black is the new black:that is, black history, culture and folkways can be succinctly summed up, packaged and sported as a hairstyle, a singing style, a body style (thanks to surgery, injections, and padding, bodies can be styled) or a black companion on your arm. Black becomes a fashion accessory that anyone can don.”The Blackest White Folks We Know“is a mash-up of cultural appropriation, objectification and festishization.  Such displays are part of why, despite the continuing scourge of racism, it has become harder to talk about race and racism and harder to teach about it.   What is race, anyway?

-Lolita Buckner Inniss

The Root is hosting a slide show (here) entitled,”The Blackest White Folks We Know.”   Here’s the lede:

Race relations have gotten a little crazy lately. An all-white basketball league? Seriously? Then there’s Rod Blagojevich, declaring that he’s”blacker than Obama.”The Root takes a look at those who claim “blackness” and those that we think make the cut — whether they like it or not.

Huh?

For those not familiar with The Root, it is a”daily online magazine that provides thought-provoking commentary on today’s news from a variety of black perspectives.”   It is published by the Washington Post Company (also the publisher of Slate).   Who might be these”blackest white folks”?   Here are 6 of the 32 (for the rest, see here)

• Christina Aguilera (entertainer; she”received her official black card when she channeled Patti LaBelle in the remake of ‘Lady Marmalade'”);

• Bob Barr (former Georgia Representative; at least one blogger speculates that Representative Barr has African-American heritage);

• Rod Blagojevich (ex-governor of Illinois;”recently noting that he is “blacker” than President Barack Obama because he “shined shoes” and “grew up in a five-room apartment.” He has walked back his comments.”);

• Ken Burns (filmmaker; for films about Jazz and Brooklyn,”Brotherman is certified, for sure!”);

• Nicole Austin (wife of rapper Ice-T; since their wedding,”Coco’s been playing the bootylicious video vixen”);

• Phil Jackson (basketball coach;”Something about the way he moves, his confident and laid-back demeanor, and his success in basketball both as a player and as a coach had some folks convinced that the blood of Mother Africa ran through his veins.”).

Contemporary media outlets are prime vehicles for the perpetuation of”Guess Who’s ____”parlor games — played by “in” group members and “out” group members alike.   Fill that blank with just about any religious, ethnic or racial minority in this country.   The Root‘s slide show adds a twist to familiar line-drawing, making claims not only (or, in some cases, at all) on the basis of ancestry, but instead on the basis of affinity, self-identification, association with African-American people, or possession of characteristics (either positively or negatively) associated with African-American people.

The slide show keeps the tongue firmly planted in cheek, but what does it say about race that might be relevant to those who think and teach and write about the law? Or is it just a humorous diversion on the internet, an invitation to laugh?   To my mind, the slide show invites consideration of complex ways that race is constructed by mainstream (and mainsteam-financed) media.

-Bridget Crawford