“ Sex is confirmed as the nature of black male identity, as the polyester suit confirms the black man’s failure to gain access to culture. Even when the Other aims for bourgeois respectability (the signified of the suit), his camouflage fails to conceal the fact that he originates essentially, like his dick, from somewhere anterior to civilization.”
There is the existing racial stereotype that all black men have a large penis which is played upon within the press as something wild and exotic such as pictures of the athlete Linford Christie with captions referring to his genitals rather than his outstanding athletic achievements. It is this fetish, an extreme intrigue in a supposed difference which creates the black male body as Other. There is also the idea that the black male body here is replacing the white female body, it is a passive object which comes under the male gaze as Laura Mulvey identified in her work. In Christie’s case it was a way of undermining his achievements as an athlete and reduced him to a spectacle of the Other. At this point one can refer to two of three white-supremacist logics. Firstly, the “scientific” racist logic which endorses the comparing and measuring of physical attributes of human bodies in accordance with Greco-Roman aesthetic standards. This aligns racist activity with bodily ugliness, being culturally deficient and intellectually inferior. The second one is the psychosexual racist logic in which black people are associated with sexual prowess, being unreliable or bad fathers, carefree children or apathetic, tormented mothers. Cornel West summarises this as; “….thereby relegating black people to walking abstractions, lustful creatures or invisible objects. All three white supremacist logics view black people, like death and dirt, as Other and Alien.”
I now want to further explore how the fetishist view of black male sexual prowess manifests into the fear of the black male body. I believe that the fetishism works simultaneously with the idea of fearing the Other. By this I mean, that without the fetish there would be no fear and vice versa. The fetishism of the black male body is met with a fear of this sexuality, perhaps a fear of inferiority, so it is portrayed as the Other, something primitive to gaze at in wonder and fear. This can be applied to the “scientific” racist logic in that the idea of this sexual and physical prowess is reduced by objectification into a portrayal of primeval beings.
Furthermore, it corresponds with the championing of black male sporting achievements within the sport pages of newspapers. In forms such as boxing and athletics the black male’s physicality is an object of desire but if one then looks towards the front pages of the same newspapers, the same black male physical prowess is twisted into something to fear as it represents the primitive, dangerous Other. A montage sequence from Michael Moore’s film Bowling For Columbine (2002) provides a usual visual representation of this where he cuts between a news report of an invasion of African killer bees which, so say the reporter, are more aggressive and are distinguishable by their larger body parts. This is being shown concurrently with news reports of black male’s committing violent crimes, cleverly linking the idea of the black male’s superior physicality and thus the fear of it.
Living in contemporary western society where there is no longer the physical enslavement of black people by white, it is strange how such racist undercurrents can exist. There must be a basis for these unconscious thought patterns, they could not have simply appeared from nowhere. I have decided to study an exert from Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks to examine this problem.
“Look a Negro!” It was an external stimulus that flicked over me as I passed by. I made a tight smile.
“Look a Negro!” It was true. It amused me.
“Look a Negro!” The circle was drawing a bit tighter . . . .
“Mama, see the Negro! I’m frightened!” Frightened! Frightened! Now they were beginning to be afraid of me.
The boys reaction is a typical reactionary identification of a black male by someone from a negrophobic society. At first he seems to express intrigue, amazement or wonder but within a few moments this becomes fear. His wonder has become fear through the image of the black man as a savage who acts in threatening ways. This image or as Fanon calls it “ racial epidermal schema” has been constructed through history, stories and legends of the black male acting in such ways. It is a similar analysis to Sartre’s “look” but here Fanon historicizes that analysis and suggests that the Other is not just seen but is under the gaze of a socially constructed viewpoint and centuries old presumptions, myths and false truths. It is a Eurocentric notion of viewing difference as Other as Fanon wrote;
“I could no longer laugh, because I already knew that there were legends, stories history and above all historicity”
I want to use the Rodney King trial as an example of this socially and historically constructed view of the Other in practice. The video that was used in the trial showed, what many believed to be a brutal beating of an innocent, defenceless black man at the hands of white members of the Los Angeles Police Department. However, the defence attorneys argued that it was King, who in fact was the aggressor and source of the threat. In any other case this argument would seem absurd but not when it is racialised and thus politicised. Interestingly a juror later described how she believed how Rodney King was in “total control” of the situation, so one must try to identify how this very questionable interpretation came to be made.
It appears that the decision by the jury to judge the police as being not guilty and reacting with reasonable force to a dangerous threat was made under a considerably large racial cloud. The images of the black Other as a threat to the white man were being employed as the interpretation of the events to portray King as the main agent of violence and he needed to be restrained. The defence attorneys drew upon the idea of aligning the black male body with that of an animal as they read testimonies that “depicted King repeatedly as a bear, and as emitting bearlike groans.” This rhetoric was employed to associate the black man with the fearful “Look, a Negro!” view of the Other as “King’s black body became that of a wild “Hulk - like” and “wounded” animal, whose every gesture threatened the existence of civilized society.” The need to control the Other can relate to the Judeo-Christian racist logic in that this logic associates “racist practices to notions of disrespect for and rejection of authority, to ideas of unruly behaviour and chaotic rebellion.” It is again viewing difference as Other, in that the Other is an animal, a savage that is a threat to society as constructed by the western cultural dominant of the white European.
For the final part of my analysis I am going to use Hip Hop culture as a means of investigating how difference signifies as Otherness. Initially I will focus on how companies are now selling Otherness as an exotic delight or as bell hooks writes, “ seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.” More specifically how fashion labels have associated themselves with Hip Hop culture but offering a diluted version of the real thing. This can tie in with what is deemed as “Imperialist nostalgia” a longing to experience the other as modern western life suffers an ongoing identity crisis, companies selling the Other as a means of escape and a glimpse through the key hole at the Other world. The Otherness is being presented as a tool of bringing together the alienated west, a collective rejection of the traditional western culture and the embrace of the modern, wild Other. So it is at this point where Hip Hop, expressed through its music and fashion is becoming ever increasingly popular amongst a white teenage audience, an audience alienated by the lack of one significant cultural dominant in the multicultural west. Hip Hop is being sold again using fetish and fear, the fetish of the Other way of life, here being poor African American but also there is elements of fearing what the Other is capable of that intrigues. I will also explore as to if there is a backlash to such exploitation of Otherness by those seen as being the Other.
Hip Hop is a very important contemporary culture as it was created by the Other (Black and Latino youth in 1970s New York) and is now a global franchise whose roots can be traced back centuries. According to many it is, “…an African American form for which, on a diasporic flow chart, you could plot an unbroken line from Africa to the Caribbean and on to the United States.” In the early 1980s rap lyrics rejected the white orientated mainstream as Run D.M.C showed on their hit record “Rock Box”, “ Calvin Klein’s no friend of mine, don’t want nobody’s name on my behind.” However it wasn’t long before that very same group made the song “My Adidas”, an ode to the sports brand. The sports brands such as Nike, Adidas and Puma were previously generally reserved for sports use only but when this exciting new culture began to embrace and incorporate these logos into its dress codes the major companies saw there was money to be made. This was exemplified by Calvin Klein, “…in 1992, Calvin Klein made Marky Mark his poster child. It was a way to use an image of rap more acceptable to middle America than, say, L.L Cool J - the real thing.” Here there is the dilution of the Other, repackaged and re-presented in a culturally acceptable form, a white man, with a hint of the Other. Whilst remaining white, this offered the white audience a little taste of the Other but not fully immersing themselves with the “savage” Other.
The fetish of how poor African Americans live, dress and act is still being sold to white audiences so they can “sample” a bit of the Other. Recently, the rapper 50 Cent was signed to head a Reebok advertising campaign called “I Am What I Am” in which he is recalling the time he was shot nine times. The brand is not selling its item of trainers, it is selling a vision of the Other, a socially constructed view of the black male as being dangerous and murderous. It is an updated version of the “Look, a Negro!” reaction where the fetish with the Other is met with fear but now the fetish seems to be of the fear that the black male has created. This style of advertising does not show positive black role models, it reverts to the classic view of the savage black male ignoring any positive aspects of the culture.
The idea of relating the Other to the physical as opposed to the mental is something that I feel is attributed to Hip Hop in the mainstream media. By this I mean that I believe that rap music is looked down upon as being insignificant, unskilled and simple. It is still culturally acceptable to openly mock rap music as many white presenters show on British T.V when they interview American rap stars, such as Jonathan Ross who whilst interviewing Kanye West continually made embarrassing attempts to speak in rap slang. Even in the broadsheet newspapers the only portrayal of Hip Hop rarely strays from the tired “investigations” into gun crime and its links to the music, showing a horrible disregard for the number of artists who do not promote gun crime. The U.K group So Solid Crew, faced a media witch hunt which could be analysed with the Judeo-Christian racist logic in that they were seen to be unruly and uncivilised upstarts who needed to be apprehended a la Rodney King before they could further threaten society. Rap music is continually undermined and scoffed at as simply being some derivative of funny tribal music, difference being portrayed as the Other, the inferior Other.
In conclusion to my explorations I feel that it is important to look at the counter-arguments that could be made against my findings. It would be interesting to study other major media outlets, say for instance Japanese or South American to see how and who is different and how they are portrayed as Other because as it stands I am only looking at this argument from a western European perspective. I would also like to study the idea that Hip Hop music and fashion has provided empowerment to the Other. Many rap artists have now moved into the boardrooms of many major record companies such as Jay-Z who is now the president of Def Jam Records. As an example from the fashion world in 1994 Ralph Lauren signed Tyson Beckford to be the face of Polo and as Emil Wilbekin writes; “Tyson’s strong African-American presence-wearing Purple Label suits and tennis whites- gave young black men in the United States a visible example of someone who was high profile and successful, and not by playing sports, singing, or committing a crime.”
Regardless of such arguments I still believe that difference is still being shown to be Other through physicality and culture. Through the view of the fetish of the Other, their bodies and way of life, the fear of the Other, again their bodies and way of life and finally the commodification of Otherness, once more through their bodies and their different culture.
Word Count = 2955
Homi Bhabha from the foreword of Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon (London 1986)
Reading Racial Fetishism pg. 187, from Welcome to the Jungle by Kobena Mercer (New York 1994)
Reading Racial Fetishism pg. 186 - 187, from Welcome to the Jungle by Kobena Mercer (New York 1994)
Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures (London 1989)
Keeping Faith pg. 269 by Cornel West (New York 1993)
Black Skin, White Masks pg. 111-112 by Frantz Fanon (New York 1967)
Endangered/Endangering: Schematic Racism and White Paranoia pg.15, by Judith Butler from Reading Urban Uprising edited by Robert Gooding-Williams (New York 1993)
“Look , A Negro!” pg 166 by Robert Gooding - Williams from Reading Urban Uprising edited by Robert Gooding-Williams (New York 1993)
Keeping Faith pg. 269 by Cornel West (New York 1993)
Black Looks, race and representation by bell hooks (Boston 1992)
John F. Szwed from pg.3 of The Vibe History of Hip Hop as edited by Alan Light (New York 1999)
Original Hip Hop Lyric Archive - www.ohhla.com
Emil Wilbekin from pg. 280 of The Vibe History of Hip Hop as edited by Alan Light (New York 1999)