Lately I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to take something seriously enough when you’re not the target. How knowing that something is wrong is important but doesn’t get you all the way. The distinction between blackface and Jewface has highlighted this.
I’m not black. I’m very much against blackface (whether in Australia, the US, the Netherlands etc). But I know I’m not equipped to treat blackface as seriously as someone who’s the target of the blackface.
For example, the last (maybe only?) time I saw blackface in real life was at Camelot, a world music venue in Sydney. (Now there’s a vertical that’s ripe for race-based discussion!) The venue is packed with kitsch that the owner’s collected — mostly camels. But I did see a set of wooden dolls of black men, done in the same style associated with the “golden era” of blackface. I thought these dolls are clearly racist and displaying them (unless you own a museum) is a racist act. Maybe not KKK-racist or UKIP-racist at least ironic-racist or hipster-racist, ie. racist. But the dolls didn’t give me a strong emotional response, beyond “that’s fucked”.
It was different to seeing Jewface when I recently went to Eastern Europe and the Baltics. I was prepared for something like that given the region’s history and there were a few cases from the picture at the top to an outdoor bookseller in Ohrid having the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as one of the books to this doll at Krakow markets:
The intellectual response to that doll was there. Anyone could have had it. For instance:
- Out of the EU countries Poland is particularly unfriendly to refugees — and that’s with stiff competition
- It’s particularly ethnically homogenous with 0.1% of the population being ”’foreigners”’
- Wait a minute, it wasn’t always like that! Where did all those people go
- Oh right
- And after all that, the historic centre of Krakow is like tourist central for organised tours to Auschwitz. Every second door is a company selling tickets. It’s now one of the biggest tourist attractions with visitors increasing by 40% to 250,000 people in 2015
- Sure, it makes sense for people to go — but the idea of how much money a country gets made off this without learning any “historical lessons” is sickening
- Then there’s the cultural appropriation
- Then there’s the fact that in a country where there are white nationalist riots, this can credibly be read as a threat
- Then there’s the fact that the wood carver probably sees it as a tribute to “Polish” history even though he gets the “burden” to tell the story as an outsider because the insiders are gone, that he gets to make a zloty off this.
But for this I had that extra non-intellectual response.
I didn’t get butterflies in my stomach, or upset or anything. It didn’t matter that the Jewface looks nothing like me or that I don’t identify with those 2 doll dudes one bit or that I don’t identify as Jewish in any religious or political(!) way. I still saw the doll from very far away: nobody else I was with did. Skin in the game. A direct reminder that others have the power to tell narratives about you — and exercise that power. A reminder of where those narratives can often go — intent be damned. A reminder that I grew up in Australia because I wouldn’t have been able to go to uni in my country of origin that’s not so far from that market. A reminder that these are current issues and so has nothing to do with how “long ago” certain historic events were.
And of course all those points apply to blackface, yellowface, any-face. But in a way I’m lucky to have gotten those reminders — I now get a better understanding of just how bad all those other-faces are. Free edumacation!
Also if you’re both black and Jewish I really wanna hear your thoughts.
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