The Yellow and White Minstrel Show
So Jim Naughtie accidentally renamed the Culture Secretary Jeremy Cunt. And an hour after Naughtie did it so did Andrew Marr. It was the broadcasting equivalent of a motorway pile up. As I heard the word pass Naughtie’s lips I really felt for him. Jeremy Hunt, to his credit, took the whole episode with good grace and saw the funny side. It was news for a day and then we moved on.
But suppose for a moment that Naughtie and Marr hadn’t used the C-word (I’ve spelled it out once and for anyone other than Irvine Welsh that should be enough) but equally inadvertently had used the N-word, a word I don’t want to spell out. Would there have been any coming back from that? Quite possibly not. Last year Carole Thatcher used the term ‘golliwog’, off-air, to describe a French tennis player. In fact she’s reported to have called him ‘that froggy golliwog guy.’ The BBC then apparently, to use what feels like a rather inappropriate phrase, blacklisted her.
There is an argument, albeit one I won’t labour, that where one finds the N-word used in a historic context (The Dam Busters where Barnes Wallis thus named his black Labrador springs to mind) it serves to remind us that hateful words were once casually used by otherwise largely decent people – so prevalent was racism back in the days of Empire. It also reminds us how far we’ve come.
But hey, perhaps we haven’t. I had the pleasure of seeing Aladdin at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley today. I won’t dwell on the leaden script nor the numerous references to the genie’s (Melinda Messenger) breasts. What struck me as particularly odd was the casting.
Aladdin is set in Old Peking so onto the stage march boys and girls, men and women dolled up as funny Chinese people. There is much bowing to the emperor. Signs in Widow Twankey’s laundry read ‘washee knickee velly quickee.’ There may have even been a lame sweet and sour joke. But the really odd thing is that with the exception of Princess Jasmine (Frances Mayli McGann) whose antecedents I suspect hail from China the rest of the Chinese are played by Europeans; wigs, makeup and all.
So does this mean that next year the good people of Bromley will be laughing through a panto revival of the Black and White minstrel show? I suspect not. The Black and White Minstrel Show hasn’t toured since 1987. There’s no stomach these days for white people painted up as funny black people. Yet somehow it’s OK to have white people yellowed up as funny Chinese people. Am I missing something here or is this simply a double standard?
Are we seeing the emergence of a hierarchy of racism? Certain stereotypes are apparently more offensive than others. Carol Thatcher was castigated for her use of the word golliwog but not her use of the word froggy.
Surely racism is offensive because it fails to recognise our common humanity while at the same time degrading each human being’s unique individuality? Likewise are not human rights founded on our common humanity? Should there be a place at the front of the ‘don’t stereotype me’ queue for people of a particular background.
What is apparent though is that some communities are less prepared to stand for abuse than others. Most of the British Chinese I know would shrug off Aladdin and simply ignore it and that’s a perfectly fair reaction. Traditionally overseas Chinese have preferred to keep their heads down and avoid trouble. That might go some way to explaining why there is only one elected representative in any UK regional or national assembly of East Asian origin – shocking given that there are more than a million Britons whose roots lie in East and South East Asia. However it does mean that our (possibly innate) tendency to want to make fun of those we don’t understand is channelled away from those who protest most and is visited disproportionately on those who don’t.
Let’s forget political correctness here. We should be able to laugh at silliness and idiosyncrasy. But it’s almost always done best from the inside because it comes with insight and humour depends heavily on helping people make connections and that needs understanding. If you want to make fun of another culture it’s a good starting point to really appreciate it.
So what really irked me most about Aladdin in Bromley was not that it was explicitly offensive. It wasn’t. It was just so Fu’Kien ignorant. If we’re going to subject any culture to moronic panto humour it should be our own – at least we can do it with a little insight and it might even be funny, albeit if the standard of writing evident in Bromley is anything to go by, perhaps not.
But the deeper point here is that no group should be allowed to appropriate the anti discrimination agenda. Not only do we all have an equal claim to the principles that underpin it – but to treat it as anything other than a universal fundamentally weakens the cause.
Johnathan: ok, an interesting question is how we promote mindfulness/awareness in these contexts. The mechanism I’m most familiar with is consciousness-raising (CR) groups which were used a lot in the Women’s Movement in the 70s and 80s, and groups that work on that model, which continue today. I’ve found the CR model useful, because it can emphasise both problems and solutions, and it’s a good way for solutions not to be “souless” but to be solidarity-building.
Anyway, you might wish to read up about it, or see if there are any groups that do CR-type stuff in your local area, if you want to find out more about it. I’m sure there are other possible approaches too, and I’d welcome suggestions of what those might look like.
Having said all that, it’s not clear to me what you mean by “box ticking”, but if you meant, for example, positive action, or monitoring of various kinds, it’s not obvious to me that those should be discarded as option even if they are perhaps not ideal.
It also seems to me that “box-ticking” is a different project from becoming more aware. It’s good to become more aware, but some people never will, and that’s why we have anti-discrimination legislation. I’m not convinced that the fact that legislation is imposed makes it bad, although obviously it would be better if we didn’t need it.
–IP
“It’s unclear to me why the choice should be between being mindful and being soulessly PC.”
Actually what I meant was that I am not entirely clear about how we bring a greater level of mindfulness about without it’s mutating into more souless political correctness. Clearly there are many individuals, yourself clearly included, who have managed this. It’s more that when government gets involved in the process it all too often seems to become a ghastly mix of box ticking, zealousness and PC one upmanship. Perhaps I’ve answered myself; maybe this is more something that will happen through people and groups reaching out and making it happen in their communities and less about it being ‘imposed’.
Jonathan:
Thanks for your response. Lots more good points.
“just one that’s aware of groups not to cross for fear of the consequences.”
I would suggest that this is some way towards a PC-culture. If we’re not really bothered about how speech can do harm to people, and only bothered about whether people object to what one says, than we’re living in a culture which only really cares about political correctness, and not really in a culture which cares about the anti-discrimination agenda.
“People under pressure quite understandably have a lower tolerance for anything that might be construed as abuse even if it’s not intended as such.”
I’m not sure that’s the case. As a disabled person, I put up with an extraordinary amount of street harassment or unnecessary access barriers, and never report these to anybody in authority, because, well, if I went around complaining about every single thing that bothered me, I’d never get anything done. It’s not that I’m not active in disability rights politics — I am. But I also pick my battles, and often I just put up with things that aren’t ideal, because it’s not worth my energy to do otherwise. It bothers me when, say, disabled people or members of another oppressed group are described as being “sensitive” because to me, that suggests that the person doing the describing really doesn’t have a sense of how much crap I put up with on a daily basis that I just do not have the energy or time to do anything about, and frankly I think I’m quite restraint in complaining about as few things as I do. In other words, I have to have a high tolerance to prejudice just to go about my daily business.
“What I’m unclear about is how we can become more mindful without at the same time becoming terminally po faced and soulessly politically correct. I’m no more interested in submitting to pc authoritarianism than un-pc authoritariansism.”
It’s unclear to me why the choice should be between being mindful and being soulessly PC. As I said above, the PC mindset is the wrong one, I think. The reason I don’t say the N-word isn’t because it’s offensive, but because the N-word is associated with thinking that it’s ok to treat black people as subhuman or sell them as slaves. If I call a black person that, I am literally telling them I do not think they are human, but rather purchasable goods. Sure it’s offensive, but it’s got way bigger problems that just being offensive. And it’s far more souless than any anti-discrimination agenda.
Also, I don’t really think it’s true that being a decent person, and talking like a decent person means I have to be “souless” or lacking in humour. On the contrary, it means I can tell jokes that are actually funny, instead of relying on same tired old racist/sexist/other-stuff-ist stereotypes that you described as filling the panto you went to see. Or it means I can tell jokes at the expense of racism and sexism. And a panto that did those things, I’d definitely go to see.
–IP
Thanks IP – good points. A lot, of course, depends on context. Thus for the boob gags to work one would need to know that Melinda Messenger’s launched her career – perhaps lost on the under tens in the audience – of whom there were many.
Nor am I seeking to be a complete puritan here. Humour, even some of it touching on race, is an important valve for feelings which otherwise might find a more destructive outlet.
Moreover people of African origin might be particularly sensitive to stereotyping given the long history of discrimination they’ve faced, while Muslims might also draw a different line at present because of the demonisation of Islam that we’ve seen over the last 15 or 20 years. People under pressure quite understandably have a lower tolerance for anything that might be construed as abuse even if it’s not intended as such.
However I suspect that among my key concerns are a) that the experience of the Chinese community signals that if you don’t speak out you get second rate treatment and therefore we’re creating a culture where minorities (and not just ethnic minorities) have to become more
militant or suffer the consequences and that b) we’re not seeing the creation of a culture that’s mindful of everyone’s feelings and right to respect, just one that’s aware of groups not to cross for fear of the consequences.
What I’m unclear about is how we can become more mindful without at the same time becoming terminally po faced and soulessly politically correct. I’m no more interested in submitting to pc authoritarianism than un-pc authoritariansism.
I think you make several important and insightful points here, and I particularly like your discussion of anti-discrimination as a universal.
However, I’m not a huge fan of the “oppression hierarchy” view, because it makes it extremely difficult to talk about intersectionality in a meaningful way. This is an idea that’s been discussed extensively in some progressive circles.
Talking about intersectionality requires us to take seriously the idea that not all members of a given group (eg, black people, women) experience oppression in exactly the same way. That is, for a disabled woman, oppression might take the form of having your kids taken away from you by social services because of your disability even if you are a perfectly good parent. For a non-disabled woman, oppression might take the form of not having access to contraceptive services and raising kids you did not intend or want to have. It’s not clear to me that talking about a hierarchy in this situation is helpful — neither situation is clearly “worse” than the other, nor do we gain much by talking about it that way. But perhaps we do gain something by understanding the ways that these situations differ, and also how they are similar.
You remark on the panto references to the genie’s breasts. I didn’t see the performance, so I can only speculate, but is this a situation in which an intersectionality analysis would be useful?
With regard to the “froggy” point: part of it is perhaps that a great many people use “frog”, which doesn’t make it acceptable, but perhaps explains why fewer people were willing to criticise it, especially if “frog” was part of their own vocabularies. A comparable case is, perhaps,”lame”, which is (still) a term of abuse for mobility-impaired people, and which you used in your post to criticise a racist remark. I note this not to criticise your very insightful post, but to point out that part of the anti-discrimination project is raising awareness even among the most well-meaning. That is, familiarity with a term or an idea can make it seem less shocking, and we’d then be less likely to critique it.
I think you’re spot-on about not appropriating the anti-discrimination agenda.
–IP
I stand corrected, the dog did indeed belong to Guy Gibson. However the latin word is spelled with one g, whereas Gibson spelled his dog’s name with two as one can see in the picture of the dog’s grave ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RAF_Scampton_022.jpg ). During the period concerned the term was in widespread use and was understood to be an offensive epithet.
I perhaps should have explained the wider reference – the dog’s name has been censored from rebroadcasts on the film in recent years.
The N-word is also Latin for black, this was the context that Dam Busters commander Sqn Ldr Guy Gibson named his black Labrador.
Very thought provoking this, especially the observation of a hierarchy of racism. Something I’ll be sure to discuss further with some colleagues of mine who work in this field.