Week 7: Constraining Discourse through the Politics of Respectability

When an oppressed class comes under attack from a dominant class for deviating from its norms, one common response is to not only internalize that attack but to respond to it by shifting criticism to subclasses oppressed along other axes. Mumford provides several examples of this, noting how some leaders in the black community responded to the Moynihan report by urging community self-regulation against black expressions of homosexuality and against other perceived deviations from the standard of white patriarchy. This is exacerbated when the only members of the oppressed community who are allowed to be visible in the mainstream are those that conform to a completely unrealistic and dehumanizing idea of "respectability" dictated by the oppressive class. This however presents opportunities for subversion, where those visible members use their visibility to redirect discourse and challenge the dominant norms within the constraints placed upon their behavior and speech.

This bears similarities to recent dialogues around respectability within and without the trans community, where the lived experiences and behavior of trans women and people of color are minimized and constrained in the name of respectability.

The recent high-profile media appearances of Laverne Cox, Carmen Carrera, and Janet Mock exemplify the ways in which TWoC are made to respond to attacks . Both Carrera and Cox responded eloquently to incredibly invasive and inappropriate questions in a recent interview with Katie Couric. The overwhelming praise both received for these responses masks the fact that they couldn't have responded in any other way and have been taken seriously by Couric and her audience. A justifiably aggressive or angry response to such questions would have been perceived as playing into the stereotypes of emotional instability and "crudeness" that are constantly used to police the behavior of trans women and women of color. 

Janet Mock faced a similar dilemma in a recent interview with Piers Morgan. After Mock responded critically to Morgan's sensationalization of her body, Morgan threw what can only be called a tantrum on twitter, calling Mock "cisphobic" among other things. That a white cis man would express feeling personally attacked and threatened by a black trans woman who (politely) questioned his overstepping her boundaries and her identity speaks to the incredible degree to which he is insulated from social critique and to the impossibly rigid standards of behavior and expression TWoC are held to if they are to be considered "respectable".

This becomes deadly when one considers that trans women of color, the most demonized members within the trans community, are also the most at-risk for sexual violence, murder, and HIV. While the white (and predominantly male) components of the trans community seek to leverage events like the TDOR for political capital while maintaining an politically-respectable image of trans people, it excludes those people who are the actual victims supposedly being commemorated.

After reading Gregg's post last week about "Orange is the New Black," I watched an episode of Melissa Harris-Perry's talk show on MSNBC, about OITNB. Transgender actress Laverne Cox spoke about the case of Cece McDonald.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/cece-mcdonald-transgender-hate-crime-murder

This case brings up many of the same issues that Cheryl Hicks examines in "'Bright and Good Looking Colored Girl': Black Women's Sexuality and 'Harmful Intimacy' in Early-Twentieth-Century New York." Hicks writes about how working-class Black women's romantic and social lives were under surveillance (p. 149). They were often picked up by police -- sometimes just for walking in the streets while Black. They were commonly charged with vagrancy, disorderly conduct and prostitution (p. 420), and once arrested, racist and heterosexist prison officials hoped to reform them and strengthen their moral character. 

I see echoes of this history in Cece McDonald's case. According to the Huffington Post, 

   "CeCe McDonald, a transgender woman ... was controversially sentenced to 41 months in prison for second degree manslaughter after allegedly defending herself against a racist and transphobic attack." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/13/laverne-cox-cece-mcdonald_n_4588838.html)

Recently, on Jan 13, McDonald was released from a men’s prison in St. Cloud, MN, after serving time for surviving a violent, racist, transphobic attack. 

Her story is moving. Here, her support group describes what happened:

   "Around 12:30 am on June 5, 2011, CeCe was walking to the grocery store with some friends, all of them young, African American, and LGBTIQ or allied. As they passed a local bar, the Schooner Tavern, a group of older, white people who were standing outside the bar’s side door began hurling racist and transphobic slurs at them, without provocation.  They called CeCe and her friends ‘faggots,’ ‘niggers,’ and ‘chicks with dicks,’ and suggested that CeCe was ‘dressed as a woman’ in order to ‘rape’ Dean Schmitz, one of the attackers. When CeCe approached the group and told them that her crew would not tolerate hate speech, one of the women said, “I’ll take you bitches on,” and then smashed her glass into CeCe’s face. She punctured CeCe’s cheek all the way through, lacerating her salivary gland. A fight ensued, during which one of the attackers, Dean Schmitz, was fatally stabbed.

"CeCe was the only person arrested that night.  She was briefly taken to the hospital where she received 11 stitches in her cheek. While she was still suffering both physically and mentally from this traumatic incident, she was left alone in a room for three hours and then interrogated, and then placed in solitary confinement at the Hennepin County men’s jail." (http://supportcece.wordpress.com)

Gender Roles at a young age

             

            Children at a young age already develop a notion of what is normal and expected in society. The family and the home enforce gender roles many would argue. George Chauncey argues that in the 1950’s, the mothers were being blamed for their child’s deviance, (Chauncey, 172).  The creation of the “sex criminal” enforced norms with in society that made mothers take a closer look at their children and surveillance their actions. Due to the media there was a great amount of fear of the “Sex Criminal”. Chauncey argues that because most states were feeding in to the notion/image of the “sex criminal”, everything that was not part of the norm or a threat to the norm was considered a “sex criminal”.  The video above is an example of how children are taught at a young age to conform to the normality of society. At that young age these children know what is gender specific and the worst part is these children are already brain washed to believe that women are the caregivers and stay home and men work. On page 177 Chauncey discusses at a young age children were being looked at to see if they were going to be abnormal and in need of help. He gives the example that if boys did not play sports and girls did that they were questioned and treated as if they were psychotic, (Chauncey, 177).  This here reinforces the ideology that all children are taught at a young age that certain activities are for boys and certain activities are for girls. Back then they were viewed as abnormal and punished but in modern day it is more excepted, however many times children are teased.  I believe that we need to start breaking the notions about gender at a very young age. It is hard as we live in a society, which is fueled by patriotism. Families need to stop reinforcing gender norms in the households, as it might be to late to change the children’s views when they start school.

Week 5: Mediating Media

One persistent theme across this week’s readings is the role of media in the proliferation of definitions of the “Other”, and the impact of media on what becomes the dominant normative ideology concerning these dangerous "Others", be they black, gay, bad mothers, outspoken women, aka anyone who defies the norm.   As George Chauncey, Jr.(1993) posits:

     The postwar consensus thus maintained that to be sexually "normal" was to behave in a way the dominant      culture considered not only socially acceptable and moral, but also statistically average and "mature;"...          Failure to adhere to the sexual conventions, moral standards, and (supposed) majority practices of one's        culture made one a deviate.

Given that Michael Sam recently made a ripple in the news world with the prospect of his becoming the first openly gay NFL player, should he be drafted, let’s consider the continued role media plays in redefining societal perceptions of stigmatized peoples. As expected, several media outlets, especially those of the conservative variety, have quickly revived the refrain of homosexuality as a threat to “true” athletes (what if they have to shower with a gay player?!?), along with the familiar “think of the children” alarms, both tactics nauseatingly familiar from our readings.

In his February 10, 2014 broadcast of the Daily Show, John Stewart skillfully deconstructed the controversy surrounding Michael Sam’s announcement in a brief, yet hard-hitting, 4:24 min segment. Here is the full link for your enjoyment, Daily Show Michael Sam Segment, but for now let us narrow in on the concluding comparison which speaks directly to this week’s readings. Conveniently, the internet has already created a panel for us, starting with a news correspondent's report that Sports Illustrated has already spoken with a number of teams who are looking to avoid the "controversy" of picking an openly gay athlete:

How is it that partner preference is just too much? The sarcasm dripping from every line John Stewart delivers shreds the conflation of homosexuality (and by extension all non-heterosexual orientations) with the widespread category of deviant, a traditional line of thinking left over from the postwar sex crime frenzy days in our recent past. By running through a list of agreeably serious offenses with severe consequences for people other than the athlete involved, Stewart highlights the absurdity of conflating being gay as something worthy of a moral uproar from any NFL team.

On a related note, check out this video as well: Texas News Anchor. I was blown away. We fear that which we do not know.

Week 4: Who were the Nazis persecuting, REALLY?

As we recall during the prohibition era, we continually saw the implicit oppression of those that identified or displayed behavior that was outside the heteronormative way.  We now have observed that policy was enacted after efforts of the prohibition era failed to deter such activity from the gay community to keep them apart from the mainstream culture to deliberately express their sexuality.  Given the article we just read, "The Exclusion of Homosexuality From the Public Sphere in the 1930's", something similar was occurring abroad to what other people may have overlooked widely until decades later.  Many dismiss the events of World War II and Nazi Germany as the xenophobic elimination of one specific minority group to create the ideal "Arian Race".  The Jews were solely sought as the certain population to cleanse Germany from, however, there were more groups involved that were being persecuted for operating outside the German Norm.  It was evident that homosexual men and women were being oppressed by Nazi Germany, imprisoning them in concentration camps.  They wore an inverted pink triangle to signify that they were heterosexual.  Over 100,000 homosexuals (more specifically from Poland) became victims of these death camps.

What was ironic from the way events played out was that homosexual culture flourished during the 1920's in literature, cinema, and the media; unfortunately, due to rising inflation and economic dilemmas encouraged the Nazi regime which began to use scapegoats for the country's problem.  The question remains, who were the Nazi's persecuting, really? Many hear the narrative of the Jewish faith becoming eliminated, but the world forgot about our brothers and sisters of the gay community.  In this aspect, we observe another instance on how the government has succeeded to silence different sexual expressions throughout history.  Once again, with the Sochi games coming up the same has occurred, but the growing resistance from the gay community and its allies will be a tantamount milestone to the continued existence of a new freedom of speech.

http://en.auschwitz.org/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=3

Week 4: Black Women's Sexuality and 'Harmful Intimacy' 100 years later

Reflecting on “’Bright and Good Looking Colored Girl’”: Black Women’s Sexuality and ‘Harmful Intimacy’ in Early-Twentieth-Century New York,” by Cheryl D. Hicks, led me to think of Jenji Kohen’s celebrated television series on Netflix, “Orange is the New Black” (OITNB). Hicks explores questions of race, gender and sexuality in the 1910s and 1920s through the lens of 100 case files of inmates at the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills. Exactly 100 years later, OITNB explores questions of race, gender and sexuality in the 2010s through the lens of the inmates of a women’s prison in upstate New York, based on the memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, by Piper Kerman.

In some ways, not much has changed. Hicks documents the ways in which the “racial construction of sexuality” led authorities at Bedford to naturalize and essentialize black female sexuality as deviant. Hicks also describes the deep anxiety authorities felt over the “harmful intimacy” of white women attracted to or in intimate contact with black women.

In OITNB, the same themes and anxieties identified by Hicks still hold sway, at least as life in a women’s prison is portrayed by Piper Kerman, as adapted by Jenji Kohen. In the series, Piper, a bisexual white woman sentenced to a minimum security prison for her involvement in an international drug smuggling ring, has a sexual relationship while in prison with her ex-female lover, infuriating Healy, a prison officer and social worker who manages Piper’s case file. Piper’s “harmful intimacy” with another woman is only one of many examples of same-sex intimacy in the prison portrayed in OITNB, but because Piper is white and from an upper-middle-class background, Healy, like the prison officials in Hicks’ study, assumes Piper can be reformed and redeemed. Therefore, although he ignores or seems to take same-sex encounters among the other inmates in stride as somehow natural or “going with the territory,” evidence of Piper’s sexual “deviance” triggers in Healy an avalanche of anger and disgust.

Other characters include Mendez, one of the prison guards in OITNB. Mendez, like the prison officials described by Hicks, essentializes black and Latina inmates as inherently sexual, but he takes his demeaning, racist and sexist assumptions substantially further, dehumanizing the inmates of color and sexually assaulting them with impunity.

Some critics have blasted what they describe as OITNB’s racist portrayal of many of the inmates and the basic premise of a story largely about women of color in which the avenue in to their lives is via the character of an upper-middle-class white woman. But others have defended and celebrated the show for the ways in which they suggest Kohen, like Hicks, reveals the deeper humanity of the inmates by reflecting on their back stories, their motivations and the aspects of their lives that they generally hide within the prison walls. In this viewpoint, the racist language and stereotypes in the show are regularly questioned, critiqued and destabilized. And although Piper is the star of the show, her white privilege and her initial attempts to claim heterosexual privilege (waiting for her outside prison is her male fiancé, which Piper initially plays up, deflecting any suggestion that she is interested in intimate encounters with other women) are opened up to constant critique, undermining her own claims to the sympathy of the viewers. To the show's supporters, the characters of the other prisoners in OITBN are complex and generally sympathetic, standing in stark contrast to the attempts of some of the prison staff to dehumanize, simplify or essentialize them. For supporters, OITNB thus offers a powerful critique of the assumptions many Americans make about women – particularly women of color - in the prison system. Included among the characters OITBN presents in a strikingly sympathetic light is the trans woman Sophia, played by the transgender actress and advocate, Laverne Cox.

Kohen has suggested that she intended the show to be an exploration of the lives of a diverse cast of female inmates, but that she went with the real-life Piper Kerman’s true story as an accessible route in for mainstream white American television viewers. In an interview on NPR, Kohen said:

“In a lot of ways Piper was my Trojan Horse. You’re not going to go into a network and sell a show on really fascinating tales of black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals. But if you take this white girl, this sort of fish out of water, and you follow her in, you can then expand your world and tell all of those other stories. But it’s a hard sell to just go in and try to sell those stories initially. The girl next door, the cool blonde, is a very easy access point, and it’s relatable for a lot of audiences and a lot of networks looking for a certain demographic. It’s useful.”

Week 4: Black's n Blues... and Beyonce

While reading Cheryl Hicks' "Bright and Good Looking Colored Girl" she lightly touched the topic of black women expressing sexuality through music, specifically the blues.  During the early-twentieth- century the blues music scene was a way for black artists to express their sexual desire through lyrics and performances. While Hicks only provided a few sentences on this topic, I believe within the scope of black women's sexuality and its expression during the early twentieth-century, the importance of blues should not be understated.

During the 1920s and 1930s the blues deviated from society in terms of providing promiscuous and sexual imagery within the lyrics. For example in Bessie Smith's lyrics she clearly expresses sexual desires in the song "I'm Wild About That Thing" :

Give it to me papa, I'm wild about that thing 

Do it easy, honey, don't get rough, 

From you, papa, I can't get enough 

I'm wild about that thing, I'm wild about that thing. 

Everybody knows it, I'm wild about that thing. 

While sexual desires were clearly stated in many songs, this did not exclude desires of homosexuality.  Willie Dixon's song "Back Door Man" clearly shows this through the title of the song in combination of repetition of "I-I-I am the, the backdoor man" and later:

When everybody is-a trying' to sleep 

I'm-a somewhere makin' my midnight creep

And ev'ry mo'nin when the rooster crows 

He's tellin' me that it's the time to go

The early twentieth century was a time where all women faced more critical surveillance specifically in the topic of sexuality and social life.  However "many young working-class black women, regardless of their regional, religious, or familial background, grappled with the relentless surveillance by police officers, reformers, concerned relatives, and community members" (Hicks, 420).  Due to the increase in sexuality amongst social and public places, the African American society was labeled as  highly sexual and promiscuous. While these labels don't actually represent the African American culture the magnified glass the police held on African American women contributed to the stereotype they they are extremely promiscuous.

This stereotype continues in today's modern society. The clearest example is pop-music artist (and legend) Beyonce. Beyonce provides the public with promiscuous and sexual lyrics in combination with her hypnotizing performances on stage. 

For example, her lyrics Blow are exactly what your dirty mind thinks ...

Keep me coming, keep me going 

Keep me humming, keep me moaning

Don't stop screaming, freaking, blowing 

Can you eat my skittles 

It's the sweetest in the middle 

Pink that's the flavor 

Solve the riddle 

While some may argue that today's music lyrics are worse than what they have been before, I disagree completely. These lyrics are not any more provocative than Bessie and Willie lyrics. They are all talking about sexual experiences and desires. I personally believe that every person, no matter sex, gender, race, class should be able to speak freely about their sexuality. We are just a bunch of "filthy animals" anyway... 

Even though Beyonce publicly identifies as a feminist, she is constantly judged and picked apart for her lyrics, outfits, and performances for how they demonstrate black women's sexuality. Meanwhile, there are white female artist who do the exact same thing. For example, Madonna is a pop icon legend who visibly expressed sexuality amongst her lyrics, performances, and clothes... not to mention she publicly made out with Britney Spears on stage and it didn't jeopardize her title.  

While Madonna is praised for her expression of sexuality, Beyonce is critiqued and questioned of her views as a feminist. The difference of perception amongst the public eye, only continues the stereotype and idea that black women are considered as more of a sexual deviant than white females. 

Even though (Disney's Hannah Montana) Miley is doing this.....

For you're clear enjoyment here is Beyonce's video for "Drunk in love" ... 

Drunk In Love

-PK