Blog #4

Josephine Baker came from a poor family in East St. Louis, where she eventually became a street kid and learned how to hustle. She also put a hat down in front of her and sang or danced around for money, and this is how she acquired her skills early on (Haddow). The “[Black children’s] eye crossing and angular bodily poses were iconic, and Baker adopted them as her own” (Brown). Josephine Baker used her street smarts and newly acquired skills to to get out of her city. It was a dangerous place in the early 1990s, and the only jobs available to her in St. Louis were domestic or agricultural jobs. So according to “Chasing a Rainbow”, she followed a group of black dancers called the Dixie Steppers into Harlem where she started her career and became a well known extraordinary black artist.

In the United States, she performed mostly as the “black stereotype”, where she acted dumb, uneducated and clumsy. Because she had to portray a negative image of the African American culture, I do not think that W.E.B. Du Bois would have thought too kindly of her because of the fact that he wanted the black population to be equal to the white population and no longer be discriminated against. Josephine Baker reinforced the racist perspectives of the white population and had to emphasize no sex appeal because the American idea of beauty was the opposite of what black was equated to.

She entered modernism as an example of “primitive Africa” in the United States by exploiting this black stereotype, and when she moved to Paris, her representation of her colonial body was another example of the primitive culture (Haddow). This idea was that African Americans were viewed as uncivilized people that the French colonized, and Josephine eventually used her colonized body and turned it into a sexual object.

When she expanded her career into Paris, things were different -- she became a sexual object where she performed in plenty of shows and her sex appeal got her the status of the number one female act. Her performances catered to the male audience, as she was dressed in scandalous costumes and danced in sexually arousing ways. In a way, in France she accepted her Black beauty and used it to get power and status, as she then eventually became a French ambassador. As Jayna Brown mentions in Babylon Girls, Baker’s representational roles were “multiple and contradictory; she represented the USA abroad during the war she performed at segregated US officer clubs in North Africa. While she represented the colonies in Paris, she also represented Paris in the desert, even as France’s colonial subjects remained unfree”. The “Banana Dance” is an example of how she exploits herself as an ethnic primitive woman into the modernized world that ruthlessly colonizes her own race.

 I think that Du Bois would not think that Josephine was the ideal representative for the black race since she was an entertainer instead of an educated professional. Since Alain Locke advocated for the reconstruction on the black perspective, I think that she would have seen Josephine Baker as an example of propaganda because of the black stereotypes she consistently performed as. Locke wanted black people to create their own image of their race and instead Baker just reinforced the pickaninny idea of black people.

Blog #3

If I were going to be a teacher at one of the lowest achieving schools in New Orleans where 90% if its’ student population is African Americans, I would choose to motivate my students with the philosophy of W.E.B. Du Bois, which is to have the top 10% of the black community to have higher education so that they are equipped with the right tools in order to create and fight for change. This higher education would consist of a liberal arts education which included majors like sociology, political rights, law, and history (Haddow). Extensive knowledge in these fields would help African Americans write and create new laws towards their equality and against the ongoing segregation. But unlike Du Bois and beings concerned only about the “Talented Tenth”, I would teach all of my students to strive towards higher education, instead of only picking the most promising students. I think that in order to motivate students to create change, they need to realize that there are building blocks that must be accomplished in education in order to create change that is successful. And unlike the problems that arose when this philosophy was introduced like the creation of an elitist class-based hierarchy or that most the black community was illiterate at the time, these problems wouldn’t occur teaching at a school in America today, or at least it wouldn’t be as drastic. Du Bois was a strong critic of Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of industrial education, where blacks were supposed to accept the discrimination they were exposed to while working hard in order to acquire economic gain as well as respect from white people. Du Bois is against the continuation of a form of slavery with Washington’s philosophy and in his book he explains this - “Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve? And the Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying: Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men?”  (W.E.B. Du Bois).

I think this philosophy would not be the most effective in a high school today in New Orleans because African Americans don’t need to acquire industrial education in order to be respected or to make money, this can be done by being educated in higher institutions. It might have made sense in the past because since the industrial jobs Washington talks about like domestic work and fieldwork were very similar to the labor they experienced while enslaved, but in the present day these students never had to endure the intensive labor during slavery. Washington thought it would lessen the immediate shock of freedom, but “The mass of those to whom slavery was a dim recollection of childhood found the world a puzzling thing: it asked little of them, and they answered with little, and yet it ridiculed their offering.” (W.E.B. Du Bois). I also don’t think Alain Locke’s philosophy of representation of the black community through aesthetics would be the most effective way to motivate students because although I believe it is important to create a new image of themselves based on their own perspectives, it might gain them respect but it won’t help students become higher achieving pupils. Whereas with Du Bois’s philosophy, motivating students to become as educated as they can possibly be in order to have the skills and leadership experience to create change will be more effective.

Now, if I were teaching a highly ranked achievement-oriented school with a student body that is 90% white and I was trying to mobilize students to become activists in order to create a better society in America, I would choose to teach the philosophy of the Black Panthers because I believe it will ignite their criticality and help them think across racial lines. The Black Panthers fought for the protection of African Americans, for them to be seen as equals to white people, and also fought for gender equality (Stewart). They believed that in order to achieve their goals they had to fight for them, and did not partake in the nonviolent protests that were happening because they didn’t think they were effective. Their initial platform was to promote self-defense from police brutality they also encouraged blacks to carry firearms in order to protect themselves against persistent police brutality (Stewart). I think this type of radical activism is the only way things are going to change in America because as we have seen in the past, nonviolent protests are an effective way to create exposure to the problems, but it doesn’t create change very effectively. If these students are highly ranked upper class kids, then they don’t need to fight for change for themselves, they need to fight for change for others that are experiencing racism and other issues in America today and they need to use the persistence and inspiration that the Black Panthers expressed. I chose a different philosophy for the two situations because I believe that students in underachieving schools need to be motivated towards higher education and the students in the second situation are already highly-ranked and are part of a white community where they do not face the same problems as those in the black community.

Criticality in Regards to Douglass and Banneker

Both Benjamin Banneker's letter to Thomas Jefferson as well as Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave are examples of mature criticality, which is “criticism and world knowledge from one’s own subject position or autonomous agenda” (Stewart). Criticality is when people question the norm and create a plan for change, which then leads to activism which takes this idea for change and exposes unjust and unfair ideas and/or actions. Both Douglass and Banneker demonstrated criticality as they identified problems and suggested change, but Douglass’s embedded criticality of the system he was enslaved to was more successful because it encouraged physical activism in response to the identified issues.

Banneker was the grandson of indentured servant Molly Welsh and her slave Bannka, who decided to marry and have a daughter, who then married a free black man, and had Banneker (Stewart). He ended up teaching himself subjects such as astronomy and math, and ended up becoming a well educated black man. In his letter to Thomas Jefferson, Banneker mentions that Jefferson instilled the idea of equality for all in the Declaration of Independance, but he was also the first to suggest that black people are inferior to white people (Stewart). Banneker expressed his discontent with Jefferson by writing, “...you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages” (Banneker). Not only is Jefferson the man that created the idea that all men are created equal, but he was also a slave owner, which only adds to the hypocrisy that Banneker was trying to expose. This letter was an example of mature criticality, because of his ability to question ideas and perspectives that are shared by the world, as well as his ability to embody the criticism he makes on Jefferson (Stewart). Since Jefferson believes that the intellectual capacity of a black person is less than that of a white person, as explained in his Notes to Virginia regarding the fact that he knew of few black people that could understand the teachings of Euclid. Banneker challenges this idea as a black man that is an astronomer, mathematician and surveyor, by sending Jefferson an almanac he made, which requires very extensive knowledge.

Douglass's narrative gave insight to the system of slavery that he experienced which helped the audience connect to the life of a slave on an emotional level. His first-hand account of the brutality and physical punishments that he and many others went through during his enslavement changed when he learned to read and write. When he became capable of reading, he explained, “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from out homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Douglass, p. 35).He began his path to self-emancipation shortly after he became an educated man, because that is when he began to realize that slavery is immoral and its dehumanizing nature is something that needed to be changed. Douglass demonstrated embedded criticality, as he lived in the system of slavery, and he wanted to change the way of things and did so by demonstrating resistance and noncompliance. His narrative gave insight to Americans in the North about the conditions that slaves were subjected to, which led to anti-slavery legislature as well as informed and inspired abolitionists. He ended up joining an abolitionist movement and gave speeches that encouraged the end of slavery (Stewart).

I believe that Douglass’s criticality is more effective because he exposes the conditions and harsh realities of slaves to the world, which allowed him to go from being intellectually critical and proposing the need for change, to his ultimate ability to participate in physical activism. Although Banneker also used criticality and eventually turned it into activism, his form was limited as he wrote his letter showing and explaining what should be changed, but it ultimately did not motivate people do take action, unlike Douglass’s narrative which reached the audience and touched them on an emotional level.

An example of criticality and activism today is what is currently happened in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael Brown was a young black man who was walking home with his friend, when the white police officer Darren Wilson shot him six times for no apparent reason. Dorian Johnson gave his account for what happened, but the police are refusing to credit him as a witness. This created an uproar from the Ferguson civilians who demanded that justice would be served. But instead of encouraging peace, the protesters were teargassed by the local police. This is an example of a form of criticality that Douglass used, where he identified the problem and proposed a change, and then physical activism followed. The citizens of Ferguson identified the fact that the black young man was shot with no probable cause, and now they are standing up and protesting for their rights as black people in America and how they are constantly reminded that white people believe their lives are inferior to theirs. Both the black people of Ferguson and Douglass have first hand knowledge of the racism that they experience in their lives and both take an active part in changing that.

Link to video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlMjhoYPmZ8

Murad Rahman and the 1968 UCSB North Hall Takeover

Murad Rahman was was one of the thirteen black students that attended UCSB in 1965 who were constantly isolated and alienated from other students. According to Martha Biondi, “A nationwide survey of major state universities found that black Americans are grossly underrepresented in higher education” (Biondi, 17). This not only meant that they were not taught their own histories, but forced to learn about Eurocentric histories that belittled their culture. In the panel discussion of participants and witnesses, Gerard Pigeon said,“Universities were then the places where bourgeois enforcers dispensed a form of knowledge, which they insisted had to be faithfully recited in order to be accepted” (Awakenings, 30). But it was not until 1968, the year regarded as the year that “rocked the world” that students started to confront issues like their cultural identity and racism (Awakenings, 34). There was continuous miseducation as well as verbal abuse that happened to black students at UCSB, and this was when Rahman, as well as the rest of the black students at UCSB which grew to around 40-60 students, decided that it was time for a change.

The assassination of Martin Luther King and the combined efforts from the students at UCSB to send Dr. Amari Hadid as a representative of their love and affection to Dr. Kings funeral only exemplified the continuing struggle of black people in this country (Awakenings, 35). Shortly after, Rahman had an incident with his roommate when his roommates refused to talk to Rahman's friends when they came to visit him because “they were not of his kind” (Awakenings, 37). The situation turned violent but soon resolved, as his roommate eventually apologized. Many students questioned the effectiveness of nonviolent revolt, but on most campuses they remained nonviolent (Bioni, 25). Rahman said that situations similar to what happened to him and his roommate happened all around campus, but to a lesser extend (Awakenings, 37). This is what eventually triggered the idea of a takeover, and what lead to the black students of UCSB to take charge and demand change.

Rahman was taught the philosophy of social change of Malcolm X at the age of fourteen, but once the Black Student Union decided to do their takeover of North Hall, they all educated themselves on both the philosophies of Dr. King as well as Malcolm X. All of the students did a lot of research on the most safe and efficient way to takeover North Hall, and the only issue they had while taking over North Hall was a run-in they had with a few scientists that were working in the building. But after they were escorted from the building, the building was theirs. Rahman took the same risk as all others involved in the takeover and was subjected to the same consequences. The North Hall takeover was overall successful, as the students demanded there be more classes that were relevant to their own lives. The Black Studies Department was created, as the implementation of the ethnic requirement to all students on campus (Awakenings, 31). The takeover was a step in the right direction for more social consciousness, less racism and less isolation and alienation of black students in college campuses.