Last week I read the Gordon and Gerstle pieces alongside an essay called “Black Message/White Envelope: Genre, Authenticity, and Authority in the Antebellum Slave Narrative” by John Sekora. The latter argues that the slave narrative cannot be included in the category of African American Literature on account the significant influence white sponsors, editors, and publishers had throughout the entire process. Not only was the literary form itself crafted upon antecedent narratives by white men, of their capture by and escape from “savage” Native Americans, but African American slave narrative authors were also wholly dependent on white abolitionist endorsements. Furthermore, while the White abolition movement did aim to secure freedom for Blacks, for a number of participants, it was also fueled by other, less altruistic, more politically and financially self-serving concerns. The unfailing result is an entire body of narrative literature that cannot accurately be called autobiography. This notion was heavily in the forefront of my mind as I analyzed how the Gordon and Gerstle pieces reflect a similar effort towards homogeny, especially by way of whitewashing, as is often seen in contemporary popular culture.
The first variety of “ethnic” Barbie dolls didn’t appear until 1980, over two decades after the original model appeared. And, of those original “ethnic” models, they were all made from the same molds as their white doll counterparts, just painted in darker skin tones. This reflection of race reveals a lack of dedication to respectfully portray people of color in popular culture, but it also offers an interesting example of a contemporary manifestation of blackface, one, it is important to note, commodified on a mass level for our children to play with. Gerstle identifies blackface as one way that nineteenth century Irish immigrants physically and socially distanced themselves from African Americans, while still embracing the ways black culture’s influenced their own: “The Irish could never directly acknowledge their attraction to black culture, for that would drag them down to the African American level. But they acknowledged it indirectly by ‘becoming black’ through blackface minstrel routines, the most popular entertainment of the urban working class. The more the Irish distanced themselves from ‘loathsome’ blacks in ‘real life,’ the safer they felt in exploring on stage their attraction to black culture” (552). Similarly, ethnic Barbie dolls caricature different ethnicities without indicating any genuine effort made on behalf of their makers to create space for non-white cultures to prosper in their own right.
Another related phenomenon that spurned from the same era is the marketing of skin-lightening products to non-Anglo people. In her essay “Skin Bleaching and Global White Supremacy,” Yaba Amgborale Blay explains that through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, skin lightening products were the most popular kind of cosmetic. This holds particular relevance today when major cosmetic companies like L’Oreal have been accused of digitally lightening the skin of their models of color, like Beyonce. From such blatant “whitening” in contemporary marketing, we can think more critically about the entire history of homogenization of American culture, especially in terms of race.
–Sophia Curran
Works Cited
Blay, Yaba Amgborale. “Skin Bleaching and Global White Supremacy.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 4.4 (2011): 4-46. Web. 22 Feb. 2013.
Sekora, John. “Black Message/White Envelope: Genre, Authenticity, and Authority in the Antebellum Slave Narrative,” Callaloo 32 (1987): 482-515. PDF. 22 Feb. 2013.
