Remembrance – Black Power & TV
Spectaculars
The exploration of the gaze of the
black body. Using Sarah Baartman
and the relation to contemporary
black female celebrities as an
example.
•“Race is the preeminent pleasure of our time. Whiteness is not a color; it’s a way of
feeling pleasure in and about ones bodies. The black body is needed to fulfill this desire
for race pleasure. In our colorlined world, the white body is a form of desire and the
black body is a form of pleasure.” Anthony Paul Farley
Remembrance
re·mem·brance
1.a. The act or process of remembering.b. The state of being remembered: holds him
in fond rememberance.2. Something serving to celebrate or honor the memory of a
person or event; a memorial.3. The length of time over which one's memory
extends.4. Something remembered; a reminiscence.5. A souvenir.6. A greeting or
token expressive of affection.
Remembrance can be defined in a number of ways. It is often referred to as the
process of remembering, or the state of being remembered. Remembrance can be
applied at certain events or by certain personal artefacts that revoke the memory of
an happy or devastating event, for example 9/11, or a living being that has passed,
that is practiced globally.
Although you might not personally remember an event, the act of remembrance can
still be performed. For example, wearing a poppy on Remembrance Sunday. The
people in this room were not alive during the battle of the Somme, but how many of
you wear a poppy on Remembrance Sunday? Remembrance can be a form of
respect, not just an activity in the brain.
Remembrance of Sarah Bartmaan
Remembrance helps people celebrate,
respect and remember
Creation of the Sarah Baartman centre of
remembrance in Hankey 2013/2014
financed by the National department of arts
and culture
“ A multi-purpose space of national
significance” Arts and culture minister Pallo
Jordan
However remembrance is not always
respectful
Swedish minister of culture carving up cake
and eating it on Worlds arts day
Black Power
Definition:
• A political slogan and a name for various associated
ideologies aimed at achieving self-determination for
people of African/Black descent.
• The movement flourished in the late 1960's as a
result of the dissatisfaction of some black activists
with the progress of the civil rights movement.
• The black power movement embraced a variety of
groups, among them SNCC (Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee) , the Congress of Racial
Equality, the Black Panthers, and the Black Muslims.
Theories:
• Such positions were for the most part in direct conflict with
those of leaders of the mainstream Civil Rights Movements,
and thus the two movements have often been viewed as
inherently antagonistic. However, certain groups and
individuals participated in both civil rights and black power
activism.
• While Stokely Carmichael and SNCC were in favor of black
nationalism, organizations such as the Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense were not. Though they considered themselves to
be at war with a power structure that was indeed mostly
white, they were not at war with all whites, merely the
individuals in the existing power structure, who happened to
mostly be white.
Ideologies:
• Though the aims of the Black Power movement were racially specific,
much of the movement’s impact has been its influence on the
development and strategies of later political and social movements. The
Black Power movement created what other multiracial and minority
groups interpreted to be a viable template for the overall restructuring of
society.
• By opening up discussion on issues of democracy and equality, the Black
Power movement paved the way for a diverse plurality of social justice
movements, including black feminism, environmental movements,
affirmative action, and gay and lesbian rights. Central to these movements
were the issues of identity politics and structural inequality, features
emerging from the Black Power movement. The Black Power movement
emphasized and explored a black identity, movement activist were forced
to confront issues of gender, class and many more.
TV spectaculars
Definition
•The idea of making a spectacle out of something.
•In relation to Sarah Baartmans story she was the spectacle and
used as a representation of the gaze of black female bodies.
•Is there still an underlying racial stereotype going on ?
•Explore Sarah Baartmaan
•Explore black women
•The gaze of the Black Body
• Look at theorists discussing the black body as a fetish object
Sarah Baartman
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ7mmMe4klQ
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sarah Baartman
A woman from Africa who became a sexual spectacle in Europe
A spectacle to be laughed at and humiliated.
Forced to be looked at whilst nude.
Became a prostitute died of sexual disease.
Didnt stop there
Vagina and brain was cut out and put in jars whilst her naked body was put in a museum.
•
When looking at the portrayal of black women in the media today ,we still see women like Nicki Minaj and
Rihanna half naked, using their bodies to attract a wide audience and embracing it as power. Sarah Baartman
didn’t participate with free will, however musicians like Nicki Minaj choose to represent themselves in an erotic
light forgetting the struggle that Sarah went through . Is this perhaps because we have been engineered as a
society to look at the black body as a tool of pleasure. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the
audience. However the representations of a lot of the black celebrities aren’t far off from that of Sarah
Baartman. Could you say that the black female form is still being exploited? And the gaze of the black body is still
being used as a spectacle to attract worldwide attention?
•
Is that the way the music industry works? Indoctrinated slavery? Encouraging black people to look up to and
behave in a certain way? Have artists been told to behave in a certain way to attract attention ? What does that
say about our society ?
Theories
•
Race as a sadomasochistic form of pleasure. The existentialist of sadism – The process by
which one man tries to transform into a mere object of his will .
•
•
Whiteness as a sadistic pleasure the black body as a fetish object
Let the little childs mind be poinsoned by predjudice and its practically impossible to ever
remove these impressions– J waities
The white identity is created and maintained by decorating black bodies with disdain over
and over again.
Race is the form of pleasure in ones body which is achieved through humiliation of the other,
and then ,as the last stop, through a denial of the entire process . We deny it through a
discourse in which race appears as a thing created by nature and not as a practice developed
by a culture . By denying their fetization of race whites create a culture in which they are
both masters and innocents.
•
•
•
Baldwin asks – What is it to be done when your subalternation , your pain , is the source of a
pleasure which supports a political order, which in turn secures your subalternation
Gaze of the black bodies?
These are some common examples
of the typical representation of the
black female within the media. In
order to capture the audience and
attract masses they use their body
(wide hips, oversized bum, large
breasts) to sell to their target
audience. This is a great example of
the black body as a fetish object
when looking at the comparison
between Sarah Baartman who was
‘forced’ to be a spectacle and
humiliated.. Today stars like these
are idolised by many young female
teenagers as ‘strong’, ‘sexy’
independent women with perfect
bodies. Do these women portray
themselves like this because they
want to and feel free and break so
called boundaries or do they do it
because there is an underlying
expectation that black women
should sexualise themselves to gain
respect and attention in the media
industry.
Conclusion
Although the black female appears to have gained
more respect and power in the media , how far is
this true when looking at theories suggesting that
the black body is merely a fetish object, designed by
the white body?
We can conclude that there is still, perhaps, an
underlying fetization of the black body .
Sources:-+
•
•
‘‘Black Power for Whom?’’ Christian Century (20 July 1966): 903–904. Branch, At Canaan’s
Edge, 2006. Carmichael and Hamilton, Black Power, 1967. Carson, In Struggle,
1995. King, Address at SCLC staff retreat, MLKJP-GAMK. King, ‘‘Is It Not Enough to
Condemn Black Power,’’ October 1966, MLKJP-GAMK. King, Statement on Black Power, 14
October 1966, TMAC-GA. King, Where Do We Go from Here, 1967. ‘‘Negro Leaders on
‘Meet the Press,’’’ 89th Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record 112 (29 August 1966): S
21095–21102.
Farley, Anthony Paul 76 Or. L. Rev. 457 (1997)