Love and Theft: The Racial Unconscious of Blackface Minstrelsy
Author(s): Eric Lott
Source: Representations, No. 39 (Summer, 1992), pp. 23-50
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928593
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ERIC
LOTT
Love and Theft:
The Racial Unconscious
of Blackface Minstrelsy
I
black and whiteAmericancultures
SEPARATING
THE
BOUNDARIES
in the nineteenthcenturywere marked mostvividlyalong the lines of property
and sexuality.Trafficin slave commoditieswas as defininga racial practiceas the
preservationof white racial purity.The blackface minstrelshow,we now commonly believe, dedicated itself to staging or constructingthese boundaries.
Eclecticin origin,primitivein execution,and raucous in effect,a theatricalaffair
has been summed up as, in Alexander
principallyof the urban North,minstrelsy
Saxton's words, "half a centuryof inurementto the uses of whitesupremacy."'
While it was organized around the quite explicit"borrowing"of black cultural
materials for white dissemination (and profit),a borrowing that ultimately
depended upon the material relations of slavery,the minstrelshow obscured
these relations by pretending that slavery was amusing, right, and natural.
Though it arose froma whiteobsession withblack (male) bodies that underlies
whiteracial dread to our own day,it ruthlesslydisavowed itsfleshlyinvestments
throughridicule and racistlampoon. Yet I am not so sure thatthisis the end of
the story.In lightof recentworkon race thatproceeds frompostmodernaccounts
we probablyought to take these factsand processes as merelya
of subjectivity,
startingorientationfor inquiryinto the great complexitiesof racism and raced
subjectsin the United States.2In the followingpages, I want to put some of this
work to use in the area of blackface,the first,formativepublic or institutional
acknowledgmentbywhitesof blackculture.In doing so I hope to showthatblackface performance arose from and embodied what we might call a midnineteenth-century"racial unconscious"-a structuredformation,combining
thoughtand feeling,tone and impulse, and at the veryedge of semanticavailability,whose symptomsand anxieties make itjust legible.3A reading of these
symptomsand anxietiessuggests,contraryto currentwisdom,thatblackfaceminstrelsywas based on small but significantcrimes against settled ideas of racial
demarcation,whichindeed appear to be inevitablewhen whiteAmericansenter
the haunted realm of racial fantasy.UltimatelyI am after some sense of how
REPRESENTATIONS
39 * Summer
1992 ( THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
23
whitepeople livedtheirown whiteness.This will
precariouslynineteenth-century
later involve an argumentabout the uses of ethnographyin the historicalstudy
of readers and audiences.
Of course there is no doubt thatblackfacewitnessedthe efficient
expropriation of the culturalcommodity"blackness"-a factwell demonstratedin an 1867
AtlanticMonthlyarticle rather hypotheticallyrecountingblackface "originator"
T. D. Rice's firstblackface performance,in Pittsburghin around 1830.4 Confrontedone day withthe dazzling spectacleof black singing,the storygoes, Rice
saw his "opportunity"and determinedto takeadvantageof histalentformimicry.
Fortunately,intonesAtlanticwriterRobertP. Nevin,"There was a negro in attendance at Griffith's
Hotel, on Wood Street,named Cuff,-an exquisite specimen
of his sort,-who won a precarious subsistenceby lettinghis open mouth as a
mark forboysto pitchpennies into,at threepaces, and bycarryingthe trunksof
passengers from the steamboatsto the hotels."Aftersome persuasion, "Cuff"
agrees to accompany the actor to the theater.There Rice blacks his face, orders
Cuffto disrobe, and "invest[s]himselfin the cast-offapparel." As Nevin puts it,
on stage "the extraordinaryapparitionproduced an instanteffect."
At thispoint somethingverycurious happens, and itbears quoting at length.
A steamerappears on the Monongahela Wharf,and Cuff-"who meanwhilewas
crouching in dishabille under concealmentof a projectingflatbehind the performer"-begins to thinkof his livelihood:
Betweenhimselfand othersof his colorin thesame lineof business,and especiallyas
calledGinger,thereexistedan activerivalry
in
regardeda certainformidable
competitor
thebaggage-carrying
business.ForCuffto allowGingertheadvantageofan undisputed
vesselwouldbe notonlyto forgetall "condescentupon theluggageoftheapproaching
fromthepassengers,
siderations"
but,byprovinghima laggardin hiscalling,to casta
as he mightlendhimself
to a friend,it
damagingblemishupon hisreputation.
Liberally
Aftera minuteor twoof fidgety
could notbe done at thatsacrifice.
waitingfor[Rice's]
songto end,Cuff'spatiencecouldendureno longer,and,cautiously
hazardinga glimpse
of his profilebeyondtheedge of theflat,he calledin a hurriedwhisper:"MassaRice,
wantsme,-steamboat's
MassaRice,musthavemyclo'se!MassaGriffif
comin'!"
The appeal wasfruitless.
MassaRicedid nothearit,fora happyhitat an unpopular
had set theaudiencein a roarin whichall othersoundswerelost....
cityfunctionary
[Anotherappealwentunheeded,when,]driventodesperation,
and forgetful
intheemergencyof everysenseof propriety,
Cuff,in ludicrousundressas he was,startedfromhis
place,rushedupon thestage,and,layinghishandupontheperformer's
shoulder,
called
outexcitedly:
"MassaRice,MassaRice,gi'menigga'shat,-nigga'scoat,-nigga'sshoes,gi' me nigga'st'ings!MassaGriffif
wants'im,-STEAMBOAT'S COMIN'!!"
The incidentwas the touch,in the mirthful
experienceof thatnight,thatpassed
endurance.(609-10)
This passage, in all itswoozy syntaxand headlong rush,is probablythe least
and most accurate account of American minstrelsy's
trustworthy
appropriation
of black culture. Indeed it reads something like a master text of the racial
24
REPRESENTATIONS
economy encoded in blackface performance.For one thing,it calls on minstrel
devices (ventriloquizeddialect, racial burlesque) to narrate the origins of minstrelsy,as ifthisparticularnarratableeventgeneratedor secreted"naturally"the
withinminstrelsy)
formalmeans appropriateto it; itsmultipleframes(minstrelsy
of
subordination.
True
to
form,a diminamount to so many techniques black
ished, not to say "blackfaced"Cuffhas replaced Rice as thisaccount's center of
attention.And its talk of opportunityand investment,lending and ownership,
subsistenceand competitionis more preoccupied with cultural value than we
mighthave expected. Its racial unconscious,we mightsay,revealsa greatdeal of
anxietyabout the "primitiveaccumulation"it ostensiblycelebrates.5The fascination withCuff'snakedness,moreover,highlightsthisas an affairof male bodies,
where racial conflictand culturalexchange are negotiatedbetween men. Cuff's
stripping,a theftthatsilencesand embarrasseshim on stage but whichnevertheless entailsboth his bodilypresence in the show and the titillatingthreatthathe
mayreturnto demand his stolencapital,is a neat allegoryforthemostprominent
commercialcollisionof black and whiteculturesin the nineteenthcentury.The
cultural expropriationthat formedone centraldrama of the boundary-staging
minstrelshow was already an unsettledmatterof racial intercourseand an injectionof "blackness"intothe public sphere. But thissimultaneousconstructionand
transgressionof racial boundaries is somethingthat itselfneeds explaining,as
one performer'senthusiasmforhis blackfaceact suggests:"I shallbe richin black
fun."6
A strongwhite fascinationwithblack men and black culture,that is to say,
underwrote this popular expropriation.Blackface performerswere conspicuously intriguedwiththe streetsingersand obscure charactersfromwhom they
allegedlytook the materialthatwas laterfashionedto racistends. There are several accounts of these men'sattractionto their"donors,"and it is no wonder that
observerscalled it "vulgarity"an aura of illicitsexuality-nineteenth-century
shadowed the most chaste of minstrelshows.7From the startit appeared that a
main objectives.So
sort of generalized illicitnesswas indeed one of minstrelsy's
much is suggested,at least,bythe lengthsto whichreviewsand playbillstypically
wentto downplay(even as theyintimated)itslicentiousatmosphere:
and surpassingly
melodiousethiopianband,
original,
FirstNightofthenovel,grotesque,
musicalentertainment,
comentitledtheVIRGINIA MINSTRELS. Beingan exclusively
and entirely
and tambourine;
exemptfromthe
biningthebanjo,violin,bonecastanetts,
negro
and otherobjectionablefeatures,whichhave hithertocharacterized
vulgarities
8
extravaganzas
One wantsto knowmore about thoseotherobjectionablefeatures.Whateverthey
were, no one took veryseriouslytheiralleged absence fromthe minstrelshow,as
an 1843 songsheet illustrationof the Virginia Minstrelsonly begins to suggest
(fig.1). FrankBrowerthe bone playerwithlegs splayedwide; Dick Pelham on the
The RacialUnconscious
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
25
0 ' :-~, t.........,
. ' t1EI- . '
r s .iJI\
VIX
Z.
ZN
XA
I We
X
MCI XN S T REL
S-,
vs
;
stss |tal
TI-r-0,111
s
P r' 'ij #D'R'I3LE t'1; '4Mb)- t9X
l
V'r
/
_
I Jau
(1/g t,Z
Yi/s',T
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T /) u,/rpw
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tilh~~~~~~~~~l.~i
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v//i
FIGURE
26
ells
.
S
.
1. Sheet music cover,TheCelebrated
NegroMelodies,1843.
Photo: Harvard Theater Collection,Cambridge,Mass.
REPRESENTATIONS
vergeof forcedentryof thetambourine;BillyWhitlockin ecstasybehind a phallic
banjo: there is no attemptat realismhere. The whole scene has ratherthe air of
a collectivemasturbationfantasy-true enough, we mightguess,in capturingthe
overallspiritof the show.That spiritdepended at theveryleaston the suggestion
of black male sexual misdemeanor,and the characterof whitemen'sinvolvement
in this institutionalOther of genteel culture will bear some scrutiny.While in
Rice's act alone one mighthave seen predominantlyblack dancing set to musicof
the BritishIsles (oftenIrishjigs) withlyricsof a more or less racistnature,audiences appear to have believed the counterfeit(as we shall see), often so as to
distaste.'
border on sexual fervoror, alternately,
We ought to make some sense of these obfuscations,the hintsand denials of
of culturalexchange. This language was aimed
the uneasy affirmations
vulgarity,
at a racial structurewhose ideological and psychologicalinstabilityrequired its
boundaries continuallyto be staged,and whichregularlyexceeded the dominant
culture'scapacityto fixsuch boundaries. Indeed the verynotionof secure racial
markers,StuartHall has argued, is displaced when one acknowledgesthe constibythe constantcouplingor complex playof racial fear
tutionof whitesubjectivity
and desire, "othering" and identification,ambivalence and attraction;at any
moment,as in the examples above, the "surreptitiousreturn"of desire or guilt
may unsettle the whole business.'0 In blackface minstrelsythis dynamic often
tiltedtowardtransgression.Of course I take forgrantedthe casual and undocumentable racial intercoursethatcreolized black culturalformsas it "blackened"
to talk about
the dominant culture,a process thatin one sense makes it difficult
racial transgressionat all. Yet in the antebellumyears a kind of raw commodificationwas the economic contextout of whichblackfacedisplayemerged,and this
display,in turn,depended upon the dangerous, imaginaryproximityof "raced"
bodies. My subjecthere is the affectiveconsequences of thatproximity-an affair
of dollars and desire, theftand love.
II
The formof the earlyminstrelshow (1843 to the 1860s) underscores
the whitefascinationwithcommodified"black"bodies. What minstrelsywas not
is as importantas what it was. Narrative,forinstance,seems onlyto have been a
secondaryimpulse,even thoughT. D. Rice'sblackfaceburlesque afterpieceswere
tremendoussuccessesin the 1830s. In theirfirstperformances,the VirginiaMinstrels gave what they termed "Negro Concerts,"containingcertain burlesque
skits,to be sure, but emphasizingwitand melody; the skitsthemselves,like Dan
Emmett's"Dan Tucker on Horseback,"seemed littlemore than overgrowncircus
acts." An 1844 playbillpublicizinga "Vocal, Local, Joke-all,and Instrumental
Concert" conveysboth the tenor and the substanceof early minstrelshows.'2In
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
The RacialUnconscious
27
"sportingsaloons" and indeed circuses,among otherNew Yorkworking-classleisure sites, the Virginia Minstrels featured burlesque lectures, conundrums,
equestrian scenes, and comic songs, finallysettlinginto an early version of the
show form that would become standard minstrelprocedure. The evening was
divided in two; both partsconsistedmainlyof ensemble songs interspersedwith
solo banjo songs,and were strungtogetherwithwitticisms,
ripostes,shouts,puns,
and other attemptsat Negro impersonation.There was as yet no high-minded
"interlocutor"at whom some of the jokes were later directed.'3Very soon the
program's firstpart came to center on the "northerndandy negro," while its
second put the "plantationdarky"at center stage. In the late 1840s and early
1850s, as the firstpartbegan to be devoted to more sentimentalmusic(sometimes
performedwithoutblackface),Emmett'sand other companies added a stirring
middle or "olio" section containing a varietyof acts (among them a "stump
speech"), the third part then often comprised of a skit situated in the South.
Seated in a semi-circle,the Emmett troupe placed the bone and tambourine
players at either end of the band, and though originallyall were comic performers,these two "endmen"began to assume chiefimportancein mostminstrel
companies, particularlyafterthe addition of the interlocutor-genteel in comin blackface.'4
portmentand, popular mythnotwithstanding,
The earlyemphasis was on what filmtheoristshave called "spectacle"rather
than narrative.The firstminstrelshows put narrativeto a varietyof uses,but it
relied firstand foremoston the objectificationof black charactersin comic set
pieces, repartee,physicalburlesque. The primarypurpose of earlyblackfaceperformancewas to display the "black" male body,to fetishizeit in a spectacle that
worked against the forwardmotionof the show and froze "the flowof action in
moments of erotic contemplation,"as Laura Mulvey has writtenof women in
cinema.'5 With all their riot and commotion,contortionand pungency,performersin these showsexhibiteda static,functionalunrulinessthat,in one commentator's words, "seemed animated by a savage energy,"nearly wringing
minstrelmen offtheirseats-their "whiteeyes roll[ing]in a curious frenzy"and
their "hiccupping chuckles"punctuatingthe proceedings.'6Here was an art of
performativeirruption,of acrobaticsand comedy,ostensiblydependable mechanisms of humorous pleasure.'7"Black" figureswere theretobe lookedat, shaped
to the demands of desire; theywere screenson whichaudience fantasycould rest,
securing white spectators'position as superior,controlling,not to say owning,
figures.Behind all of the circumlocutiongoing on in descriptionsof blackface
in racial degperformance,then,we mustbegin to glimpsethe whitemale traffic
radation whose cardinal principle was yet a supreme disorderlyconduct-a
revealinglyequivocal means of racial containment.
In thisaffair,"blackness"provided the inspirationas well as the occasion for
preposterouslyviolent,sexual, or otherwiseprohibitedtheatricalmaterial that
evinced how unsettlingwas the black power whiteperformersintended to sub28
REPRESENTATIONS
in blackfacesongs reads as
jugate. Even the uglyvein of hostilewish-fulfillment
a sortof racial panic ratherthan confidentracial power (though,to be sure, the
result was hegemonic enough). One notes in particularthe relentlesstransformationof black charactersintothings,as thoughto clinchthe propertyrelations
these songs fear are too fluid.The sheer overkillof songs in whichblack men are
roasted,fishedfor,smoked like tobacco,peeled like potatoes,planted in the soil,
or dried and hung up as advertisementsis surelysuspicious; these murderous
fantasiesbarelyconceal the vulnerabilitytheymask,are refineddown to perfect
examples of protestingfar too much. Here is "Gib Us Chaw Tobacco" (early
1850s):
Naturplanteda blackbaby,
To growdisweeddivine,
Dat'sde reasonwhyde niggers
Ammadea 'baccysign.'8
Although this verse comes on in the mimed accents of a cut-rateAesop, selfbuttressingfairytales like the above are so baroque thatone imaginestheirconcoction requiring a considerable amount of anxious attention.They are not
(as JohnQuincyAdams called them)in
unlikethe "atrociousmisrepresentations"
the infamouslyrigged 1840 U.S. Census, its imagined North populated with
frightfulhordes of black lunaticsand idiots.'9Indeed, in "My Ole Dad" (early
1850s), the ridiculous titularfiguremistakenlythrowshis washing in the river
and hangs himselfon the line; he goes in afterhis clothesbut drowns. His son
subsequentlyuses fishingline to catch him,a bloated ghostwho returnsat song's
In the realm of blackface
end, interestinglyenough, to haunt his mistress.20
impersonation,one might say, the house was always haunted, the disavowals
neverenough to halttheenslaved Other'sencroachmentupon whiteself-identity;
the continualturnto the mask itself,itsobvious usefulness,suggestsas much.
Some songs came even closer to the heart of the matter.More successfully
prophylacticthan "My Ole Dad" is "Ole Tater Peelin" (early 1850s):
Oh, yallerSam,turn'da niggerhater,
Ah,oo! ah,oo!
An'hisskinpeeledofflikeboiledpotatoe,
Ah,oo! ah,oo!21
The protagonistof this littlerhyme is called "tater peelin"; blacks snub him
because he becomes colorless,neither"yellow,blue, nor black." Finallyhogs eat
to saywhetherone's speechlessnessbefore
him,and plant his bones. It is difficult
thissortof thingowes more to itsmercilessbrutalityor itsperverseinventiveness.
In any case, the concern withfluid,not to say skinless,ego boundaries, together
withtheimaginedintrojectionof objectifiedblack people, acknowledgesprecisely
the fragilityof the racial boundaries the song attemptsto police. Obviouslythe
The RacialUnconscious
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
29
dilemma of "race" is a matterof the markingnot of whitepeople themselvesbut
only,in particular,of the liminal"yaller"produced by intermixture,signifierof
the crossed line, of racial trespass.In such songs it is as though whiteswere at a
loss for language to embody the anxietythatin effectconstitutedthe color line,
and thisindicateshow extremethe consequent defensivenessmusthave been.
Oftenthisessentiallyreifyingeffortin the minstrelshowran up againstmore
one mustattend
intimatedangers. To gettheforceof thosechargesof "vulgarity,"
to the way certain material-and, we should recall, performersthemselvespressed home a sortof violentcorporeal reality,as in the followingstumpspeech
(1849):
Den I 'gintosweatso ... I sweathalfde clothesoffmyback-tumbledobera sweat-clothjust forall de
tooka biteob dar steaksin de bottomob mypocket-and absquatulated,
whenhe'sboundforde goldregion!22
feverite
worldlikea California
Or consider thiswhiteman's bad (if not wet) dream, "AstonishingNose" (1859):
Likean elephant'strunkitreachedtohistoes,
blows
An widithe wouldgibsomemostastonishing
No one darecomenear,so greatwashismight
He used toliein hisbed,widhisnoseon de floor,
An whenhe sleptsoundhisnoseitwouldsnore,
a wonderful
nose,
Lika dog in a fight-'twas
himaboutwherever
he goes.
An itfollows
in May,
De policearrestedhimone morning
de sidewalk,
havinghisnosein de way.
Forobstructing
Deytookhimtode courthouse,dismembertofine;
Whendeygotderede nosehungon a tavernsign.23
The immediacyof the object supervisinga loss of the spectatorialsubject-the
anointingof an unsettledspectatorwithmud and manure, the blows of disembodied phalluses directed against the Law-seems immanentin the "objectionable features" (to recall the firstshows of the Virginia Minstrels)of blackface
representation.Why indeed might this have been pleasurable at all? Fredric
Jameson has noted thatfear,"the aestheticreceptionof fear ... the enjoymentof
the shock and commotionfear bringsto the human organism,"is well-nighcennotionsof the subtralto the experience of pleasure.24From eighteenth-century
lime to Roland Barthes'sjouissance,Jamesonargues, the dissolutionof the subject
in a paroxysmof threatenedmenace constitutesone wayof transforming"sheer
horror" into "libidinal gratification."How much more must this have been the
the horroritselfwas based on a libidinaleconomy;
case when, as in minstrelsy,
when preciselythe threatof blackfaceacts was theirpromised undoing of white
male sexual sanctity.If all the hilarityhere seems suspicious,itis perhaps because
30
REPRESENTATIONS
itwas both a denial and a pleasurable conversionof a hystericalsetof racial fears.
Images of the body maybe of particularhelp in thisproject,offeringa symbolic
map of psychic,spatial,and social relationships,or a site forthe particularconcerns of these realms to be secured or dissolved.25By way of the protuberant,
"grotesque" blackface body,which,in the words of Peter Stallybrassand Allon
White,denied "witha laugh the ludicrouspose of autonomyadopted bythe subject at the same momentas itre-open[ed]" the normallyrepressiveboundaries of
bodily orifices(183-84), the white subject could transformfantasiesof racial
assault and subversioninto riotouspleasure, turninsurrectionand intermixture
into harmlessfun-though the outlinesof the fun discloseitstroubledsources.26
joking focuson disruptionsand infractionsof the fleshamounted to
Minstrelsy's
a kind of theatricaldream-work,displacingand condensingthose fears,imaged
in the "black"body,thatcould neitherbe forgottennor fullyacknowledged.27
The overdeterminednature of these fears comes throughin Mark Twain's
reminiscencesof blackface.For thewayin whichhe chooses to celebratethe "genuine nigger show"-he devotes an entirechapter in his autobiographyto it-is
througha complicatednarrativethatinvolvesescortinghis motherto a Christy's
Minstrelsperformancein St. Louis. This doubled comicsituation,in whichTwain
pays tributeto the fun of blackface acts by a dose of superadded humor at his
mother'sexpense, not onlyplaces Twain himselfin the positionof son but evokes
from him a certain amount of oedipal hostility.His motheris a woman of the
church,and while she delightsin all sortsof noveltiesshe mustalso square these
withher religiousproclivities.She was, writesTwain,"alwaysready forFourthof
Julyprocessions,Sunday-schoolprocessions,lectures,conventions,camp meetings, revivalsin the church-in fact,for any and everykind of dissipationthat
could not be proven to have anythingirreligiousabout it."28Twain means to
immersehis motherin some real dissipation-a desacralizingimpulseon the part
has provokedin the writer.
of the son inspiredbythe unease minstrelsy
Twain gets his motherand one Aunt BetseySmithto go to the minstrelshow
by telling them it is an exhibitionof African music by some lately returned
missionaries:
Whenthegrotesquenegroes[Twainheregetscarriedawaywithhisownconceit]came
theold ladieswerealmostspeechless
costumes,
filingouton thestagein theirextravagant
I explainedto themthatthemissionaries
alwaysdressedlikethatin
withastonishment.
Africa.
"Butthey're
ButAuntBetseysaid,reproachfully,
niggers."
(62)
Of course the novices are soon merrilyenjoyingthemselves,"theirconsciences
. . . quiet now,quiet enough to be dead," Twain writes.They gaze on "thatlong
curved line of artisticmountebankswithdevouring eyes" (63), finallyreinvigorating with their laughter the whole house's response to a stalejoke from the
endmen. As is so oftenthe case in accountsof the minstrelshow,Twain'sactually
The RacialUnconscious
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
31
reproduces standard elementsof blackfacejoking, here at the expense of blacks
and women both. Indeed the linkingof these humorous objects is registeredin
the syntacticalambiguityas to who possesses the devouringeyes,and thisdouble
threat,along with the aggression Twain aims at his mother,points toward the
sources of pleasure involved.Twain'senjoymentof blackfacefoolingand funning
arises froma source of humor Freud calls "degradationto being a child."29This,
of course, was neitherthe firstnor the last timean ambivalentwhitemale attraction to blacks, (self-)degradation,and infantilepleasure were conjoined by way
of an imaginaryracial Other.
One mightspeculate withMelanie Klein thatTwain'sinfantsadism owed to
blackface'sengenderingof a longingfororal bliss whose absence he feltwas his
mother'sfaultand the "devouring"privilegeof whichwas hers alone.30The black
and female goads to such extremeambivalencenaturallycame togetherin blackface representationsof black women,who generallyfaredfarworse than Twain's
mother."Lubly Fan" (1844) offersone of the mostfamousexamples. (Twain has
Jimsing "Lubly Fan" in chapter 2 of TomSawyer-a scene thatagain conjoins the
naked powers of blackness and femaleness:Jim sings the song as he discovers
Tom painting his aunt's fence in punishmentfor his truancy.)The reader will
recognize "Lubly Fan" as "BuffaloGals," though not, perhaps, itsoriginallyrics:
Den lublyFanwillyoucumoutto night,
Willyoucumoutto night,
Willyoucumoutto night,
Den lublyFanwillyoucumouttonight,
An dancebyde liteob de moon.
I stoptheran I had sometalk,
Had sometalk,
Had sometalk,
Butherfootcoveredup de wholeside-walk
An leftno roomforme....
Her lipsare likede oysterplant,
De oysterplant,
De oysterplant,
I tryto kissdembutI cant,
Deyam so berrylarge.3'
collectionof popular Americanmusic
The singeron the SmithsonianInstitution's
gets the ambiguous, almost uncontainableedge of thatrisinglast phrase exactly
right.32
"Dey am so berrylarge": allusivepromiseand exaggerated threat;desire
so deep and consequential thatit scarcelybears uttering,revulsionso necessary
thatutteranceis ineludible.
What Mikhail Bakhtin called "grotesque realism,"which in Rabelaisand His
Worldprovidesthe occasion forso much antibourgeoiscelebration,here offersup
32
REPRESENTATIONS
This is, to be sure, antibourgeois,but it is black
its less than liberatoryeffects.33
as the world'sbody.While minstrelgrotesqueriesurelyhad
people, black women,
some hand in constructinga raceless popular community-idealof the "low" and
vulgar,it was in thissense more historicallyusefulto some of the people than to
all of them.Whetherbecause images of blackwomenabettedthe returnof rowdy
audiences to the pleasures of childhood-to the totalizing,and thus terrorizing,
connectednessof pre-oedipal bliss-or because theirexcess,troublingenough in
itself,seemed additionallyactivatedbyblack male potency,blackfaceperformers
tiltedtheirstavesat the black female power theysimultaneouslyindulged:
The otherdaywhileriding
Withtwoladiesbymyside,
I hardlyknewwhichone tochose[sic]
To makemyhappybride;
I tookthemintoTaylor'sshop
To getsomegingerbeerup and downtheroomTheyflirted
The whitefolkstheylookedqueer.
One swallow'dsixmilkpunches,
Halfa dozeneggsas well;
Butforede billwasbroughttopay
he'd shell.
Thisdarkeythought
The otheratesixmincepies,
Twelvejulepsquicklysped;
Andwhendeyaxed me forde tin,
Nowwhatdo youthinkI said?34
The minstrelshow's "black"femalebody clinchedthe horrorof engulfingwomanhood, gorgingwomen depletingthe bankbook. Here, it seems,the extraordinary energy of antebellum misogyny,perhaps even that contempt for white
women intermittently
repressedthroughmen's"protection"of themfromsavage
black manhood, was displaced or surchargedonto the "grotesque"black woman.
These images indeed make Klein's point thatthe child'slonging for union with
the absent mother-a longingboth precipitatedand symbolizedby some blackface images; witness, indeed, the lingering resonance of the black mammy
figure-is inextricablefromitsprimitivedesire forvengeance againsther. In this
mother.35
case it is the black woman as the world's
Black women apparentlycalled up related fears of castration,about which
there was in blackface minstrelsyan inordinateamount of anxietyand fantasy.
substitutedin complexwaysfortheterrorof the (b)lack.36
Blackfacefetish-images
For example, a great deal of disguise tends to be put in play around thisfear (as
perhaps whenJimsings"LublyFan"). Here is "Gal fromthe South" (1854), which
attemptsto meet the threatwiththe whitemale prerogativeof ownership:
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
The RacialUnconscious
33
Ole massaboughta coloredgal,
He boughtherat thesouth;
Her hairitcurledso verytight
She couldnotshuthermouth.
Her eyestheywereso berysmall,
Theybothranintoone,
Andwhena flylightin hereye,
Likea Junebugin de sun.
Her noseitwasso berrylong,
It turnedup likea squash,
Andwhenshegotherdanderup
She mademelaugh,bygosh;
Old massahad no hooksor nails,
Or nothin'elselikethat,
So on thisdarkie'snosehe used
To hanghiscoatand hat.
massagoin'away,
One morning
He wenttogithiscoat,
Butneitherhatnorcoatwasthere,
both;
Forshehad swallowed
He tookhertoa tailorshop,
To havehermouthmadesmall,
The ladytookinone longbreath,
tailorand all.37
Andswallowed
By now thisis prettyfamiliarstuff.The anxietieshere aroused are also familiar:
the empowering insistenceof the two "boughts"attemptsto cancel the threatening open mouth (later to be "made small") while the phallic nose and the
engulfing,vaginal throatfinallywreak revenge on the master.As we have seen,
whitemen's fear of female power was dramatizedwitha suspiciouslydraconian
usually in the grotesque transmutationsof its
punitivenessin early minstrelsy,
female figures.It is as if thatfear were so fundamentalthatonly a major effort
of surveillance-again, like a dream, revealingits anxietieseven as it devises its
censors-would do. This song'swishto buywomenseems an especiallysuspicious
compensatorydemand, a commodificationthat the unrulinessof these figures
both rationalizesand requires(one doubtsthatsuch figuresthemselvescontained
the castrationthreat).Yet the vehemence of this wish,togetherwiththe "gal's"
hermaphroditic shape, may also point us in the direction of omnipresent
fearsof the black penis.38
nineteenth-century
Especially instructiveexamples in this regard are the many songs in which
black women get theireyes put out, as in "Old BlindJosey"(1854), whose violent
protagonistis already (perhaps revealingly)blind:
34
REPRESENTATIONS
Butden one nighthe [Josey]dancedso high,
He runhisheelin a blackgal'seyeOh! Gollyme,butdidn'tshecry!
UnluckyOld BlindJosey.39
Repeated ad infinitumsuch representationssignify,if we are to take seriously
clear,moreFreud'sconnectionof Oedipus' blindingand castration.It is perfectly
over,thatthisfantasyresonated againstthe eroticwhitemale lookinginherentin
"black" theatricaldisplay.So variable are the possibilitiesof spectatoridentification in the theater,however,thatwe mightinquire as tojust whose castrationwas
being constantlybandied about. On the most immediate level, collectivewhite
not onlytamed an evidentlytoomale violence towardblack women in minstrelsy
whitemen's
powerfulobject of interest,but contributed(in nineteenth-century
terms)to a masculinistenforcementof whitemale power over the black men to
whom the women were supposed to have "belonged." Indeed the recurrenceof
this primal scene, in which beheeled black men blind black women, certainly
atteststo the power of the black penis in Americanpsychiclife,perhaps pointing
up the primaryreason forthe representedviolencein the firstplace. Yet it is still
puzzling thatblack womenwere so often"castrated"-even if,to followthe metaphor, they were allegorical stand-insfor white men whose erotic looking was
undone by the black men theyportrayedas objects of theirgaze (no doubt this
racial undoing, phallic competitionand imagined homosexual threatboth, was
the fear that underlay the minstrelshow toutcourt).Or perhaps, extrapolating
fromLacan, to castratethe already "castrated"woman was to masterthe horrifyinglack she stood for.
The elastic nature of spectator identifications,I would argue, suggests
one thatdoes not contradictthe general air of male vulneraanother possibility,
bilitybeing managed or handled here. The blackfaceimage, I have suggested,
constitutedblack people as the focus of the whitepoliticalImaginary.Black figures (male and female) became eroticobjectsboth for other characterson stage
and for spectatorsin the theater-with a constantslippage between these two
looks. It followsthatwhitemen found themselvespersonifiedby "black"agents
of desire on stage; and thiswas of course an equivocal ideological effectbecause,
in allowing white men to assume imaginarypositionsof black male mastery,it
threatenedan identificationbetweenblack and whitemen thatthe blackfaceact
was supposed to have rendered null. "Old Blind Josey,"conversely,uses white
men's imaginary"blackness"to defendthemagainst black male power. The song
calls on tricksof (cross-racial)disguise that Michael Denning has shown to be
endemic to working-classculturalproduction,and itdoes so in order to make the
black male figureof "Old Blind Josey"a representativeof whitemen-already
unfortunatelycastrated,as I have noted-striking out at a black woman who
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
The RacialUnconscious
35
jutting
seems not only femalebut also a cover forblack maleness'0 Her typically
protuberancesand general phallic suggestiveness(recall the master'shat on the
black men who
black "woman's"nose) bear all the marksof the white-fantasized
loomed so large in racialized phallic scenarios.It makes perfectsense thatcastrationanxietiesin blackfacewould twinthe black penis and the woman,as not only
in "Old Blind Josey" but "Gal from the South" and other representations.
Another referent for whites of Lacan's threatening(m)other, Frantz Fanon
argued, is preciselythe black male-an overlap too pressingto ignore in songs
such as these.4'
Thus the "castration"scene played out so oftenin minstrelsongs was an iterative,revealinglycompulsiverebuttingof black men bymomentarilyempowered
white men. Such dream-workdisguises are tellingproof of minstrelsy'sneed to
figureblack sexual power and whitemale supremacyat one and the same time.
In fact their imaginaryresolutionsspeak perfectlyto the structureof feeling
behind them: the violence againstblack women vicariouslyexperienced but also
summarilyperformed;the spectacle of black male power hugelyportrayedbut
also ridiculed, and finallyappropriated.Justas attackerand victimare expressions of the same psyche in nightmares,so theywere expressions of the same
spectatorin minstrelsy.This dynamicof masterywas both the genesis and the
veryname of pleasure in the minstrelshow'2
We might,afterLaura Mulvey,call thisdynamicthe "pale gaze"-a ferocious
and domesticatingblack power in white fantasyby
investmentin demystifying
projectingvulgar black typesas spectacularobjectsof whitemen's looking. This
looking alwaystook place in relationto an objectifiedand sexualized black body,
and it was often conjoined to a sense of terror.This may recall the common
charge,leveled mostcompellinglybyNathan Huggins in HarlemRenaissance,that
minstrelcharacters were simply trash-binprojectionsof white fantasy,vague
fleshlysignifiersthat allowed whitesto indulge at a distance all thattheyfound
repulsive and fearsome. I would take thisline of thinkingmuch further;for,as
Stallybrassand White argue, "disgustbears the impressof desire,"and, I might
add, desire of disgust.43In other words,the repellentelementsrepressed from
white consciousness and projected onto black people were far from securely
alienated-they are alwaysalready "inside,"part of "us." Hence the threatof this
projectedmaterial,and the occasional pleasure of itsthreat.(I do not assume that
black people escape such splits,only that these occur by differentmeans.) It is
importantto grasp thatforwhiteAmericansthe racial repressed is by definition
retained as a (usually eroticized) component of fantasy.Since the racial partitioningso necessaryto whiteself-presenceopens up the whiteImaginaryin the
firstplace, the latter'sstoreof images and fantasiesis virtuallyconstitutedby the
elements it has attemptedto throwoff.Which is to say that white subjectivity,
foundedon this splitting,was and is (in the words of Stallybrassand White) a
"mobile,conflictualfusion of power,fear and desire" (5), absolutelydependent
36
REPRESENTATIONS
upon the othernessit seeks to exclude and constantlyopen to transgressionalthough,in wonderfullyadaptive fashion,even the transgressionmayin certain
cases be pleasurable.44And if only to guarantee the harmlessness of such
transgression,racist "othering"and similardefenses must be under continual
manufacture.Thisis the color line W.E. B. Du Bois was to speak of a halfcentury
later,more porous and intimatethan his graphicmetaphorallowed, and it is the
roilingjumble of need, guilt,and disgustthatpowered blackfaceacts. It should
thereforecome as no surprisethat minstrelcomedy went great stridesto tame
thethreat
the "black"threatthroughlaughteror ridicule,or that,on thecontrary,
itselfcould sometimesescape completeneutralization.Blackfacerepresentations
were somethinglike compromiseformationsof whiteself-policing,opening the
lines of propertyand sexualityto effacementin theverymomentof theircultural
construction.
III
Is there any way to know whetherour surmisesabout such representationsbear a relationto the waytheywere perceivedin the nineteenthcentury?
of an "ethnographic"receptionstudyhas recentlygrown,
While the attractiveness
few have had the temerityto attemptit in any but the present moment; what
Janice Radway has called the "dispersed, anonymous,unpredictablenature of
the use of mass-produced,mass-mediatedcultural forms"has perhaps seemed
an insuperable barrier to the reconstructionof a culturalform'spublic even in
Moreover,a seriesof questionsimmeearlierformationsof the cultureindustry.45
If
a
one
uses blackfacereviews,fictionaliHow
construct
public?
diatelyarises:
and other such responses, what is the relation of
zations, mentions-in-passing,
criticaldiscourse to audience response? How gauge such response? I would like
here to attemptone sortof approach to these problems.To begin with,we might
observe the practice of Marxist art historianT. J. Clark. Clark has read midFrench paintingthrough"symptomatic"analyses of its connineteenth-century
temporaneouscritics,and in thisway-by a kindof historicalethnography-produced what are arguablysome of the mostmaterialistreadingsof historicaltexts
in recent criticism.Clark makes an analogy withFreudian theory:if the unconscious is visibleonly in slips,silences,and (in)admissionsin conscious life,so the
politicalunconscious of the public,though usuallyhidden by officialrepresentationsthatare made of it in the discourseof the critic,can eruptout of gaps in this
discourse:
tohispatient,
whatinterests
the[public],
us,ifwewanttodiscover
Liketheanalystlistening
are the pointsat whichtherationalmonotoneof thecriticbreaks,fails,falters;we are
angersuddenly
inthephenomenaofobsessiverepetition,
repeatedirrelevance,
interested
are thekeysto itscomis incomprehensible
discharged-thepointswherethecriticism
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
The RacialUnconscious
37
is presentonlywhereitceases;yetitdeterThe public,liketheunconscious,
prehension.
ofprivatediscourse;itis thekeytowhatcannotbe said,and no subject
minesthestructure
is moreimportant.46
criesout for
writtenresponseto blackfaceminstrelsy
The nineteenth-century
such analysis.For the relationshipsof propertyand sexualitywe have seen to be
crucial to minstrelrepresentationsof black people tended, somewhat surprisingly,to disrupt many accounts of blackface.Most commentatorsbelieved minstrelsyto have derived at least in part from slave culture,and found affinities
displaced the differences.Given thisperception
between the two thateffectively
of origins,anxietiesarose about the precise nature of the culturalrelationships
a problem thatwas fleetingand murkybut unmistakably
encoded in minstrelsy,
presentto mostof those who wroteabout the minstrelshow. It was in the rather
originsthatthese anxietieswere mostextreme.
obsessiveaccounts of minstrelsy's
In what follows,I wantto look at how even offhandcontemporaneousnarratives
of the minstrelshow'soriginsattemptedto legitimateor resolvepressingideological questions raised by theirsubject. For all positionson the originsand makeup of blackface minstrelsyimplicitlyor explicitlyrely on a theoryof the racial
politicsof Americanculture.47
In these tales of minstrelsy's"ancestry,"the moment of "racial" exchange
between whiteand black men returnswitha vengeance. We should understand
thisas the desire to fixthe object of studyin the momentof itsemergence,as if
to uncoverthe pure thing(unadulteratedbylater,superfluouschanges or events)
were finallyto grasp its essence. One notes in thisprojectthe developmentof a
discourse on cultural"blackness,"narrativesof culturalacknowledgmentby one
race of another,accounts of a relativelytrivialculturalformthatfindthemselves
worryingthe minstrelshow'sracial economy.They reveal how whiteperformers
and the extentto
and audiences conceived of whattheywere doing in minstrelsy,
which ventriloquizedcultural formsconfrontedthem witha rathermore troubling prospectthan has been recognized.The momentthatinterestsme in these
narrativesis the one in whichblack sounds fillthe air and fascinatedwhitemen
understandforthe firsttimethatthereare fameand moneyto be made. We have
already seen an account of Rice's firstperformance;the same AtlanticMonthly
writer,Robert P. Nevin,fixesthisearliermomentas well:
as has been
of Cincinnati,
As [Rice] saunteredalong one of the main thoroughfares
was suddenlyarrestedbya voiceringingclearand fullabovethe
his attention
written,
in an unmistakable
dialect,to therefrainof a
noisesof thestreet,and givingutterance,
aboutan'wheelaboutan'dojis so,/An'eberytimeI turnabout
songtothiseffect:-"Turn
of the performance,
so unique in style,
I jump JimCrow."Struckby the peculiarities
ofdelivery,
theplayerlistenedon. Werenottheseelements-was
and "character"
matter,
oftheinstant-which
thesuggestion
mightadmitofhigherthanmerestreetor stable-yard
behindthefootlights,
mightnot"Jim
As a nationalor "race"illustration,
development?
Crow"and a blackfaceticklethefancyofpitand circle,as wellas the"SprigofShillalah"
and so itchancedthat
and a red nose?Out of thesuggestion
leapedthedetermination;
38
REPRESENTATIONS
lollinglazilyon theboxofhis
thecasualhearingofa songtrolledbya negrostage-driver,
allothers.(608-9)
vehicle,gaveorigintoa schoolofmusicdestinedtoexcelin popularity
Rice is credited here withthe higher developmentor logical conclusion of the
of
culture of the streetand stable yard. Minstrelsyis claimed as the completion
black culture,its professionalemergence. For all the beliefin the minstrelshow
then,thereis also in thisaccounta submerged
as authentic"nationalillustration,"
melting-potversion of American culture avantla lettre-culturalmixingalmost
unconsciouslyacknowledged, and hastilyforgotten.These narratives,in other
words,are rivetedby the momentof culturalexpropriation,and we should look
to them,as Pierre Macherey'sworksuggests,as much forwhattheydo not say as
for what they do-the way they construct,and then sometimes blur, racial
boundaries.48
The cultural mixing in these narratives,however,usually takes place as it
were en lair; there is rarelyany actual meetingbetween racial representatives
(unlike the exceptional, harrowing,and probablyfancifulaccount of Rice and
"Cuff"). When there is such a meeting,the issues of ownership,culturalcapital,
and economics arise (as in the Rice and "Cuff"account). These are the two narrativeparadigms of minstrelsy'sorigins: one in which mixingtakes place by an
elision of expropriation,throughabsorption(in both senses), the other in which
ittakes place bya transferof ownership,throughtheft(or occasionallypayment).
In the accounts I have come across it is nearlyalwaysone or the other-obvious
attemptsto masterthe fearsand anxietiesI discussed in the last section.Both, it
is safe to say,share an anxietyover the factof cultural"borrowing."And both, I
would like to suggest,have as theirpurpose the resolutionof some intractable
social contradictionor problem thatthe issue of expropriationrepresents.That
of the first,I would argue, is miscegenation;thatof the second, slaveryitself.If,
as Joseph Litvak has suggested, "anxietyitselfhas a narrative(i.e., implicitly
structure,"both anticipatingand deferringthe "deconstructive
history-making)
cancellation of its sustainingtechniques,"these narrativesof love and theftare
manipulationsof historicalanxietymeant to overcome the threateningimplicationsof theirprimaryconcerns.49
It should hardlyseem strangethatmiscegenationbe suggested(ifin oblique
and displaced form)in accountsof whitemen's fascinationwithand attractionto
black men and theirculture,accountsin whichthe culturesmerge.And the logic
of such accounts is thatfascinationmaybe permittedso long as actual contactis
avoided; that is the way the passage above works.The whiteman is "arrested"
and "struck"bya voice only.At the passage's end, whenwe do finallysee theblack
man "lollinglazilyon thebox of hisvehicle"-by whatmeans,throughwhose eyes,
where was he before?-this suggestiveappearance indicatesthe reason for his
absence throughout:black male sexualityis one componentof hisarrestingvoice.
In accounts like thisthereis a relativelytransparentwhitemale attractionto and
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
The RacialUnconscious
39
repulsion fromthe black penis, for which,as in minstrelsongs themselves,the
preoccupationwithmiscegenationservesas a kind of shorthand.These two concerns-a jealous guardingof the prized whitefemalebody and a fascinationwith
black male sexual potencythateitherprecedes or followsit-amount in any case
to the same thing: the twitchy"love" of mytitle.James Kennard,Jr.'sdiscussion
of the racial mixingattendantupon minstrelsy-he is
(in an 1845 Knickerbocker)
carefulto saythatithappens "byproxy"(i.e., in blackfaceperformance)-clarifies
the nature of the threat.A briefaccount of the beginningsof T. D. Rice's "imitativepowers"is given,and then whimsyturnsto distressedirony:
and gentry,
downto thelowestchimneysweepin GreatBritain,and
Fromthe nobility
inAmerica,
orschool-boy
apprentice
downtotheyoungest
fromthememberofCongress,
itwas all: "Turnaboutand wheelabout,and do just so,/And everytimeI turnaboutI
jumpJimCrow."
Even thefairsex did notescape thecontagion:thetunesweresetto musicforthe
and nearlyeveryyoungladyin theUnion,and theUnitedKingdom,played
piano-forte,
werenotpermitted
and sang,ifshe did notjump,"JimCrow".... [Negroesthemselves]
buttheirsongsare in the
and thehousesof thefashionable,
to appear in thetheatres,
mouthsand earsofall.... (332-33)
"Contagion" indeed. Later in the articlethe author triesunsuccessfullyto wish
away the miscegenatingmusic (personifiedas "Dan Tucker"):
Depend uponit,he willdo no suchthing,so longas theyoungladiesspeaktohimin such
tones,and accompanytheirsweetvoiceswiththeonlylesssweetmusicof the
fascinating
tostay;anddoubtlessmanya loverwouldliketoreceive
piano.Dan takesitas an invitation
a fashion,
bytheway,likethatin whichthecountry
a similarrejectionfromhislady-love;
lassreprovedherloverforkissingher:"Be done,Nat!"saidshe,"and(sotovoce[sic]) begin
again!"(335)
"origins"are ordiNo wonder,then, that in this firstparadigm minstrelsy's
narilyso displaced and disembodied; talkof culturalmergingis too dangerously
close to a discourse of "amalgamation."A bizarre amalgaphobia infectseven the
briefestof accounts: "These songs,spawned in the verylowestpuddles of society,
at lengthfound theirway,like the frogsof Egypt,intoplaces of admittedrespectability.On so darka subject it can hardlybe expected that we should be quite
precise in referenceto dates."50The repetitive,even obsessiveinsistenceon black
has a vaguely
sexualityin theseencountersand in descriptionsof their"offspring"
unconsciousor unmotivatedquality;itis less a rhetoricalticor standardreference
one
than somethingthat has slipped by.In an articlesympatheticto minstrelsy,
writerimagines"the hum of the plantation":
in storeformeears-for I knowbyexperiencethegratification
I listenwithattentive
heard,and now
and soon catchthedistanttonesof thehumanvoice-now morefaintly
lost.... Now,anew,I hear thesoundof thosemanlynegrovoicesswellingup
entirely
upon theeveninggale. Nearerand nearercomestheboat,higherand higherrisesthe
40
REPRESENTATIONS
and subduesthenoiseof theoars,whichin theirturnbecome
melody,tillitoverpowers
beating.5'
to thesong,and markitstimewithharmonious
subservient
If black men could do this withtheirvoices, imagine what theycould do in the
flesh! But theyremain voices, withoutpresence, imaginativeprojections: these
accounts seem to require thattheyremain so, even as the black male is compulsivelyreferredto. The accounts all suggest fears and desires that come in the
shape of a social narrativeinvolvingoverpoweringblack men. That narrative
surfaces in many contexts,but refersus in the end to the unresolved-and to
suffusingthe minstrelphenomthesewritersfascinating-threatof intermixture
enon. Emblems of a relationshipbetween the races that has been culturally
repressed,minstrelsongs,like the mulattochild of Thomas Jeffersonin William
Wells Brown'sClotel(1853), returnedto haunt the mostrespectableof places.
desire is not the only kind of relationship
But miscegenation/homoerotic
whiteswould ratherhave forgotten,and the othernarrativeparadigm thatorgaoriginsexpressesan overridingconcernwithexchange
nizes tales of minstrelsy's
value, the economics of race-slavery itself.Recall that in the AtlanticMonthly
account above Rice gets the minstrelidea withoutmeetingthe black man; it is
only later that "Cuff's"clothes come in handy,and the issue of ownership,and
value generally,emerges. (This is the only account containingboth paradigms.)
The central issue of the second paradigm is so pressing that a later writer,in
retellingNevin'sAtlanticaccount nearlyword forword,neverthelessamends itin
a strikingway.Nevin writesthat"Cuffwas preciselythesubjectforRice's purpose.
Slightpersuasioninduced him to accompany the actor to the theatre" (609, my
italics).Amidstan almostverbatimaccount,H. P. Phelps writesthat"a darkey...
to go withthe actorto the theatre"(166, my
was induced, fora slightconsideration,
italics). Given the monotony,the happy plagiarismof the general run of these
accounts,such minuteshiftsare quite revealing,slipsof the tongue in a "public"
discourse. And whattheydisclose is whiteguiltor anxietyaround minstrelsyas a
figureforthe plunderingof black culture.Generallythe intentionof thissecond
paradigm is a denial or forgettingof slavery'sunremuneratedlabor-often difficultto sustainas repressed economic factsreturn.
In the mostbenign of theseaccounts,therecan be no meetingbetweenracial
representativeswithoutsome kind of reparationmade bywhitesto blacks-as in
the following:
One springseason of the LouisvilleTheatre,on a clear,brightmorning,duringthe
rehearsalof someplayin whichMr.Ricehad butlittleto do, as he was standingon the
wherea veryblack,
stage,at a backdoor thatlookedout upon therearof a stable-yard,
bytheclearnessand
clumsynegroused to cleanand rubdownhorses,he was attracted
melodyof thisnegro'svoice,and he caughtthewords,thesubjectof hissong;itwasthe
JimCrow."He listenedwithdelightto thenegro'ssingingfor
negroversionof "Jump,
wentto himand paid himto singthesongoverto himuntilhe
severaldays,and finally
had learnedit.52
The RacialUnconscious
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
41
This is obviouslythe legitimatingstoryof cultural"borrowing":all accounts have
been paid in full.The mentionof a "negro version"of "JimCrow" is no doubt a
nice touch, implyingas it does the neutralityand simple differenceof versions;
but it reveals, even as it attemptsto disguise,preciselythe difference
of versions,
the implied inaccuracy of blackface minstrelsy'sappropriating "delineations."
Even in accounts thatwould deny the notionof imbalance-in the evaluation of
culturesor in culturalindebtedness-that imbalance,perhaps inevitably,
returns.
in referencesto the monetaryor commodity
It does so most forthrightly
statusof minstrelsongs, as well as thatof theirblack "inventors."Most accounts
and are therefore
at some point take up the issue of minstrelsy'sauthenticity,
litteredwithdefensesagainstor assertionsof its"counterfeit"nature: "Base counterfeitsas theyare, theypass currentwithmostpeople as genuine negro songs.
Hence the false currencyimplied in the same writer'squip that"whitemen have
blacked theirfaces to represent[Negroes], [and] made theirfortunebythe speculation" (333). The disapproval of this practicesuggestsan uneasiness withthe
surplus value thus generated; its falsenessseems to stem fromthe fact that its
black "owners" are not equal buyers and sellers on the marketbut are "represented,"bought and sold, by brokers.On the other hand, the disapproval may
not have directlyto do withslavery;a distrustof the "speculation"of minstrelsy
may only be a cautious approach to the main chance-made riskyin the aftermath of the Panic of 1837, perhaps. But thoughthe "blackness"minstrelsypeddles maybe a commoditylike any other,it ultimatelyderives,as these references
continuallyremind us, froma certain southerncommodity:"Those of us who
have for so many years been looking anxiously forwardto the advent of the
coming poet who is to take away fromAmerica the sin and the shame of never
having produced an epic, or a lyric,commensuratewithNiagara and the Rocky
Mountains, will do well to get up a subscriptionand buy the author of [these
songs], if his owner can be persuaded to part withhim."54The claims of Young
one wants to reply that the sin and shame lie someAmerica notwithstanding,
where else. What all thissuggests,in any case, is thatblackfaceminstrelsy
figured
less as a palliativeto the economicsof slaverythan as an uncomfortablereminder
of it.
In this contextwe should recall the most horrificof the accounts organized
bythissecond paradigm. It is Nevin'snarrativein whichoutrighttheftand public
embarrassmentare indulged; but here too, as I have suggested,simplynarrating
the "primal scene" introducesissues of economy,value, and ownershipalmost
behind the author'sback. A greatdeal of space is allottedto Cuff'smode of subsistence,too much in factforthe part he playsas the lender of his "blackness"to
Rice. He carries passengers' trunksfromsteamersto shore; he is, moreover,in
activecompetitionwithanotherblack man, "Ginger,"forbusiness.Revealingly,it
is midwaythroughRice's performancein Cuff'sclothesthatthe "near approach
of a steamer"-Cuff's livelihood-intrudes, and requires the song somehow to
42
REPRESENTATIONS
end. And it must end because, as Nevin writes,"liberallyas [Cuff]mightlend
himselfto a friend,it could not be done at thatsacrifice"(609). This allegorically
suggestive scene-suggestive against the grain of what its author wants to
convey-is yet marked by certain complex displacements.The firstis the odd
overemphasison Cuff'sfree labor-here located not in slave-holdingLouisville
but in Pittsburgh,a swerveawayfrommostotheraccounts,such as thoseof Noah
Ludlow, T. Allston Brown, and Edmon S. Conner, which make the cultural
"donor" a Louisville slave. It is as if,in thisfirstdisplacement,the factof slavery
will be jettisoned in favor of industriousblack men "liberal" enough to "lend
themselves"to white friends.But the shape of that last phrase, in which black
people offerup theirselves like the talkingcommoditiesin Capitalor in Dreiser's
SisterCarrie,already suggeststhe slave economy that "lending" is there to cover
over.55And indeed the scene as a whole,withitssuccessivesubordinationsof Cuff
in Rice's minstrelperformanceand in Nevin'suse of dialect,enacts a second displacement,thistime fromthe free labor by whichthe passage initiallysought to
distance itselffromslavery.It narratologicallyreenslaves a black man who has
evidentlyturned out to be more competitiveand enterprisingthan he should be.
debt to
This ratherdesperate shiftingindicatesthe ambivalencethatminstrelsy's
black cultural production called forth-and which this origin-narrativeparadigm, I believe,was inventedto mediate or "manage."
But we have yetto deal withthemostcuriousdetailof thisscene,thatin which
Cuff "let[s] his open mouth as a mark for boys to pitch pennies into"-suspiciouslyclose to whitefantasy,but possiblyobserved. Then again, perhaps Nevin
(1857). In thethirdchapter,Black Guinea,
had read Melville'sTheConfidence-Man
a "grotesque negro cripple, in tow-clothattireand an old coal-sifterof a tambourine in his hand," makes his appearance:
backhishead and
amongthecrowd,nowand thenhe wouldpause,throwing
Shuffling
when,makinga space
openinghismouthlikean elephantfortossedapplesata menagerie
game,thecripple's
beforehim,peoplewouldhavea boutat a strangesortofpitch-penny
copperwitha
mouthbeingat oncetargetand purse,and he hailingeachexpertly-caught
and to
is trying,
To be thesubjectof alms-giving
crackedbravurafromhis tambourine.
underthetrial,mustbe stillmoreso; but
feelin dutyboundto appearcheerfully
grateful
eachcopperthisside
he swallowed
them,whilestillretaining
whatever
hissecretemotions,
andonlyonceortwicedidhe wince,which
theoesophagus.Andnearlyalwayshe grinned,
cameinconveniently
nightohis
waswhencertaincoins,tossedbymoreplayfulalmoners,
thatthe
was notunedgedbythecircumstance
teeth,an accidentwhoseunwelcomeness
penniesthusthrownprovedbuttons.
sour-faced
was yetat itsheight,a limping,gimlet-eyed,
Whilethisgameof charity
abouthisdeformity
beinga sham,gotup for
person. . . beganto croakout something
of the
threwa damp upon thefrolicbenignities
financialpurposes,whichimmediately
players.56
pitch-penny
By the end of the scene, we realize witha jolt that this is probablya blackface
performance;57the attentivereader recognizesanother of the confidenceman's
ofBlackfaceMinstrelsy
The RacialUnconscious
43
disguises. This is more than the Fidele'spassengersdo, hence the dramaticirony
here-Melville liftsthemaskforthereader only.Indeed, a "purple-faceddrover,"
by implicationa slave trader,actuallyhintsat capturingwhat he takes to be this
of slavery);the
withthe human traffic
black man (whichcasuallylinksminstrelsy
accusation of fraud only extends to Black Guinea's lameness. Melville thus
of Cuffin Nevin'saccount: whatthesepassengersand
exposes the minstrelization
Nevin himselftake as "blackness,"Melvillerevealsto be part of a whitediscourse
undergirdingthe minstrelphenomenon.
However,thisturnonly takes place when the limpingman levels his accusation. Before that the reader sees a pitiablecripple doing his best amid a brutal
"game of charity,"though Ann Douglas has rightlynoted thatour sentimentalized pityis itselfbeing savaged here.58We soon pay the price in embarrassment,
but Melvillebrieflytriesto make us as sympatheticas he possiblycan; for all its
fakery,the passage above is mightilyeffective.We have no way of knowingthat
Black Guinea's "secretemotions"are probablythose of a whiteman pretending
to be a black man, and so we are shocked, drawn in. It is an act of blackness as
"targetand purse,"object of derisionand repositoryof marketvalue. Only then
does the accusation break up the illusion,"got up for financialpurposes." But
that,of course, is what Melvillehas himselfbeen so carefulto construct-a sham
thatworks,ifonlyto embarrass-and he has done itbycommodifyingthe blazes
thatthewriting
out of Black Guinea. The consciousnessofblackcommodification
forcesupon us worksall the more to make "blackness"intoa marketablethingof
white interest,this time for the reader. In order for the passage to possess any
kick,the racial economy so bitterlyexposed here mustarouse before it exposes.
itis whatseems "blackest"about it. It
Commodificationis, in a sense, itsattraction;
is preciselywhat is calculated to evoke the foolishpleasure of our pity,and Melville's grim ironyonly confirmsthat the attemptto reveal minstrelsy'sfinancial
purposes has itselfproved to be an act of minstrelization.
Blackface here is one more con game. But Melville'srejectionof it accords in
strikingways with the thing itself.Far from a happily secured distributionof
cultural needs and desires,racial counterfeitingin JacksonianAmerica appears
actually to have defeated the effortsto master it-whether the masterywas
or exposure-no less thanithaunteditspartisans.The
attemptedbymystification
ifvarious,playsforcontrolof thequeswritingsI have surveyedwere ineffectual,
tions minstrelsyapparently raised and tried to resolve. What these narratives
seem to have realized is thatthe minstrelshow flauntedas much as hid the fact
Such seemingly
of expropriationand itssubtexts,enslavementand intermixture.
a
coherentand purposiveaccounts,in short,constitutedpartof volatilediscourse
on "blackness"-examples in themselves of blackface minstrelsy's racial
unconscious.
44
REPRESENTATIONS
Notes
Mydeepest thanksto Michael Rogin and Carol Cloverfortheiracute and sympathetic
editorialadvice.
1. Alexander Saxton,"BlackfaceMinstrelsyandJacksonianIdeology,"American
Quarterly
27, no. 1 (1975): 27. For similaremphases see Ralph Ellison, "Change theJoke and
Slip the Yoke" (1958), in his Shadowand Act (1964; New York, 1972), 45-59; LeRoi
Jones,Blues People:NegroMusic in WhiteAmerica(New York, 1963), 82-86; James H.
Dorman, "The Strange Career of Jim Crow Rice,"Journalof Social History3, no. 2
(1969-70): 109-22; Alan W. C. Green,"'JimCrow,''Zip Coon': The NorthernOrigins
Review 11, no. 2 (1970): 385-97; Nathan Irvin
Massachusetts
of Negro Minstrelsy,"
Huggins,HarlemRenaissance(New York,1971), 244-301; RobertC. Toll,BlackingUp:
America(New York, 1974); Sylvia Wynter,
The MinstrelShow in Nineteenth-Century
"Sambos and Minstrels,"Social Text1 (1979): 149-56; Joseph Boskin,Sambo:TheRise
Jester(New York, 1986), 65-94; and Houston A. Baker,Jr.,
and Demiseofan American
and theHarlemRenaissance(Chicago, 1987), 17-24. This workrevisesmore
Modernism
genial (and oftencomplacent) earlier work such as Carl Wittke,Tamboand Bones: A
Historyof theAmericanMinstrelStage (Durham, N.C., 1930); and Constance Rourke,
(New York, 1931), 77-104.
NationalCharacter
Humor:A StudyoftheAmerican
American
2. Since thisworkis stillin the process of formation,any listingof itmustbe eclecticand
2, no.
inexhaustive:John F. Szwed, "Race and the Embodimentof Culture,"Ethnicity
1 (1975): 19-33; Barbara J. Fields, "Ideology and Race in American History,"in
eds. J. Morgan
Essaysin HonorofC. VannWoodward,
Region,Race, and Reconstruction:
Kousser and James M. McPherson (New York, 1982), 143-77; Houston A. Baker,Jr.,
Theory
(Chicago, 1984); Homi
A Vernacular
Literature:
and Afro-American
Blues,Ideology,
K. Bhabha, "The Other Question: The Stereotypeand Colonial Discourse,"Screen24,
no. 6 (1983): 18-36; and Bhabha, "Of Mimicryand Man: The Ambivalenceof Colonial Discourse," October28 (Spring 1984): 125-33; Barbara Johnson, "Metaphor,
and Literary
God,"in BlackLiterature
Metonymy,and Voice in TheirEyesWereWatching
ed. Henry Louis Gates,Jr.(New York, 1984), 205-19; the essaysin Gates, ed.,
Theory,
and Difference
(Chicago, 1986); Stuart Hall, "Gramsci'sRelevance for
"Race,"Writing,
Inquiry10, no. 2 (1986): 5ofCommunication
the Studyof Race and Ethnicity,"Journal
Woman
TheEmergence
Womanhood:
oftheAfro-American
27; Hazel Carby,Reconstructing
Novelist(New York, 1987); Paul Gilroy,"ThereAin'tNo Black in theUnionJack": The
CulturalPoliticsofRace andNation(London, 1987); HenryLouis Gates,Jr.,TheSignifying
Criticism
(New York, 1988); Philip Cohen,
Literary
ofAfrican-American
Monkey:A Theory
"Tarzan and the Jungle Bunnies: Race, Class, and Sex in Popular Culture,"NewFormations5 (Summer 1988): 25-30; the essaysin Kobena Mercer,ed., BlackFilm/British
Cinema(London, 1988); Richard Dyer, "White,"Screen29, no. 4 (1988): 44-64; the
and
Theory,
essays in Cheryl Wall, ed., ChangingOur Own Words:Essayson Criticism,
byBlack Women(New Brunswick,N.J., 1989); and AndrewRoss, "Ballots,BulWriting
lets,or Batmen: Can Cultural Studies Do the RightThing?,"Screen31, no. 1 (1990):
26-44.
3. Here I am calling on Raymond Williams'sdefinitionof "structuresof feeling,"certainlyan apposite conception to thatof a racial or politicalunconscious. See Marxism
and Literature(New York, 1977), 132-34; as well as FredricJameson, The Political
Act(Ithaca, N.Y., 1981).
Narrativeas a SociallySymbolic
Unconscious:
The Racial Unconscious of Blackface Minstrelsy
45
AtlanticMonthly
20, no.
4. Robert P. Nevin, "Stephen C. Foster and Negro Minstrelsy,"
121 (1867): 608-16.
5. As does the minstrel"conundrum": "Whyare minstrelcompanies like midnightrobNewBookofPlantationMelbers? Because theylive bytheirdeeds of darkness";White's
odies(Philadelphia, 1849), 31.
oftheMemoirsofCharlesMathews,Comedian,2
6. See Mrs. Anne Mathews,A Continuation
vols. (Philadelphia, 1839), 1:239.
7. See, for instance,the "InterviewwithBen Cotton"in the New YorkMirror(1897, clipping in New York Public LibraryTheatre Collection):
I used to sit with [blacks on Mississippiriverboats]in frontof theircabins,
and we would startthe banjo twanging,and theirvoices would ring out in
the quiet nightair in theirweird melodies. They did not quite understand
me. I was the firstwhite man theyhad seen who sang as theydid; but we
were brothersforthe timebeing and were perfectlyhappy.
8. NewYorkHerald,6 February1843.
9. For his part, Mark Twain (like Margaret Fuller and WaltWhitman)was intriguedby
whathe called the "happy and accurate"representationsof the minstrelshow.See The
Autobiography
ofMarkTwain,ed. Charles Neider (1924; New York,1959), 60; and Eric
Lott, "'The Seeming Counterfeit':Racial Politics and Early Blackface Minstrelsy,"
AmericanQuarterly
43, no. 2 (1991): 223-54.
Cinema,28-29. This is suggested
10. Stuart Hall, "New Ethnicities,"in BlackFilm/British
also by the historicalcoexistencein the mid nineteenthcenturyof whitesupremacy
and what George Fredricksonhas called "romanticracialism";see TheBlackImagein
theWhite
Mind: TheDebateonAfro-American
CharacterandDestiny,
1817-1914 (New York,
1971), chap. 4.
and theRise ofEarlyNegroMinstrelsy
(1962; Norman, Okla.,
11. Hans Nathan, Dan Emmett
1977), 118.
12. Quoted in George C. D. Odell, AnnalsoftheNewYorkStage,12 vols. (New York, 192831), 5:33.
13. Hans Nathan is veryprecise about the make-up of the firstminstrelshows; see Dan
Emmett,
118-34, 143-53.
performerLew Dockstader'srecollectionthat
14. On the basis of late-nineteenth-century
the early interlocutor'slack of "darky dialect" contrastedwith his black make-up,
RobertToll concludes thatinterlocutorsgenerallyappeared in blackface;see Blacking
Up, 63, n. 63.
15. Laura Mulvey,"Visual Pleasure and NarrativeCinema" (1975), now in her Visualand
OtherPleasures(Bloomington,Ind., 1989), 19.
16. See the pamphletcollectingEnglishreviewsof the 1846 Britishtour of the Ethiopian
22. The pamphletis located in the Harvard Theater
Serenaders,EthiopianSerenaders,
Collection.
17. In thisthe minstrelshowis notunrelatedto televisionsituationcomedy.I am indebted
here to PatriciaMellencamp, "SituationComedy,Feminism,and Freud," in Studiesin
Entertainment:
CriticalApproachesto Mass Culture,ed. Tania Modleski (Bloomington,
Ind., 1986), 80-95.
Songster
(Philadelphia,early 1850s), 90.
18. TheNegroForget-Me-Not
19. See Leon F. Litwack,NorthofSlavery:TheNegroin theFreeStates,1790-1860 (Chicago,
1961), 45.
30.
21. Ibid., 102.
20. NegroForget-Me-Not
Songster,
NewBook,79.
22. "Peabody's Lecture,On the Great Soger Camp-Meeting,"White's
46
REPRESENTATIONS
(New York, 1859), 74-75.
23. Charles H. Fox, CharleyFox'sSableSongster
24. FredricJameson, "Pleasure: A Political Issue," in his The Ideologiesof Theory:Essays
1971-86, 2 vols. (Minneapolis, 1988), 2:72.
(New York,
25. Peter Stallybrassand Allon White,ThePoliticsand Poeticsof Transgression
1986), 192. This argumentrefinesideas drawn fromsymbolicanthropologistssuch as
MaryDouglas, who have writtenof thebody as a symbolicrepresentationof the social
forcesthatproduced it-bodily functionsand boundaries,pointsof entryand of exit
signifyingsocietal relationsand values, in thiscase racial ones; see Douglas, Natural
in Cosmology
(New York, 1970), esp. 65-81.
Explorations
Symbols:
26. In the realm of fantasy,blackfacedegraded also the whitemen who made use of itincluding,I would guess, spectatorsthemselves.The materialcapacityof burntcork
or greasepaint, mixed with sweat and smearing under the flickeringgaslights,to
invoke coal, dirt, or their excrementalanalogues was often acknowledged-Tom's
humiliatingescape in the "Whelp-hunting"chapter of Dickens's Hard Times(1854),
Likewise,it was
forinstance,a blacking-upthatis a not-quitetarring-and-feathering.
said of T. D. Rice thathis reputationdepended "upon his blackface;and how he contrivesto keep it white,mightbe matterof grave debate, begrimed as it has been for
F. C. Wemyss,Thethe last ten years,at least threehours in each of the twenty-four";
or,TheLifeofan Actorand Manager(Glasgow,1848), 179.
atricalBiography;
27. For the notionof popular fiction'splots,types,and disguisesas a kindof "dream-work
of the social," see Michael Denning, MechanicAccents:Dime Novelsand Working-Class
Culturein America(London, 1987), 81.
62.
28. Twain,Autobiography,
trans.JamesStrachey(1905;
and TheirRelationtotheUnconscious,
29. Sigmund Freud,Jokes
New York, 1960), 227.
to Psycho-analysis,
1921-1945 (London, 1948), 267-77,
30. Melanie Klein, Contributions
282-338.
31. S. FosterDamon, comp., SeriesofOld AmericanSongs(Providence,R.I., 1936), no. 39.
Collection
PopularMusic(CBS) .
ofAmerican
32. TheSmithsonian
33. Mikhail Bakhtin,Rabelaisand His World,trans.Helene Iswolsky(1965; Bloomington,
Ind., 1984).
and Wood'sNew SongBook (Philadelphia,
34. "Now Hold Your Horses, Will You!," Christy
1854), 9.
35. Anotherpossibilityis thataudiences experienceda marginallymore positivenostalgia
for nurture rather than infantrage; thiswas true of the wave of sentimentalblack
images thatalso ruled the minstrelstage.
interpretationof
I have been influencedhere byMichael Rogin'spsychohistorical
white attitudestoward Native Americans in the antebellum period; see Fathersand
Indian(New York,1975), 3Children:Andrew
Jacksonand theSubjugationoftheAmerican
15, 114-25.
and theCinema,trans. Celia
Psychoanalysis
36. See ChristianMetz, TheImaginarySignifier:
Brittonet al. (1977; Bloomington,Ind., 1982), for an account of how the castration
"The fixationon [thefetish's]
threatis managed byreplacingitwitha fetish-substitute:
just before' [castration]is thusanotherformof disavowal.... The fetishsignifiesthe
penis as absent,it is itsnegativesignifier;supplementingit,it puts a 'fullness'in place
of a lack, but in doing so it also affirmsthatlack" (70-71).
and Wood'sNewSongBook,85-86.
37. Christy
38. In a talk entitled"Mirror Stages: Jacques Lacan and Frantz Fanon" (Universityof
Virginia,30 October 1991), Barbara Johnsonremarksthatif the phallus is almostby
The Racial Unconscious of BlackfaceMinstrelsy
47
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48
definitionwhite,the penis must be black-which accounts here for its unruly and
threateningpotential.Thanks to Michael Rogin for a similarpoint in regard to my
essay.
and Wood'sNewSongBook,30.
Christy
Denning, MechanicAccents,146-48.
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, WhiteMasks,trans. Charles Lam Markmann (1952; New
York, 1967), 161.
varying
In thinkingabout racial and gender disguise, and about theater-spectators'
and
identificationswithblackfacecharacters,I am indebted to Mark Nash, "Vampyr
the Fantastic,"Screen17, no. 3 (1976): 29-67; and to Carol J. Clover's brilliant"Her
20 (1987): 187-228.
Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film,"Representations
77.
Stallybrassand White,Transgression,
Stallybrassand Whitehave an excellentstatementof how thisformationcomes about
in ibid., 193-94.
Janice Radway,"ReceptionStudy: Ethnographyand the Problemsof Dispersed Audiences and Nomadic Subjects,"CulturalStudies2, no. 3 (1988): 361; in the same issue
see Lawrence Grossberg's"WanderingAudiences, Nomadic Critics."More generally
see, for example, Carlo Ginzburg,The Cheeseand theWorms:TheCosmosofa SixteenthCentury
Miller,trans.John and Anne Tedeschi (1976; Baltimore, 1980); Stuart Hall,
Papersin CulturalStudies,
"Encoding/Decoding,"in Culture,Media,Language: Working
1972-79, eds. Stuart Hall et al. (London, 1980), 128-38; Janice Radway,Readingthe
and PopularLiterature
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984); len Ang,
Patriarchy,
Romance:Women,
trans.Della Cooling (New
Imagination,
Watching
Dallas: Soap Operaand theMelodramatic
Culture:
York, 1985); the essays in James Cliffordand George Marcus, eds., Writing
(Berkeley,1986); David Morley,The Nationwide
The Poeticsand PoliticsofEthnography
LeiCulturalPowerand Domestic
Audience(London, 1980); and Morley,FamilyTelevision:
sure(London, 1986); the essaysin RobertC. Allen,ed., ChannelsofDiscourse:Television
Criticism(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1987); especially Allen's own essay,
and Contemporary
"Reader-Oriented Criticism and Television"; James Clifford,"On Ethnographic
ofCulture:Twentieth-Century
Literature,
Ethnography,
Authority,"in his ThePredicament
and Art(Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 21-54; Tania Modleski,"Some Functionsof Feminist Criticism;or, The Scandal of the Mute Body," October49 (1989): 3-24; and
Guenter H. Lenz, "'Ethnographies': American Culture Studies and Postmodern
Anthropology,"Prospects16 (1991): 1-40.
and the1848 Revolution(1973; Princeton,
T.J. Clark,ImageofthePeople:GustaveCourbet
N.J., 1982), 12. Clark'sremarksare evidently(althoughnotexplicitly)based on Pierre
trans.GeoffreyWall (1966; London, 1978).
Production,
ofLiterary
Macherey'sA Theory
One ought to note thatClark makes a distinctionbetweenthe actual audience of art
and a generalized or postulated"public,"which,because theyare more continuousin
the case of popular culture,I conflatein myaccount of audience response. See also
Richard Dyer, HeavenlyBodies:FilmStarsand Society(New York, 1986) for a related
practice of reconstructingthe racial and sexual discourses in which, for example,
movie starsbecome intelligible.
Intention
andMethod(New York,
This sectionowes much to Edward W. Said, Beginnings:
1975), chap. 2; and to J.F. Lyotard'sreflectionson the functionof "legitimatingnartrans. GeoffBennington
Condition:A Reporton Knowledge,
ratives"in ThePostmodern
and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, 1984), 18-20.
some brieferthan others,include
The many accounts of the rise of minstrelsy,
27 May 1841; James Kennard, "Who Are Our
"OriginsofJimCrow,"BostonTranscript
REPRESENTATIONS
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
Biography,
26, no. 4 (1845): 332; F. C. Wemyss,Theatrical
Negro Poets?,"Knickerbocker
178-79; and Wemyss,TheatricalBiographyofEminentActorsand Authors(New York,
2, no. 11 (1853):
1852), 122; G. W. Curtis,"EditorialNotes-Music," Putnam'sMonthly
572; "Letterfroma Teacher at the South,"JournalofMusic2, no. 21 (1853): 164; Sol
Smith, The TheatricalJourney(Philadelphia, 1854), 53; "Obituary,Not Eulogistic:
Negro MinstrelsyIs Dead," JournalofMusic 13, no. 18 (1858): 118; Nevin, "Stephen
C. Foster,"608-9; T. A. Brown,HistoryoftheAmericanStage(1870; New York, 1969),
in Fun inBlack; or,Sketches
ofMinstrel
310; and "The Origin of Negro Minstrelsy,"
Life,
ofthe
ed. Charles H. Day (New York, 1874), 5-10; H. D. Stone, PersonalRecollections
Drama (1873; New York, 1969), 240-41; Olive Logan, "The Ancestryof Brudder
Magazine58, no. 347 (1879): 687-98; H. P. Phelps,Players
Bones," Harper'sNewMonthly
A RecordoftheAlbanyStage(1880; New York, 1972), 166-67; Noah M.
ofa Century:
Ludlow,DramaticLifeAs I FoundIt (1880; New York,1966), 392-93; E. S. Conner,"An
Old Actor'sMemories"(1881), in MarshallStearns,TheStoryofJazz(New York,1956),
111-12; J.J.Jennings,Theatricaland CircusLife(St. Louis, 1882), 368; WalterLeman,
Memories
ofan Old Actor(San Francisco,1886), 92; Laurence Hutton, "The Negro on
Magazine79, no. 469 (1889): 131-45; E. L. Rice,Monthe Stage,"Harper'sNewMonthly
archsofMinstrelsy
from"Daddy"Rice toDate (New York, 1911), 7-10; M. B. Leavitt,Fifty
Management
(New York,1912), 23-24; and Brander Matthews,"The
Yearsin Theatrical
Scribner's
Magazine57, no. 6 (1915): 755.
Rise and Fall of Negro Minstrelsy,"
Production.
ofLiterary
Macherey,Theory
on the New Historicism,DeconJoseph Litvak,"Back to the Future:A Review-Article
30,
Fiction,"TexasStudiesinLanguageandLiterature
struction,and Nineteenth-Century
no. 1 (1988): 127. On culturaltextsas symbolicor "magical"resolutionsto lived social
Rituals:Youth
Through
contradictions,see, forinstance,StuartHall et al., eds., Resistance
inPost-WarBritain
Subcultures
(London, 1976), 9-74; and FredricJameson,"Reification
and Utopia in Mass Culture,"Social Text1 (1979): 130-48; and PoliticalUnconscious,
77-80.
"Obituary,Not Eulogistic,"118.
5, no. 25 (1855): 76-77.
"Negro Minstrelsy-Ancientand Modern,"Putnam'sMonthly
Ludlow,DramaticLife,392.
Kennard, "Who Are Our National Poets?,"336.
"Negro Minstrelsy-Ancientand Modern," 73-74.
Here is Marx:
Could commoditiesthemselvesspeak, theywould say: "Our use-value may
be a thingthat interestsmen. It is no part of us as objects. What, however,
does belong to us as objects,is our value. Our natural intercourseas commodities proves it. In the eyes of each other we are nothingbut exchangevalues."
Capital,Vol.I, trans.Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling,ed. FrederickEngels (1867;
New York, 1967), 83. Here is Dreiser:
Fine clothes to her were a vast persuasion; theyspoke tenderlyand Jesuiticallyforthemselves.When she came withinearshotof theirpleading,desire
in her bent a willingear. The voice of the so-called inanimate! Who shall
translateforus the language of the stones?
"My dear," said the lace collar she secured fromPartridge's,"I fityou
beautifully;don't give me up."
"Ah, such littlefeet,"said the leatherof the softnew shoes; "how effectivelyI cover them.What a pitytheyshould ever wantmyaid."
The Racial Unconscious of Blackface Minstrelsy
49
Theodore Dreiser,SisterCarrie,ed. Donald Pizer (1900; New York, 1970), 75. What
allows commoditiesto talkis preciselytheirexchange-value;it is thisthatmaskstheir
social characteras labor and givesthema lifeof theirown. Under slaverythe opposite
happens; self-owninghuman beings become voiceless things,pure socio-economic
values. "Lending oneself" occupies a strangemiddle ground between the two, sugparticularlygiven
gestingboth self-ownershipand an invitationto self-enslavement,
towardblack
the uses to which Cuff'sloan is put. It is in any case Nevin'sambivalence
labor that is representedhere, comfortablewithneitherslaverynor free labor; this
ambivalenceaccounts forthe shiftingdisplacementsgoing on in his narrative.
His Masquerade(1857; New York,1954), 17-18.
56. Herman Melville,TheConfidence-Man:
57. Carolyn Karcher has argued forcefullythat the confidence man's race is finallya
riddle,thatMelville'smanipulationsleave us no wayof knowingwhetherhe is "really"
white(here in blackface)or black. While thisis generallypersuasive,and whileI agree
with Karcher's importantargument that the issue of slaveryis at the heart of The
the specificimplicationsof blackfaceare centralto Black Guinea's first
Confidence-Man,
appearance; in the sixthchapter,Melvillehimselfinvokesthe minstrelshow,and it is
only later thatrace is successivelydestabilized.This hardlycalls Karcher's point into
question-indeed it is probablycentral to it. See Karcher,ShadowOver thePromised
Land: Slavery,Race, and Violencein MelvillesAmerica(Baton Rouge, La., 1980), 186257.
Culture(1977; New York, 1978), 361.
ofAmerican
58. Ann Douglas, TheFeminization
50
REPRESENTATIONS