describe racism as political incorrectness

[A] couple of years ago here in Michigan -- there was a coffee shop chain called "Beaners" that ended up renaming itself Bigby's. The coffee still sucks, but at least it's politically correct.

--a commenter at BoingBoing

Why do a lot of white people shy away from using the word "racist" to describe something that is, indeed, racist? What's up with the preference that many have for euphemisms like "politically incorrect"?

These questions arose for me again as I read one of my favorite down-time sites, BoingBoing. In a brief post entitled "Vintage Sambo's restaurant photos," Mark Frauenfelder linked to a photographer's web site containing such photos. He also wrote the following:

Sambo's is a politically incorrect name for a business, but these vintage photos of the chain restaurant are wonderful.

Before going on to look at the photos, I had to pause and wonder, why did Frauenfelder write "politically incorrect" instead of "racist"? After all, as I'll explain in a moment, what's wrong with the name of that restaurant -- the only reason to call it anything like "politically incorrect" -- is that it's just that, racist.

Here's one of the restaurant photos, which also appears in the BoingBoing post; notice the painting on the wall, an image of a tiger chasing a boy (for a larger image, click here):

The Sambo's restaurant chain began in 1957, and it flourished into 1200 establishments during the Sixties and Seventies; apparently only one remains, in Santa Barbara, California (here's there, um, interesting site). The chain was started by Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett, whom everyone called Bo -- thus the name, Sambo's. Which certainly doesn't seem like a racist beginning for the restaurant chain's name, buuuuuuut . . .

As Sam and Bo decided how to distinguish the look of their restaurants from others, they also decided to play up the echoes in the name "Sambo" of a famous children's story, The Story of Little Black Sambo. This was a book published in 1899 by a Scottish woman, Helen Bannerman, who lived for many years in Southern India.

The story is familiar to many people, even today -- basically, a very dark, or "black," Indian boy named Sambo goes into a wooded area, loses his clothing to some tigers, who then jealously chase each other around a tree until they turn into butter. Sambo then enjoys this butter on some pancakes made by his mother.

So, if you did look closely at the photo above, Sambo is depicted in the restaurant's paintings in some sort of "traditional Indian" garb, and he's not dark enough that most people would call him "black." The restaurant's decorators lightened the skin of "Little Black Sambo" -- perhaps in deference to the Civil Rights era? -- though I'm not sure if they did so at the outset.

Aside from the stereotypical representation of mildly exotic "Indian-ness," a bigger problem for the restaurant chain is that when Bannerman's book was published in America, various versions depicted the protagonist with features that echoed other stereotypes about African American children, all of which have been summed up as the "picaninny caricature." By 1932, the writer Langston Hughes was pointing out that Little Black Sambo was "amusing undoubtedly to the white child, but like an unkind word to one who has known too many hurts to enjoy the additional pain of being laughed at."

Little Black Sambo 

(McLoughlin Bros., 1938) 

This 1935 American cartoon, also entitled "Little Black Sambo," retells the story in a way that shows the American transmogrification of Bannerman's Indian boy into a bumbling, grinning, idiotic and racist caricature, whose mother is also another American caricature -- the mammy figure.

When I was a (white) boy, my parents adopted a black dog. We ended up choosing the name that my mother came up with, Sam. She explained that the dog reminded her of a childhood story, and I remember her using that phrase, "little black Sambo." Come to think of it, that was actually the dog's full name, Sambo; we just called him Sam because it was shorter and easier.

The idea in America that a "Sambo" is a certain image of a black child, or sometimes a child-like adult, lives on. In the movie The Green Mile, for instance, the character Wild Bill calls a prison guard "Little Black Sambo," right after blackening his face by spitting an entire chewed-up Moon Pie on him.

All of which is to say that the name of Sambo's restaurant is thus not "politically incorrect," it's "racist." That's because in its particular cultural and societal context, the name "Sambo's" evokes and perpetuates the Sambo/picaninny stereotype -- no matter how the restaurant owners originally meant that name.

According to a CNN story from 1998, on efforts to revive the faded restaurant chain,

"The cultural understanding of 'Little Black Sambo' is a negative," says Professor Frank Gilliam of UCLA. "It's meant to suggest that people of African descent are childlike, that they're irresponsible, that they're not fully developed human beings."

Carol Codrington of Loyola Law School said the character was used to stereotype African Americans as shiftless and lazy.

So why, as in the case of Frauenfelder's BoingBoing post, and in so many others, do white people use "politically incorrect" to describe that which is actually racist (or sexist, or classist, or heterosexist), and so on?

They often do it, of course, because they just don't agree that this or that action or thing is racist. However, I think they sometimes do it instead because they don't like having their buzz harshed. Or their squee. Or they don't like having their parade rained on, or however you want to put it.

In my experience, saying that something is politically incorrect instead of racist is often a way of avoiding racism, instead of denying it. It can be a way of saying in effect, "Yes, some would say that's bad, or 'racist,' but pausing to really consider that, and all of its implications, isn't something I want to be bothered with right now, because it's really just too much trouble, thank you very much."

In the case of the BoingBoing post, Mark Frauenfelder may well have used "politically correct" instead of "racist" to describe the Sambo's decor because the latter term might have interrupted his reader's ability to, as one commenter puts it, "GROOVE AWAY on the orange/purple/yellow schemes!"

The concept of political correctness, or PC, has of course been discussed and analyzed ad nauseam, and I'm not sure that I'm adding anything new to the discussion here. I do think, though, that Frauenfelder is using the concept in a different way than it's usually used. As with other posters at BoingBoing, I don't detect a reactionary streak in this post by him, nor in his other ones; he doesn't seem like the sort who would complain about "not being able" to use racial or sexist slurs, because he thinks being asked to use less hurtful terms is an infringement on his free speech, and so on. I actually suspect that if Frauenfelder were asked whether Sambo's restaurants are "racist," he would agree.

So, again, I think the use of "politically incorrect" in that post to describe the racism perpetuated by Sambo's restaurants is a way of keeping the taint of that racism out of an otherwise fun and pleasant post about groovy vintage retro restaurant decor. It's almost as if directly acknowledging racism would be like acknowledging a bad smell in the room -- as if that would be a rather rude way of spoiling all the fun.

I've actually noticed this tendency many times among middle-class, college-educated white people. If I bring up or point out something racist, it's often like I burped or farted. In many situations, it's just not a welcome subject for conversation. And if such a subject does come up, describing it as "politically incorrect," or in some other vague, euphemistic terms, and then quickly dismissing it, is much more common than directly describing and discussing it as "racist."

That said, I do think this use of "politically incorrect" as a euphemism for "racist" is similar to other, more reactionary or "conservative" complaints about PC in terms of race in one significant way -- they're both expressions of white privilege. And maybe class privilege as well. People who bear the brunt of oppression usually don't have the luxury of just waving it away like that.

Have you seen or heard "politically incorrect" used as a way of avoiding more direct or blunt terms like "racist"? And have you been in situations where even bringing up racism is considered inappropriate or impolite? If so, do you go along with that, or do you get blunt and impolite?

assume that vanilla frosting is "skin" and chocolate sauce is "(white) skin covered in chocolate sauce"

Please skim through these four images of cakes before reading this post more carefully. Then ask yourself, are these cakes all supposed to represent white bodies? Also, what might make a person think that they all do represent white bodies?

An anonymous swpd reader sent me a link to the "Cake Wrecks" blog post that contains these images; I've also included in italics the text that accompanies them in the original post (I haven't reproduced the entire post here).

Ladies, are you tired of that unsightly gut?

Aw. It's so sad when belly dancers let themselves go.

And, men? Do you wish you had a pectorals and not just man ta-tas?

I know this is supposed to be a dude, 

but something really makes me want to censor those nips.

Well the wait is over! Now, with the Abdopectoralbuttmastersizer™, you too can look like a goddess!

A really, really tanned goddess. Covered in oil.
With an outy... and a... wait. Is that an Adam's apple?
Okay... well... it really is a lovely shade of dark orange!

Or so studly, your woman will want to cover you in chocolate sauce and star pasties!

Oohh La La!

(Ga Ga, Romama)

That's right: with the revolutionary Abdopectoralbuttmastersizer™ you are guaranteed to get shredded in places you didn't even know you had! . . . . Call now!


Okay, that's just part of the "Cake Wrecks" post. Note what the writer of the post sees in terms of race -- four white bodies, one of which is "tanned," and one of which is "covered in chocolate sauce."

Among the post's 140+ comments, a conversation ensued about the race(s) of the represented bodies.

As one commenter points out,

Re: really, really tanned & chocolate sauce

 Maybe those were supposed to be cakes of people who aren't, you know, white?

And later, someone else writes,

Man, you wreckies are fast -- you beat me to commenting on the fact that the "tanned" and "chocolate sauce" cakes probably just represent people with brown skin. (Some of us have that, you know.)

After a couple more such comments, the author of the post, "john (the hubby of Jen)," jumps in:

I firmly believe that the man covered in chocolate sauce and pasties is actually from Laos. Or possibly Honduras. Maybe Jamaica.

And the "Really, really tanned" torso actually looks very much like one of the white bodybuilders who has spent many an hour in a tanning booth. Could be African American. Probably tanning booth.

*sigh*

john

In the first sentence, john seems to be jokingly saying that . . . race doesn't matter? That, because the body's covered in chocolate sauce, the race is indeterminate? And what does that "sigh" mean? Actually, I think I know -- isn't it, basically, "Ugh. Why do you have to drag race into this!"?

Near the end of the thread, yet another commenter points out,

It seems that you assumed that all cakes are of white people, and that all of the people who read this blog are white. That doesn't make this blog a very friendly place for people of color to hang out. I really hope that you will change the comments under the third and fourth photo. . . . the point is not the realism of the cake, the point is that, when looking at cakes portraying brown and black skin, the author of the post assumed that these _must_ be white people _painted_ brown and black rather than people who _are_ brown and black. That's offensive.

In case anyone is interested in my race: I'm white.

Finally, it seems, john has enough of this -- so much that he shuts down the comment thread. But not before another, final, and sighing self-defense:

Alright, I'm done.

I am actually stunned by some of the comments so this will be the last one.

The mottled, dark orange torso cake didn't make me think of an African American because I've never seen an African American with mottled orange skin. I thought of this guy:

http://www.bodybuilder-photos.com/galleries/2003/2003-11_dorian-yates-grand-prix/images/bodybuilder_b-IMG_0017.jpg

See the bad spray tan?

And the fourth one? The one that I so thoughtlessly called "covered in chocolate sauce?" It's because it's COVERED IN CHOCOLATE SAUCE!

*sigh*

I hope some of you thought it was a fun post.

john


Well, I suppose it was a fun post, if you like laughing at bad cakes.

So what's the common white tendency of note here?

Aside from john's aversion to matters of race, and to seriously considering the possibility that he made a mistake in terms of race, I'm interested in what I also see as an assumption that seems to be at work in the post. And in many of the comments, except those that pointed out this assumption in the post -- that normal, default people, and bodies, are "white" ones.

So, what could lead white people to see cakes that may well represent non-white bodies as instead representing "tanned" and "chocolate-covered" (white) bodies?

I'll close with a quotation that I think provides an answer, a summary of the common white mode of thought that seems to be at work here. It's from film scholar Richard Dyer's excellent book, White: Essays on Race and Culture --

The invisibility of whiteness as a racial position in white (which is to say dominant) discourse is of a piece with its ubiquity. . . . for most of the time, white people speak about nothing but white people; it's just that we couch it in terms of "people" in general. Research -- into books, museums, the press, advertising, films, television, software -- repeatedly shows that in Western representation whites are overwhelmingly and disproportionately predominant, have the central and elaborated roles, and above all are placed as the norm, the ordinary, the standard. Whites are everywhere in representation. Yet precisely because of this and their placing as norm they seem not to be represented to themselves as whites, but as people who are variously gendered, classed, sexualised, and abled. At the level of racial representation, in other words, whites are not of a certain race, they're just the human race. . . .

We have not reached a situation in which white people and white cultural agendas are no longer in the ascendant. The media, politics, education are still in the hands of white people, still speak for whites while claiming -- and sometimes sincerely aiming -- to speak for humanity.

carelessly exoticize and "other" food

This is a guest post by Johanna, who blogs at Vegans of Color: "This blog was started (by me, Johanna, with the encouragement of some friends) to give a voice to vegans of color. Many vegan spaces seem to be assumed (consciously or not) to be white by default, with the dialogue within often coming from a place of white privilege. We’re not single-issue here. All oppressions are connected."


Vegan Cookbooks: Helping Folks Eat the Other

I’ve written before about exotification in discussions around vegan food, but it’s something I’m always thinking about & that has come up a lot lately. This year I’ve set myself a goal to cook at least one recipe from the many cookbooks I own. Hence I’ve been scouring them more than usual.

Has anyone else noticed that a staple of many a vegan cookbook is a recipe for African Peanut Stew or African Yam Stew or something similar? I’ve also seen (though less frequently) recipes for, say, Asian-Style Tofu or whatever. I cannot recall ever seeing a cookbook featuring anything like European Bean Soup. Is it because to most vegan cookbook authors/food bloggers, it would be preposterous to assume that there is anything universal or overarching about the many countries that make up Europe, or their cuisines? And yet we don’t often see the same distinction granted to countries in Africa.

"African" stew? Is the recipe from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa? Is that tofu done Chinese-style, Japanese, Filipino? Never mind the many variations even within those categories (just to preclude comments along the lines of “But hey, lots of countries in Africa do that kind of stew / lots of Asian countries use tofu!”).

Another thing I’ve seen not infrequently in vegan cookbooks & food blogs is the following construction:

“[Non-English ingredient or recipe name] must be [non-English language] for ‘delicious’!”

I also spotted this recently at Food Fight, who guess that "Mahalo is Hawaiian for ‘fake Almond Joy."

Oh, how cutesy. How patronizing. We don’t know what those funny foreign languages mean but we sure do love their grub!

The obsession with authenticity is another thing. This, like all the food othering in this post, is not limited to vegans, of course. My white boss (a one-time vegetarian turned omnivore due to happy meat, I might add) once praised my lunchtime curry because it “smelled really authentic.” She then went on to bemoan how she couldn’t manage to cook Indian food “authentically.” I squirmed, & said something about how surely what mattered most was whether she liked what she cooked. This only served to encourage her to rattle on about how important it was to get food “authentic.”

Anyway, there are countless examples of vegan recipes that stress their authentic nature. One I stumbled upon recently was in The Urban Vegan, in a recipe for “Blue Mosque Ayran,” which apparently is a drink you can find “at any cafe or from any street vendor in Istanbul.” I’ve never been to Istanbul, so perhaps I’m missing something in how this drink would be connected specifically to mosques (whose architecture are often held up as images of the exotic & dangerously foreign, I note), much less how the recipe in the cookbook is “so refreshingly good that the imam would definitely approve.” I dunno — has anyone ever seen an Italian recipe touted as being so delicious that the priest would approve?

I did some Googling & found that a common Turkish recipe is Imam Bayildi — which apparently means “The imam fainted” (when he tasted the recipe). I didn’t really see any other references to the imam having a lock on what is authentic Turkish food or not, but if someone knows differently, please let me know. I wonder if the Urban Vegan knew of this particular recipe & made a deliberate reference to it, or if it was just an example of throwing in something seen as “exotic.”

On the same page of that cookbook, by the way, is a recipe for “Political Biscotti.” The recipe notes that cafe culture frequently features both biscotti and political discussion. The biscotti are political because they contain both carob & chocolate, two flavors about which “people tend to be very ‘either/or’”:

They are always considered separately, as two distinctive flavors that were never meant to come together, sort of like Palestine and Israel. … The dates [in the recipe] act as a sort of sticky-sweet peacemaker, a culinary UN if you will.

Yeah. She went there. The bloody oppression of Palestinians reduced to a clever comment about biscotti.