I often feel like history is depicted, whether in class or on film, in a way that allows people to think of it as finished. In reality civil rights struggles continue and will continue for a long time. If we do not relate history to ourselves and our families we are not really learning. As a white male I have to think, was my great-great-great grandfather on the side of slavery or an abolitionist; did my ancestors own slaves or not? Were they even concerned with these issues in the first place?
While I know that my direct ancestors did not own slaves in the mid-nineteenth century, I do not know much about their lives, politics, and opinions. I assume many people don’t know their genealogy as well.
At the beginning of Ethnic Notions I began thinking about my childhood and things I grew up around. It’s amazing what we internalize through education and daily life; a cultural indoctrination. For the first thirteen years of my life I went to a babysitter because my parents didn’t trust myself and my siblings alone. Our babysitter was a middle aged white woman with a strong faith in Christianity. Much of Ethnic Notions reminded me of this because my babysitter collected pickaninnies. They were all over her house and I never really understood them. My babysitter was completely oblivious to the possibility that they could be seen as offensive…and so was I.
Both Ethnic Notions and Classified X offered small windows into Milwaukee for me. In Classified X we saw pictures of lynchings. Specifically we see a picture of a lynching in 1930, survived by Dr. James Cameron who went on to establish The Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee.
As I said before, I had been thinking about my childhood. When Ethnic Notions began I thought of a tobacco can in my basement. There is a market for everything and now the tobacco can is probably viewed as a collectible by many people. It’s a remnant of consumerist racism. The can may not have stuck out in many people’s minds, but I couldn’t help but notice since I have one sitting on a shelf in my basement. What else do we have in our basements, our attics, and our closets?
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Our Basements, Attics, and Closets
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2 comments:
kudos to you for opening up the discussion with this commentary. Wow! is all I could think when I read it and saw the images. You comments remind me of a film by Camille Billops an African American woman artist an filmmaker. She has a documentary, titled KKK... Aint just Rednecks! where she asks a similar question about our individual ownership of histories and our involvement whether actively or passively.
Portia Cobb, Professor
I really enjoyed your blog. I think it takes courage to "come out" about your personal relationship to these powerful icons of the past...and sadly the present. I related with the images of the pickaninny kids.
I lived with my aunt for a stint when my parents were divorcing and I remember seeing little figurines, even framed prints of these kinds of images. At the time I didn't really understand what was going on. It was that the images were so woven into my life. I would see the wooden black child knickknack on the table and think, "hey, there's a wooden black kid with crazy braids. Big whoop." I trusted that my aunt wouldn't feel hatred like that, I mean, she did have a very...I mean...come over to the house weekly kind of friend that is black. So, I wonder now what those images were doing in my aunts house? How did her friend deal with that and still stay friends (they're still friends today?) Why was this acceptable as "folk art" or collectables?
I have a lot of questions that deal with this little section of my history and the history of my family. I have sorted out some of the confusion over the years related to this time in my life but I still get stuck on a few...the question of valuable art/collectable items. Half of me thinks that yes, they should all be thrown into a pit and burned. The other half thinks no, if we burn these histories, we might forget this dirty little secret and atrocities like this might start popping up today? This is another blog, but how are those atrocities popping up today, where do we see them?
Back to business:
Why should people (mostly white) be making big money off of racist icons and propaganda? Riddle me this.
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