The material culture of prejudice
October 7, 2016 8:42 AM Subscribe
Racist Objects The New York Times and the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia are partnering to collect stories of personal encounters with racist objects, like producer Logan Jaffe's grandmother's salt and pepper shakers.
These objects have been discussed and debated before here on MetaFilter:
Sleeping Latino Statue Offensive?
Are these racist lawn statues?
Strange Fruit of the Loom
How Watermelons Became a Racist Trope
The Saga of Sambo's
Sambo. Little Black Sambo
While looking around for the threads I realized something sort of interesting: racist ephemeral imagery has not gone away, it's just largely in the form of memes today. Or continuing as advertising, which some of this ephemera was.
These objects have been discussed and debated before here on MetaFilter:
Sleeping Latino Statue Offensive?
Are these racist lawn statues?
Strange Fruit of the Loom
How Watermelons Became a Racist Trope
The Saga of Sambo's
Sambo. Little Black Sambo
While looking around for the threads I realized something sort of interesting: racist ephemeral imagery has not gone away, it's just largely in the form of memes today. Or continuing as advertising, which some of this ephemera was.
I feel like there ought to be a Museum of Racist Knicknacks. Mostly so that people of the future can go somewhere to see this shit, see how real it is, and read detailed descriptions of their history in a context that makes it clear that, yeah, making things like this this was pretty fucked up and it's not acceptable anymore. But also partly so that people who inherit this stuff have something to do with it other than junk it or put it on eBay, which they may be hesitant to do because Family Heirlooms or whatever.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:13 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by tobascodagama at 9:13 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
This Book by David Pilgrim was SO GOOD. I devoured it after reading the interview with Pilgrim on Collectors' Weekly
Really: get the book if you can. It is outstanding.
posted by Dressed to Kill at 9:17 AM on October 7, 2016
Really: get the book if you can. It is outstanding.
posted by Dressed to Kill at 9:17 AM on October 7, 2016
tobascodagama, the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia linked in the post is very much what you're describing. They don't have a lot of images online, but if you click around a bit you'll see that there are displays that are exactly what you're describing.
posted by not that girl at 9:18 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by not that girl at 9:18 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Reading some of the answers in that 2007 AskMe thread about the Sleeping Latino Statue makes me wish someone would undertake a project to revisit past moments in MetaFilter history and interview the participants of notable threads in order to gauge present-day reactions, call upon memories, and inquire about how opinions might have changed (or not changed) over the years.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:24 AM on October 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:24 AM on October 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
I visit antique shops fairly regularly and it's always astounding to me how much of this stuff is out there. The scale on which all of it it was produced -- from salt and pepper shakers to the cookie jars to wall pockets and lawn statuettes and on and on -- must have been astounding for so much of it to still be in "circulation."
I always wonder who buys the stuff, but there must be a lot of people who still do. I like that David Pilgrim says that he buys and displays these pieces "to get people to look more critically at the present." Sadly, my fear is that the majority of people who see an exaggerated minstrel figure on an antique store shelf and say "Ooh, I need that," are more likely the people who, as David Pilgrim also says, see the objects as a way to "justify the racial hierarchy in the United States." They're creating a museum of a different sort in their own homes, which is exactly the sort of thing we ought to be moving away from.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:33 AM on October 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I always wonder who buys the stuff, but there must be a lot of people who still do. I like that David Pilgrim says that he buys and displays these pieces "to get people to look more critically at the present." Sadly, my fear is that the majority of people who see an exaggerated minstrel figure on an antique store shelf and say "Ooh, I need that," are more likely the people who, as David Pilgrim also says, see the objects as a way to "justify the racial hierarchy in the United States." They're creating a museum of a different sort in their own homes, which is exactly the sort of thing we ought to be moving away from.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:33 AM on October 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
I always wonder who buys the stuff, but there must be a lot of people who still do.
Whoopi Goldberg and Spike Lee both have sizable collections, from what I understand.
On the one hand, obviously they (and the curator of this museum) are able to put them in an appropriate context. But I've always kind of worried how the interest of the monied stars is keeping the goods "collectible" and therefore maintaining a market for stuff that largely should just be destroyed (beyond preserving maybe a handful of each product produced for historical purposes -- like the museum is doing).
posted by sparklemotion at 9:38 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Whoopi Goldberg and Spike Lee both have sizable collections, from what I understand.
On the one hand, obviously they (and the curator of this museum) are able to put them in an appropriate context. But I've always kind of worried how the interest of the monied stars is keeping the goods "collectible" and therefore maintaining a market for stuff that largely should just be destroyed (beyond preserving maybe a handful of each product produced for historical purposes -- like the museum is doing).
posted by sparklemotion at 9:38 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Reading some of the answers in that 2007 AskMe thread about the Sleeping Latino Statue makes me wish someone would undertake a project to revisit past moments in MetaFilter history and interview the participants of notable threads in order to gauge present-day reactions, call upon memories, and inquire about how opinions might have changed (or not changed) over the years.
Wow, yeah. There are a couple of people in there who are still around, and their easy dismissal of the idea that displaying a racially stereotyped image could be at all racist or reflect badly on the person displaying it is disappointing. Of course, that was nine years ago, so, as you say, it would be interesting to hear people talk about whether their opinions have changed. Not even necessarily anyone specifically in that thread, since that feels too much like putting people on the spot for something they said a long time ago, but surely many of us can reflect on how our awareness of racial stereotyping has grown and changed. I an a white woman born long enough ago that I remember the glass bottles of syrup shaped like Aunt Jemima, and images like a cute little barefoot pickaninny fishing on the bank of a stream being part of the kitschy decor in people's cabins. I had to grow up and learn some things to understand what could be problematic about these things.
posted by not that girl at 9:39 AM on October 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
Wow, yeah. There are a couple of people in there who are still around, and their easy dismissal of the idea that displaying a racially stereotyped image could be at all racist or reflect badly on the person displaying it is disappointing. Of course, that was nine years ago, so, as you say, it would be interesting to hear people talk about whether their opinions have changed. Not even necessarily anyone specifically in that thread, since that feels too much like putting people on the spot for something they said a long time ago, but surely many of us can reflect on how our awareness of racial stereotyping has grown and changed. I an a white woman born long enough ago that I remember the glass bottles of syrup shaped like Aunt Jemima, and images like a cute little barefoot pickaninny fishing on the bank of a stream being part of the kitschy decor in people's cabins. I had to grow up and learn some things to understand what could be problematic about these things.
posted by not that girl at 9:39 AM on October 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
Whoopi Goldberg and Spike Lee both have sizable collections, from what I understand.
I think I can kind of understand this. I'm queer, and looking at the page for the traveling exhibit "Them" which the Jim Crow museum offers, I found myself coveting the "God Hates Fags" sign. I think there is something about the most extreme expressions of prejudice—these forms of them, ephemera rather than, say, laws—that is so ridiculous it becomes laughable and weirdly appealing. The other day I was absolutely disgusted when Stephen Colbert did a post-VP-debate monologue that started out by making fun of Pence by playing with the idea that he was gay ("I like to spend at least part of every day on my knees"), which I found funny but which also is a form of shaming someone and making fun of him by suggesting he's gay, which felt problematic. But the monologue ended with Colbert calling Trump a "pussy," which is a highly gendered slur that both insults women and insults a man by suggesting he is like a woman, and that is just not ok.
Colbert pissed me off by being a liberal who was seemingly blind to the gender and sexuality policing he was contributing to by using his jokes to question the manhood and heterosexuality of politicians. But the God Hates Fags sign just hits me in a whole different place—a "can you believe this bullshit" kind of place where I could hang that sign in my house and be amused by it.
I'm not at all articulating this well because I don't fully understand all of my own reactions. With Colbert, I found myself enjoying a joke that also seemed problematic to me, and being offended and pissed off by another. With the God Hates Fags sign, I know who created it and how reprehensible they are, and also how those extremists interconnect with less extreme points of view—which is to say, I believe the God Hates Fags sign is both crappy in itself and part of a much bigger problem. And yet somehow it amuses me rather than feeling hurtful, or angering me. The actions of the people who use that slogan anger and disgust me; the sign is something else.
I'm really interested in this phenomenon in myself and in others, and it makes me interested to hear about the various experiences and reactions people of color have to these artifacts.
posted by not that girl at 9:51 AM on October 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
I think I can kind of understand this. I'm queer, and looking at the page for the traveling exhibit "Them" which the Jim Crow museum offers, I found myself coveting the "God Hates Fags" sign. I think there is something about the most extreme expressions of prejudice—these forms of them, ephemera rather than, say, laws—that is so ridiculous it becomes laughable and weirdly appealing. The other day I was absolutely disgusted when Stephen Colbert did a post-VP-debate monologue that started out by making fun of Pence by playing with the idea that he was gay ("I like to spend at least part of every day on my knees"), which I found funny but which also is a form of shaming someone and making fun of him by suggesting he's gay, which felt problematic. But the monologue ended with Colbert calling Trump a "pussy," which is a highly gendered slur that both insults women and insults a man by suggesting he is like a woman, and that is just not ok.
Colbert pissed me off by being a liberal who was seemingly blind to the gender and sexuality policing he was contributing to by using his jokes to question the manhood and heterosexuality of politicians. But the God Hates Fags sign just hits me in a whole different place—a "can you believe this bullshit" kind of place where I could hang that sign in my house and be amused by it.
I'm not at all articulating this well because I don't fully understand all of my own reactions. With Colbert, I found myself enjoying a joke that also seemed problematic to me, and being offended and pissed off by another. With the God Hates Fags sign, I know who created it and how reprehensible they are, and also how those extremists interconnect with less extreme points of view—which is to say, I believe the God Hates Fags sign is both crappy in itself and part of a much bigger problem. And yet somehow it amuses me rather than feeling hurtful, or angering me. The actions of the people who use that slogan anger and disgust me; the sign is something else.
I'm really interested in this phenomenon in myself and in others, and it makes me interested to hear about the various experiences and reactions people of color have to these artifacts.
posted by not that girl at 9:51 AM on October 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
omg. My husband inherited one of these type things when his parents downsized - I think it had belonged to his grandparents. I was utterly horrified and made him get rid of it when we moved recently. (We are both white) We definitely had the "it was a different time" conversation but I absolutely could not in good conscience have it in our house. And yet, throwing it away, I did feel sort of bad throwing away an antique showing so clearly the cultural attitudes of the time - it sort of did feel that it had some inherent value, but not in a way that I could resolve it in my mind well enough to keep it.
not that girl, I know what you mean about the God Hates Fags sign - I find sexist advertising from the early 20th century somehow delightful and I love displaying it, mostly for the "can you even believe this!" feeling. I like the irony and I have a "haha fuck you haters, look at how I'm doing exactly the thing you didn't want me to do" attitude, I guess.* But I agree that Colbert's shtick is pretty gross - he's perpetuating the use of misogyny and homophobia as the punchline rather than pointing and laughing at it, which with the GHF sign and the sexist cartoons and whatnot I think really is pointing and laughing at the awful attitudes and how out of touch they are. Also with Colbert's thing, I get you - on one hand lol Pence unintentionally made a sexual double entendre which is usually objectively funny, but on the other hand if you consider a woman saying it which would also on the surface be funny, it's fundamentally rooted in misogyny - lol women give blowjobs - and that's where a lot of homophobia comes from - omg men shouldn't be acting like women. So yeah, it's hard not to laugh at on the surface because in that situation accidental sexual references are hilarious, but it's pretty complicated and problematic underneath depending on how you read it)
*I used to own a "I'm Too Pretty To Do Math" magnet, which sadly was more recent than early 20th century, that I displayed on my cube at work -- I'm a female engineer. The men coming into my cube would read it and carefully not comment. All the women would crack up.
posted by olinerd at 11:38 AM on October 7, 2016
not that girl, I know what you mean about the God Hates Fags sign - I find sexist advertising from the early 20th century somehow delightful and I love displaying it, mostly for the "can you even believe this!" feeling. I like the irony and I have a "haha fuck you haters, look at how I'm doing exactly the thing you didn't want me to do" attitude, I guess.* But I agree that Colbert's shtick is pretty gross - he's perpetuating the use of misogyny and homophobia as the punchline rather than pointing and laughing at it, which with the GHF sign and the sexist cartoons and whatnot I think really is pointing and laughing at the awful attitudes and how out of touch they are. Also with Colbert's thing, I get you - on one hand lol Pence unintentionally made a sexual double entendre which is usually objectively funny, but on the other hand if you consider a woman saying it which would also on the surface be funny, it's fundamentally rooted in misogyny - lol women give blowjobs - and that's where a lot of homophobia comes from - omg men shouldn't be acting like women. So yeah, it's hard not to laugh at on the surface because in that situation accidental sexual references are hilarious, but it's pretty complicated and problematic underneath depending on how you read it)
*I used to own a "I'm Too Pretty To Do Math" magnet, which sadly was more recent than early 20th century, that I displayed on my cube at work -- I'm a female engineer. The men coming into my cube would read it and carefully not comment. All the women would crack up.
posted by olinerd at 11:38 AM on October 7, 2016
My husband inherited one of these type things when his parents downsized
At least that could have been fixed with some paint.
I used to own a "I'm Too Pretty To Do Math" magnet, which sadly was more recent than early 20th century, that I displayed on my cube at work
As another female engineer, the days of "Math is Hard!" Barbie are still to recent for me to be able to laugh along with it, but I can get why you'd want to keep it in your cube.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:53 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
At least that could have been fixed with some paint.
I used to own a "I'm Too Pretty To Do Math" magnet, which sadly was more recent than early 20th century, that I displayed on my cube at work
As another female engineer, the days of "Math is Hard!" Barbie are still to recent for me to be able to laugh along with it, but I can get why you'd want to keep it in your cube.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:53 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
tobascodagama, the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia linked in the post is very much what you're describing.
You know, I read through the first link, but somehow I missed the blue text that said "JIM CROW MUSEUM OF RACIST MEMORABILIA" right next to it. The perils of pre-coffee commenting.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:39 PM on October 7, 2016
You know, I read through the first link, but somehow I missed the blue text that said "JIM CROW MUSEUM OF RACIST MEMORABILIA" right next to it. The perils of pre-coffee commenting.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:39 PM on October 7, 2016
Friend of mine and I keep meaning to make a T-shirt in two fonts: pink sparkly "Math is Hard!", pinker, sparklier "And I'm good at it."
posted by clew at 6:49 PM on October 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by clew at 6:49 PM on October 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
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As I said, it was brief. He was also really big into The Secret.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 9:02 AM on October 7, 2016 [4 favorites]