Imagining the potential migration between the human classification of race is the idea that Faedra Chatard Carpenter begins the chapter "Mixing It Up: Enacting Whiteness in the Comedic World of Dave Chappelle" in Coloring Whiteness, Acts of Critique in Black Performance. She uses the works of the stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle, as case studies to depict how mixed-race identities are not only constituents within African American communities but also shape and form American culture.
In this chapter, the author argues that satire and comedy are compelling genres for documenting and transforming our psyches about taboo subjects. She maintains that artistic critique need not be melancholy. She also cites what anthropologist Alan H. Goodman presents as reasons why the notion of race as biological is highly problematic and why racial categories are ineffective in cataloging human variation. Then she investigates some works of Chappelle. Chappelle is an African American, and his interrogation of race is often accomplished through his use of theatrical whiteface and familiar tropes of whiteness, so his works are an excellent example of the always-already nature of human in-betweenness.
"Clayton Bigsby" is one of Chappelle's works in which the conflation of the black body and white mind is at the heart of it. Carpenter argues that: Chappelle reinforces the visual gage within the "Clayton Bigsby" sketch with purposeful exploitation of language. This strategy is evidenced by the fact that the sketch actually opens with a joke based on the presence of words rather than the visual presence of raced bodies (p: 167). She points out the use of the word "Nigger” in Chappelle's work as well as its meaning in society _mostly as a disparaging term but sometimes as a term of affection, community, and defiance_ and argues that: with this coded understanding, the context of who is using it, how it is used and even how it is pronounced imbues it with varied meanings. (p:168). And then, she concludes that racial categories are expressed, translated, and formed through language.
As a person who was raised in Iran, the touchable example of this statement for me is the use of words such as Turk, Lor, and Arab. These words define other ethnicities in Iran; unfortunately, in big cities like Tehran and Isfahan, occupied mainly by Fars people, these words mostly use to disparage, and there are too many racial jokes about them.
In the "Racial Draft," Chappelle addresses and troubles biological and cultural inscription related to racial differences and mixedness. For me, as someone unfamiliar with him, watching video clips of his works in class and listening to my classmates' different points of view were beneficial. Given the diverse perspectives of my classmates and all the controversy around his works, it is proved that Chappelle cannot determine how a spectator will choose to interpret the material. Carpenter points to the reader response and audience reception theory and maintains that a text's meanings are not solely constructed by its author. A reader/viewer also imbues a text with meaning. Thus, despite authorial intention- a particular intention cannot be guaranteed. […] audience interpretations are greatly informed by social and cultural training, which, in turn, shapes the interpretive communities to which they belong. While this understanding of audience reception is clearly related to the notion of ideology, there is also a psychological dimension to it. (p: 190)
Chappelle is trying to show that race is not biological, but the audience's interpretation would be based on their social training, and psychological desire may be different.
Alluding to Reader response and audience reception theory, alongside the performative aspects of race, intensifies that race is a temporal context. It reminds us of the definition of race that Omi and Winant propose in Racial Formation. They define race as a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies (P: 55). They argue that the selection of human biological features for purposes of racial signification is a social and historical process. Following them, Faedra Carpenter, in the chapter, Mixing it up, uses Chappelle's work as a case study to prove that understanding of race has been temporal and dynamic, formed through and by various processes and strategies (p:164). Therefore, based on what we discussed last week and what we read in the chapter about Racial Formation, race is not a stable concept. It constantly changes. Race is performative acts we adopt or the language or rhetoric we use. Therefore, this concept constantly changes daily based on how we perform, and we categorize people based on that.
Resources:
Carpenter, Faedra Chatard. Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance. University of Michigan Press, 2014. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.5262413. Accessed 5 Oct. 2022.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the New Millennium. Routledge, 2008.
Marzi, I loved your attention to Chappelle´s linguist play of the n-word in the Clayton Bigsby sketch, as a tool to demonstrate the duality of the word and his own identity. Language is a huge factor of how we understand the world, but as the author of the article points out, it is also a source of violence. The Clayton Bigsby sketch demonstrates how language is a racializer that we tend not to consider, but Clayton, who cannot rely on sight to find his other, relies on language to racialize bodies and enact violence upon them.
EXACTLY!!! Satire and comedy are able to manage with those topics. That is what Dave is trying to demonstrate and talk about with the racial problems that society itself has caused. However, as you mentioned the public will take it based on their beliefs or social psychological growth. And since race is a concept that always changes in a certain way, Dave plays with it to raise awareness, but people don't see it. Thanks, and great work, Marzi!
Marzi, I really liked how you started out mentioning how satire and comedy are often used to talk about taboo subjects. I think this is very true and understandable. Not many people feel comfortable just talking about these intense issues that they may feel some level of subconscious guilt over. Instead, it's much easier to open up a dialoged between the artist and audience through the use of comedy. Because lets face it, laughing and having fun is something almost everyone can relate to. By bringing those two worlds together you begin to be able to actually talk about these more complex social issues. I also thought is was great that you mentioned how the viewer has the power t…