An American Symbolism?

One of the main points of class discussion today was the legacy of "playing Indian" in America. When delving into the reasons for why a White person would desire to engage in such an act, some students referred to Philip J. Deloria's work. In his chapter, "Natural Indians and Identities of Modernity," he writes,

"Because those seeking authenticity have already defined their own state as inauthentic, they easily locate authenticity in the figure of an Other. This Other can be coded in terms of time (nostalgia or archaism), place (the small town), or culture (Indianness)." (101)

This statement affirms that White men didn't feel authentically tied to America upon "founding" this land where they could declare themselves independent from Britain. The insecurity that arose from this perceived lack of authenticity compelled them to seek what they didn't have in the very culture they otherized--"Indianness." To them, playing Indian was a way for them to try to claim the narrative of being native to America long before the 1600s. 

Furthermore, I was struck by the manner in which playing Indian has permeated places higher education, particularly Stanford. My group today read an article published by the Stanford Native American Cultural Center entitled, "The Removal of the Indian Mascot of Stanford." For about 40 years, Stanford athletic jerseys dawned the "Indian" as a symbol and mascot, dehumanizing an entire group of Americans. In the 1970s, President Lyman listened to the petition of Native American students and staff and had the mascot removed.

This history prompted me to think about Stanford today. Presently, we annually host the largest powwow ever put on by students, offer the Native American Cultural Center as a resource for students, and have the Native American themed house, Muwekma. All of these things are representative of efforts to perpetuate the fact that Native Americans are human beings rather than mascots. I'm interested in learning more deeply about how far Stanford has actually progressed from the understanding of "Indianness" that pervaded athletic paraphernalia until the 1970s.

Moreover, Deloria's reading made me recall a previous class session in which we discussed Becoming Mexican American. Professor Hobbs explained that people of Chinese descent who were discriminated against in America would sometimes play Mexican in order to have greater opportunities. Is playing the identity of a perceived Other a staple in American history?

Dear MGM

Dear MGM Grand,

            Why did you choose the picture you choose for the cover of your VHS copy of The Jazz Singer?  Why did you choose the promotional picture of Al Jolson in blackface rather than the photo of Jakie Rabinowitz at the piano, singing to his mother?  Why do you emphasize such a small part of the film?  Why, decades after it was originally released, did you reaffirm the importance of blackface in the movie?

            This decision seems to have a lot to do with the concept of blackface generally. Though blackface has been historically significant for a number of reasons, the blackface in this film seemed so important particularly because it allows one to transform identities (Rogin 434).  For Jakie, being someone else is vital for being who he wants to be.  Blackface gives him one pathway into this dream.   The film is all about the tension between what one is expected to do and what wants to do.  Blackface apparently helped Jakie get famous (though, I am not entirely convinced of this point because he had such success performing at the beginning of the film without wearing blackface). So, why is blackface necessary to the movie?  The surprise introduction of blackface into the end of The Jazz Singer is one of the most telling aspects of the film. The casual yet expert way Jakie dons his blackface, joyously while preoccuppied, reveals how common blackface was for performs to put on.  This is why having Al Jolson in blackface on the cover is so confusing.  By being so forward about the blackface in the film, it seems as if the whole film is about a performer in blackface.  But Jolson is in blackface for less than a tenth of the movie.  The brief times he is in it take the audience by surprise. The way it is inserted so naturally, as if it needed no explanation, suggests how normalized blackface was into American culture.  Its emphasis suggests how popular it was with the the American public and how entertaining many white Americans found it.

           There is an another issue in the film that makes the use of blackface even more questionable: the changing of text on the text cards after the film was made.  In his article about the Jazz Singer, Michael Rogin discusses how the studio decided to change the n-word to things like "his shadow," in the film (431).  Though he does not discuss the reasons for this, it seems likely that the offensiveness of the word is part of their decision.  While watching the film, it became very evident that phrases like "his shadow" fit awkwardly, giving me the sense that this was not the original language used even without having the academic insight of Rogin.  Their changes were not natural, yet they did them anyway.  It is interesting that your studio decided to self-edit the language, but kept the blackface.  This example could also be seen as a way that Hollywood and popular culture accepted and normalized blackface.  Though the n-word had extremely negative connotations at this point, the studio's willingness to keep blackface as such a prominent part of the film (at least in promotional materials) suggests that blackface was more socially acceptable to have in the media. 

             I was pretty shocked after the film when I saw the VHS cover.  After seeing how little a part of the film blackface was and how disjointed it seemed from the rest of the film, your emphasis seemed incredibly strange and unsettling.  With it, it seemed as if the movie was supposed to have a different intention than I saw - the importance of blackface in being able to transform one's identity.  I felt like Jakie was doing that fine without the blackface in the first half of the movie, but I guess it wasn't enough for Hollywood.   

                                                                                                            Very best,

                                                                                                                           Bianca 

Sources: 1st photo: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~asi/musi212/brandi/images/jazz.jpg

2nd photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/The_Jazz_Singer_1927_Poster.jpg/220px-The_Jazz_Singer_1927_Poster.jpg

diary entry of a translator

My relations with the Indians have been twofold. I have been a member of the Improved Order of Red Men for ten years and I have served as a translator for various negotiations and treaties with Indian tribes. Thus, I have had more exposure to Indians in the flesh than most of my colleagues in the IORM.
 Of my various experiences as a translator, one particular negotiation stands out in my memory because, for various reasons, I had the opportunity to talk to the Indians about things outside of the treaty. One Indian boy in particular fascinated me because he seemed to have no idea that his way of life was dramatically changing. This boy was very much alive and talkative and seemingly in love with all things and effusive about it. And as the Indians depart farther and farther westward and further into the past, men must record what they have meant to the founding of this great nation. I am not a historian but the translator's job can be compared to that of a historian. When I convert the crude and savage mind-pictures of Indian language to the civilized abstractions of English, some things get lost or distorted, necessarily, but I must try to capture the savagery as best as I could. When the historian reconstructs the past, some things can never be recovered, but the most important aspects of the past, the essence, finds due expression. When I die, that boy and his peculiar wants and desires won't be remembered, but the essence of the various Indian tribes will, thanks to historians, and, most of all, thanks to the overlooked wonder of the abstraction of words.

Performing Race & the American Dream

(the following is written from the perspective of Jackie Robinowitz as a letter to his mother)

Dear Mama, 

I hope you are well. Since I left home, I have been singing all over wherever I find the opportunity. Jazz is so much fun to sing and I find great joy in bringing entertainment to others. After singing in a few saloons here and there, people have heard about me and given me opportunities to travel to other cities to sing in their clubs and theatres. One woman even invited me to move to New York and sing as a part of a musical! Can you believe it? A big time show with hundreds of people coming just to watch me sing! 

As soon as I heard the gig, I jumped at the chance and packed up to go. She's a wonderful woman, Mary, and a beautiful performer herself. Once I got to the theatre, they told me I would have to don blackface make up for the role. I had heard of such performances before but never did I think much of it - let alone think myself potentially participating in such a production! As they say in the business, the show must go on and if that means I have to put on some make up to play the part well I'll do it. 

That's what I told myself when the gig first started. Ever since I started rehearsing and performing for the part, I have noticed how much this really is my American Dream. I feel like I finally belong - on this stage, using my voice to bring entertainment to many many people. It pays very well too - if these gigs keep coming up, I'll soon have enough to buy you a nice new place and give you the life you deserve. Someone once asked me after one of my shows if I thought much about the blackface make-up and I don't think about it much. But their question did get me thinking about it and I see it as a transfer of sorts. With the performance, I can "transfer identity from immigrant Jew to American...and acquire my own voice through upward mobility" (434). If I protested against it or turned the job down, I would be back to square one. I finally feel accepted into the social culture of America as Jack Robin. I don't feel a remorse of shame in changing my name or my appearance for American success because deep down I still know who I am and I'll always remember that. 

Take care and let me know if you will come to see my show one of these days.

Your son, 
Jack Robin

Deloria to Rogin: Interior/Exterior Faces

Michael Rogin, 

I was extremely interested in your piece on the use of blackface in The Jazz Singer. The film is a contentious work, yet I frequently see its impact boiled down to a simple statement: “it’s racist.” And while, yes, The Jazz Singer is a racist film, it’s also incredibly important to examine the reasons behind the film’s use of blackface and its immense financial success.

I will admit that I was also interested in your essay because I see some parallels between your work and my own. Blackface and playing Indian are both means for whites to act out anxieties about changes in society. In the case you haven’t read my book, Playing Indian, I’ll summarize my analysis.

Playing Indian was a powerful tool for white Americans and proto-Americans in the political and cultural spheres. Adopting the persona of an “other,” or the interior Indian – an Indian given positive characteristics, as opposed to the negative, savage, exterior Indian – gave these Americans a venue with which to act out the conflicting ideas of egalitarianism and eliteness. Members of Indian societies and others who played Indian saw themselves as unique participants in often hierarchical secret societies, simultaneously used their membership as a way to assuage fears about the perceived changes in their society.

I believe the same holds true for the usage of blackface. As you noted, The Jazz Singer uses the blackface to deal with the issues of cultural assimilation within immigrant societies. Al Jolson’s character, Jakie/Jack uses blackface to move from the world of Jewish cultural and religious traditions to the realm of American pop culture. By disguising himself as a Negro “Other,” he is able to utilize the “interior” Negro’s cultural capital and authenticity as a purveyor of jazz music. The disguise also serves to render his separation from the Jewish community less painful. In addition, the use of blackface further demonizes the “exterior” Negro by perpetuating racial stereotypes and moves the Jewish protagonist closer to the “American” white community that also upholds these stereotypes.

Your work concerning the Jewish community and the use of blackface has inspired me to look more deeply at the role of playing Indian in immigrant communities. At the moment, I’ve only managed to unearth the conflict between Irish Catholic interests and the Tammany and Red Men societies, but I’m certain that playing Indian could have played a pivotal role in the development of national identities for immigrants in the early history of America.

I’d also like to analyze the role of playing Indian in contemporary media. I’m sure there would be quite a lot to look at (see Fig 1). Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.

Best,

Philip Deloria

Fig 1 Peter Pan Animated Film

Rogin in dialogue with Jacobson and Morrison

I found Rogin’s highlighting of the term “musical miscegenation” to be very interesting in how it related to the minstrelsy phenomenon that dominated early 20^th century entertainment. When thinking about Morrison’s editorial and Jacobson’s article, I felt that this analysis of The Jazz Singer definitely fit in with both of their main arguments in multiple ways while also placing into conversation other arguments that white immigrant groups who engaged with blackface, specifically Jews, may have actually been in solidarity with Blacks.

With regards to Jacobson’s piece about whiteness and the American melting pot, Rogin explains how assimilation was a central theme in The Jazz Singer. Interestingly, Jakie “finds his voice through black music,” and therefore, goes on to succeed as a blackface singer. Rogin uses black music and jazz interchangeably with a sense of American citizenship. It isn’t through performing as an Anglo-American that frees Jews who perform in blackface from anti-semitism, but it’s performing as a Black American that allows Jews to mask their identities and hide the potential ethnic cues that come with being Jewish to their white audiences. I think Rogin’s piece can be directly put in conversation with Morrison. Rogin writes, “Substituting blackface doubling for ethnic and racial variety, the movie points in spite of itself to another truth about the melting pot, not the cooperative creation of something new but assimilation to old inequalities” (439). This is a very important point that fits in line with Morrison’s “off the backs of blacks” argument, in which white immigrant groups exploited black identities and used blackness as a stepping stone to gain their places in American society. 

Power of Costume

In Playing Indian, Philip Deloria describes the role the Indian played as a chaacter in the development of a newly forming American identity.  On page 21 he writes, "We construct identity by finding oursleves in relation to an array of people and objects who are not ourselves."  In the construction of a new "American" identity, colonists aimed to construct themselves in opposition to the English, or the people of the "Old World" that they had left behind.  In order to define themselves as different and in order to claim an identity that truly belonged to them and the new land they occupied, they needed to employ aspects of an already existing identity that was present in this "New World".  The Native American identity was one that was readily accessible and recognizable and could be molded as the developing Americans desired. 

On page 20 Deloria says, "Indian "Others" have been constructed at the intersection of real and imagined Indians."  This statement refers to the practice of the colonists to take the parts of Indianness that they liked and found positive and their construction of other imagined aspects that would fit more conveniently into the character that they were hoping to design than some of the negatively viewed traits that existed in real Indian identity.  Native identities were desired because of their assumed bravery, rebellion, knowledge of the land, connection to a past history and set of traditions on this land, and adventurousness.  Colonists desired these qualities to set them apart from the English that were trying to control them.  However, colonists also wanted to remain seperated from the Indians who were also savage, uncivilized, and under their ultimate control.  Therefore, the Indian identity remained as a costume that was only brought out to be used in certain circumstances to make a statement when it was most apporpriate and effective. 

There is a power in being able to put on and remove this costume when convenient in order to lay claim to supposedly positive aspects of a people.  However, in taking the costume off again the Americans can then reassert their otherness and power over the people they sometimes like to dress up as.  The same is the case with black face.  This putting on of costumes and balancing of power and identity seems to be carefully thought through and calculated.  The exception to this percision seems to take place during carnival activities where revelry, rebellion, and chaos seem to come together for a time of enjoyment and possibly some kind of political statement. 

This image comes from St. Thomas Carnival in the Caribbean.  Though this history of Carnival is surely different from the U.S. revolutionary period account given in Deloria's book, I had never really thought about the possible influences of Native culture on the costumes that are present during this holiday of ours.

[Journal entry by one of "New England's white Indians" written the night before the attack of Dunbar's men in 1734]

Monday the 11th of March of 1734

Tonight we made plans to fight back against Dunbar's men. They came to enforce that ridiculous and unjust Mast Tree Law. But we have a plan, a good plan. We are going to send a raiding party, dressed as Indians, to confront them. William came up with most of it, but it was James who really explained it. William used to be part of a hunting party back in England that would pain their faces black to help avoid detection. But we are doing more than hiding who we are. We are dressing as Indians to show those British the power of this land. We have inherited it from the Indian people who have vanished. Living here, working this land, it has imbued us with their bravery, their ancient ways, and we are its new stewards. This raid should send those British men running back to their ships!

I am a little nervous, but it is a good plan. I have most of my costume ready, but still have not decided how I will paint my face. I think we decided we would all paint our faces black the way William used to do back in England. We will all cary war clubs, but I don't think I will have to use mine. Those English cowards will run before we get the chance. Besides, who are they to benefit from the bounty of this land? It is us who have had to toil, to build our homes here, to live a life different from that of our fathers and grandfathers in Europe. We are the new natives. The Indians have mostly left this area, and they have left it to us. 

I hope that Mary and the children do not worry too much. I don't think the raid will be too dangerous. I will hopefully come back tomorrow night and record the events of the raid. 

Until tomorrow, 

Henry 

In the late eighteenth century, however, rebellious American colonists in New England and Pennsylvania did something unique. Increasingly inclined to see themselves in opposition to England rather than to Indians, they inverted interior and exterior to imagine a new boundary line of national identity. They began to transform exterior, noble savage Others into symbolic figures that could be rhetorically interior to the society they sought to inaugurate. In short, the ground of the oppositions shifted and, with them, national self-definition...This inversion carried extraordinary consequences for subsequent American politics and identity. - Deloria

Diary of a Boston Tea Partyer A few days before the act

Dear Diary,

Tonight we assembled our costumes. I shall avoid any specifics in case our plans get traced back to me, but I of course will know what I am referring to. Our plans are set for a few days from now. Last week we met to strategize, and Adam suggested we wear disguises.

At first, Samuel thought Adam figured to wear cloaks and masks, exclaiming it to be brilliant idea. However, when Adam clarified that he suggested we wear Indian disguises, I have to say the whole room had quite a chuckle. Once given the chance to speak, Adam made quite a convincing case.

He argued that the spirit of our deeds to come embody the spirit of freedom so deeply held by our Indian brothers. He managed to really create an oddly new air of excitement among us, though I have to say I still remained skeptical.

This evening we met again in order to prepare our disguises. I felt like a little boy again making arts and crafts. The costumes took quite a long time to create, but at the end it was just so satisfying to dawn the costumes. Once I put on the headdress, I instantly felt liberation. I felt empowered to stand up for my freedom, as if no one could stop me.

Actually, I think we all felt the transformation. Our eloquent speeches of freedom and fighting oppression turned into chants. Our shouts of agreement turned into howls. It’s quite fortunate that we didn’t overwhelm ourselves and enact our plans prematurely.

Nonetheless, I think Adam is quite on to something exceptional in dawning these costumes. It’s more than a costume; it’s almost like wielding our spirit as a weapon.

“In donning Indian dress, of course, they were engaging in a dialogue not about Indians, but about themselves and their beliefs, and that dialogue was directed primarily toward colonial and imperial authority.” (26)

Letter to Mom

(A letter from a teenage boy to his mother while attending a camp as a part of the Seton Indian program.)

Hi Mom!

Hope you and Dad are doing well! I love it here in Standing Rock Village. I have made a bunch of friends and the corn meal pancakes that they make for dinner are awesome!

Since this is my first letter to you guys, I want to tell you about my life at camp. The camp director’s name is Ernest Thompson Seton, and he is a really nice guy. I heard a rumor from some of the boys that he started the Boy Scouts of America (that group that Cousin Jimmy is in), but he has not mentioned that in our conversations so far. Mr. Seton organized all of the boys in the camp into a fake Indian tribe called the Sinaways, and he told us that we are going to learn about the “essence residing in Indianness” (96).

Every day we wake up to hot oats in the morning and Mr. Seton tells us a morning Indian tale. I find these stories really fascinating, especially the one with the hummingbird and the creation of stars. Then we have to go to class and we perform nature study games and work on making different Indian costumes (96). After making the costumes, we get to put them on and run outside for an hour or so to test them out and see if they hold up in a real Indian fight.

After lunch everyone gets together and heads into the main wigwam to hear a talk by Mr. Seton. Most of the talks involve a discussion of what he calls “ethnography.” I am not quite sure what this word means but I think it means the studying and recording of culture. Yesterday, Mr. Seton said that “the Red Man is the apostle of outdoor life” and how we should all follow the outdoor examples set by Indians (96). “The Indians,” Mr. Seton said, “are a fundamental part of American identity since they are so well integrated into our wondrous lands and represent boundless knowledge of our outdoor frontiers.” Sometimes I get a bit bored of these lectures, but I do enjoy the post-lecture Indian fights since I get a sense of personal liberation from wearing the Indian disguise (7).

Last Monday the Camp Fire Girls came over for a visit. Cousin Sally was a part of the group, and I chatted with her for a while. She said camp life is a bit different from normal life because of the emphasis on womanhood and service. She said she is taking classes on how to sustain a large family and how to make everyone happy. Sally does enjoy chatting with all the other girls though!

Have a great week and I cannot wait to see you guys!

Love,

Timmy

P.S. I paper-clipped a diagram of all of the knots that I have learned to tie here at camp! I will teach them to you when I come home.