Posted: Wed 11 Jul 2007 19:07 Post subject: HAIR [3]
page 148 of White Lies: Race & the Myths of Whiteness by Maurice Berger
Jewish-American
Renee Cox, an artist and photographer, tells this story:
White people often only see my hair; they sometimes don't even have the common courtesy or humanity to look me in the eye. I've been mistaken for every black diva at one point or another. My hair contributes to the fantasy that I am someone famous, someone safe. When I am out in the Hamptons, for instance, I am often taken for Whoopi Goldberg. I was shopping at the Amagansett Farmers Market with two friends of mine who are also African-American. Two white women approached my friends and asked them if I was "her." They were so excited. "That is Whoopi Goldberg," they kept repeating. I don't look like Whoopi Goldberg. Our physiques are different. Our faces are different. Our skin color is different. The only thing we have in common is that we have dreadlocks.
In the summer, the East End of Long Island becomes a haven for wealthy white people. There are black people in the Hamptons, but they keep to themselves. They don't go to the beach, the restaurants, the fancy shops; perhaps you will see a few of them at the supermarket. They're removed from the scene. Any black person that white people see in East Hampton is usually a celebrity. Why would a normal black person be coming out to the Hamptons? Everybody turns around when I walk on the main beach in East Hampton. "Oh, oh, look, that's Whoopi Goldberg, look, Whoopi Goldberg!" Always.
This doesn't only happen on Long Island. I was in a tiny bathroom in a Manhattan restaurant and I heard a woman on the phone just outside the door. She had gone into a tizzy when I walked by her a minute before. "Who is that woman who has those dread locks?" she screamed into the phone. "What do you call that thing they do with their hair, you know, when they twist it, but it's not really twisted, it's like combed together but it's long? Dreadlocks? Yeah, Whoopi Goldberg is in the bathrood." And I'm sitting on the toilet thinking, "Oh my God."
Short of shaving my head, I've had my cut in any way a black girl can. When I wore a crew cut back in the early 1980's, people would chase me down the street screaming, "That's Grace Jones. That's Grace Jones." In the mid-1980's, I had extensions down to my ass. Extensions were still a rare thing then. White people would say "That's Chaka Khan, that's Diana Ross, that's the girl from 21 Jump Street." Back in the 1970's, when I had Jheri curls, I was mistaken for Michael Jackson.
I could not make that kind of mistake with a white person. I wouldn't be running down the street screaming, "Oh, that's Cher," just because some white girl had long black hair; "Oh, that's Marilyn Monroe," just because she's a blonde. This behavior annoys the hell out of me. It feeds the ignorant perception that we all look alike. And it's a matter of conditioning. White people didn't have to look black people in the eye because they didn't have to deal with black people. You didn't have to look your slaves in the eye. You didn't have to look your cleaning lady in the eye. You didn't have to look the people at the back of the bus in the eye. That's why white people don't know what black people look like. And I think that's pretty heinous.
Cox, Renee
(1960- )
photographer
mixed-media artist
One of the most controversial African-American artists working today, Renee Cox has used her own body, both nude and clothe, to celebrate black womanhood and criticize a society she often views as racist and sexist.
She was born on October 16, 1960, in Colgate, Jamaica, into an upper middle-class family, who later settled in Scarsdale, New York. Cox's first ambition was to become a filmmaker. "I was always interested in the visual," she said in one interview. "But I had a baby boomer reaction and was into the immediate gratification of photography as opposed to film, which is a more laborious project."
From the very beginning, her work showed a deep concern for social issues and employed disturbing religious imagery. In It Shall Be Named (1994), a black man's distorted body made up of eleven separate photographs hangs from a cross, as much resembling a lynched man as the crucified Christ.
In her first one-woman show at a New York gallery in 1998, Cox made herself the center of attention. Dressed in the colorful garb of a black superhero named Raje, Cox appeared in a series of large, color photographs. In one picture she towered over a cab in Times Square. In another, she broke steel chains before an erupting volcano. In the most pointed picture, entitled The Liberation of UB and Lady J, Cox's Raje rescued the black stereotyped advertising figures of Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima from their products, labels. The photograph was featured on the cover of the French newspaper Le Monde.
"These slick, color-laden images, their large format and Cox's own powerfully beautiful figure heighten the visual impact of the work, making Cox's politics clear and engaging," wrote one critic.
But her next photographic series would be less engaging for some people and create a firestorm of controversy. In the series Flipping the Script, Cox took a number of European religious masterpieces, including Michelangelo's David and The Pieta, and reinterpreted them with contemporary black figures.
"...Christianity is big in the African-American community, but there are no presentations of us," she said. "I took it upon myself to include people of color in these classic scenarios."
The photograph that created the most controversy when it was shown in a black photography exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City in 2001 was Yo Mama's Last Supper. It was a remake of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper with a nude Cox sitting in for Jesus Christ, surrounded by all black disciples, except for Judas who was white. Many Roman Catholics were outraged at the photograph and New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani called for the forming of a commission to set "decency standards" to keep such works from being shown in any New York museum that received public funds.
Cox responded by stating "I have a right to reinterpret the Last Supper as Leonardo da Vinci created the Last Supper with people who look like him�.The hoopla and the fury are because I'm a black female�. It's about me having nothing to hide."
Renee Cox continues to push the envelop in her work, questioning society and the roles it gives to blacks and women with her elaborate scenarios and imaginative visuals that offend some and exhilarate others.
It feeds the ignorant perception that we all look alike
I happen to agree that their perception is ignorant however that being
said that is due to them being unfamilar with her ethnicity. May have nothing to do with them being racist. I know some people have a difficult time telling Asians apart. Example: Japanese from the Chinese due to their lack of exposure to that ethnicity. People should not get so offended she sounds angry. What if she was mistaken for Halle Berry? Would she have felt this way.
She probably would, As an artist she probably has a good sense of image...
I've experienced similar by some white guys I worked with who said I looked like everyone from Wesley Snipes (DenzelMichaelJordanWillSmithLawranceFishburne)Shemar Moore. I look nothing like them no matter how complimentary it may be.
Yesterday was the second time someone (white male) called my bandana a do rag.
Joined: 13 Mar 2007 {Posts: 261 } Location: Canada
Posted: Thu 12 Jul 2007 15:34 Post subject:
gemini072 wrote:
lois wrote:
Quote:
It feeds the ignorant perception that we all look alike
I happen to agree that their perception is ignorant however that being
said that is due to them being unfamilar with her ethnicity. May have nothing to do with them being racist. I know some people have a difficult time telling Asians apart. Example: Japanese from the Chinese due to their lack of exposure to that ethnicity. People should not get so offended she sounds angry. What if she was mistaken for Halle Berry? Would she have felt this way.
She probably would, As an artist she probably has a good sense of image...
I've experienced similar by some white guys I worked with who said I looked like everyone from Wesley Snipes (DenzelMichaelJordanWillSmithLawranceFishburne)Shemar Moore. I look nothing like them no matter how complimentary it may be.
Yesterday was the second time someone (white male) called my bandana a do rag.
I'm one of those people who sometimes has problems with faces of all types, and I would definitely not confuse that lady for Whoopi Goldberg.
I think it's more an example of how racialization and social context affect perception. The Hampton women have to ratiionalize why a black woman with dreadlocks is suddenly in their exclusive world. Surely it has to be someone famous and rich to be in that special place for special people. Therefore it must be Whoopi Goldberg, who is high profile enough to satisfy the Hampton women's egos.
Maybe for you gemini072, the guys you work with were trying to bridge their own perceptions of a racial gap by seeing you as "black" celebrities that they could relate to.
Either that, or you have the charisma of all those men rolled into one. Pick whichever explanation you want.
The "do rag" comment is again someone either trying to bridge the racial gap in his mind, or else he just thinks it's 'young cool talk.'
It could also have a malicious intent, (that would likely be clear), as a way of reminding you of "race" in the context of social positioning.
Most women love Shemar, Denzel, and Will so trust me...that's a compliment.
I know somebody who looks just like Angela Bassett (who is gorgeous), only she isn't as tall and she has a more curvy build. The features and skin, however, are identical.
The lady who wrote that piece looks nothing like Whoopi, Chaka, or Diana. Her complexion is about the same as Diana's but she still doesn't look like Diana. Her hair is like Whoopi's but she still doesn't look like Whoopi. I will be honest, however. When she said that people mistook her for Michael Jackson when she had a jheri curl, I almost spit out my fruit punch!
Joined: 07 Oct 2007 {Posts: 248 } Location: United States
Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2007 08:10 Post subject:
I find these mistakes hard to believe. If I had to pick a group of Americans that were most distinguishable from one another it would be African Americans. But then again I'm black soo maybe that's why .
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