Out of the Shadows, Into the Light

Photo copyright Wings, 2013, 2014; all rights reserved.

I've had a night to think over what prompted me to post last night's piece, to discuss it with someone I trust, to watch as more discussion in the trigger piece subsequently unfolded.

I think I can better articulate (note, please: verb, not adjective) some of what troubles me.

Don't get me wrong: None of this is new. Not remotely. Last night's diary posted elsewhere simply provided a reason, finally, to write about it, to try to put it in words outside my own head that others might be able to understand. And let's also be clear about the fact that I understood and still understand the points that writer was making (and in some cases, thought he was making, even when he was unintentionally making other or additional points).

Early on, I had an e-mail exchange with a friend about it, in which I mentioned his "ironic" use of the terms in the title that were being perceived by many as so offensive. She didn't get the "ironic" reference, and asked me to clarify. This is what I said:

"Ironic" in the sense of turning those terms back on the original users.  If he had put quotation marks around "human zoo," and "race mongrelization," it might have worked.  it's close, but I might not have objected so much. The idea being that this photo spread in Slate is simply a warping of the old white vision of race-mixing as mongrelization that creates a human zoo: The people pictured are exhibits, exotic novelties to be put on display and gawked at by the white masses for their faux-edification-cum-amusement.

Later in the evening, his reply to another commenter confirmed my analysis of his intent.

However, I had also noted, in my exchange with my friend, that I also felt, very clearly, some resentment of us (i.e., those who are and identify as mixed-race) underlying the original writer's words. And to be clear, this is not one of those times when people not in my moccasins say. "Oh, you're seeing things that aren't there." Because it is manifestly untrue, and I have a lifetime of daily experience that tells me I'm right. And if that is your first reaction, then, yes, you do need to stop and think about what you want to say and why you want so badly to say it before actually proceeding with the comment.

You see, here's the deal: He's right about the white gaze and the implicit and explicit power structures and the norming and the defining of what is "exotic" or "stunning" or even merely "interesting" and why. And we need to understand all of that, thoroughly, and we need to be able to take it apart and examine its constituent elements and see how they fit together or don't, and how they are used, individually and in toto, to perpetuate stereotypes, discrimination, oppression, racism.

But in the end, there is one thing that the original writer forgot, and this is where, for us, the rest becomes academic:  That very white gaze he discusses? That very practice of norming, and placing non-white races and cultures outside the norm (whether what's being placed outside are actually a part of either, or exist only in the imaginations of the people putting them there)? That very power structure, that sees bodies of color as Other, as Less Than, as Objects?

How do you think we came to be? 

No, really. How do you think those of us of mixed race came to be?  Chances are, on some level (and if you're young, it's just as likely as not to be buried very, very deeply; if, like myself, you're older, it was much more likely to be right out on the surface) the very process that brought your ancestors together in a way that eventually produced you was an explicit product of that white gaze and of white power and control. 

Our women were "exotic." Our women were "possessions." Our women were "trophies" (today, for Indians, it's the men who are regarded that way). What they were not, in the minds of the white men who took them, often purely by force, is fully-actualized human being, peers, equals with standing and autonomy and sovereignty over their own bodies and minds and spirits. The same is manifestly true of our Black ancestors.

So when you look at those "race mongrels" in the "human zoo" that the original writer so decried, you're not merely looking at an artist's interpretation of a racist social and cultural construct.

You're looking at human beings.  Real bodies, real people, who exist as the three-dimensional, fully-actualized incarnation of that white gaze and vision.

And what makes people of all races uncomfortable, in part, is that pieces such as that photo essay bring us out of the interstices, at least for a moment, out of the shadows, into the light.

Where you are forced to see us.

Where you are forced to acknowledge that WE ARE.

Which means that all of us, on every side of the racial divide and all the points across it, must reckon with that which brought us into being.

The challenge is to understand that, and then to understand that, boxes and pigeonholes and compartments aside, we are still "fully-actualized human being, peers, equals with standing and autonomy and sovereignty over their own bodies and minds and spirits."

WE ARE.