Greil Marcus: "Blackface Then and Now"

[up2space]

if your a scholar then you know not all is fair in love and war. if your life is just preaching to youg impressionist kids, going home, smokin a joint, and kickin yourself in the ass when you look in the mirror the next morning, do us all a favor, shut up and get with white pride and learn to love it, dirty or clean.

[EBanonymous]

those stereotypes of university in the hippie days of the 60's wer never accurate - highly exhaggerated

You'll also know that "coon" is a racial slur, so when you say "go to coontown" to verify the way "blacks are", it just shows that the blackface images had thier effect on you -

Politicians use the same arguments: lazy, on welfae, ruining society, violent etc. differnece between whites and blacks is the way blacks are treated by society.

blacks don't behave diferently; that's more racism

[EBanonymous]

The one trying to impression the minds of the young is you.

You have a right to your fellings; so does everyone else. So why tell other people to shut up? You really are not a tolerant person. And read my 1st comment; I wasn't talking to u.

We're all related & all equal. Even you have some black in you - I bet you hate that. So much for the "white pride" you talk about. I'm not white or black; but I'd choose to be w/ blacks any day than a racist like you. Those are our brothers too.

[up2space]

mein friend, don't writer your dissertation before you gather the evidence. go west, go to coon town live among the indigenous peoples...this you must do first. relativism is a cop out.

[ELITE0517]

HOW DO THEY GET A VIDEO 1 HOUR LONG?!

[inventiveinsanity]

they are jedi.

[bapyou]

They had an original "DIRECTOR'S" YouTube account. YouTube still offers director's accounts, but they no longer allow any videos longer than ten minutes ... no matter what type of account you have.

[bambizzoozled]

This presentation is sullied with bias.

[bapyou]

BIased in what way?

[bambizzoozled]

It has been tthree months since I watched it, so I forget the specifics. There is no way I am watching this again to determine them.

However, based on the comment I made, and knowing my viewpoint, I suppose it was that this presentation assumes blackface is racist. That is the biased view I speak of.

[bapyou]

So, am I to "assume" you believe blackface isn't racist?

[bambizzoozled]

Certainly not in all cases.

[bapyou]

Give me a case where blackface isn't racist?

The entire point of this talk is the dispelling of cliched notions of race and expected behavior: the essence of blackface.

"Negroes are only good for doing certain things ... they actually like the menial jobs they have to do in order to survive" etc.

...sentiments thankfully much less prevalent today ... except in certain parts of Mississippi.

Are you one of those white guys who longs for the good old days of unlimited nigger-hating?

[Netanehka]

Dave Chapelle(among many others) gets away with wearing white face in like every episode of his show. He puts on white face makeup and then plays a derogatory character of a white newscaster. People laugh it up when he does it. So if a white comedian did the same thing but wore black face makeup it is racists? What is the difference?

[bambizzoozled]

People wear blackface all the time. It's fine. Look at my playlists.

[asanchez1572]

Well, it all depends on the people who does it. Dave Chapelle does just for comedy and he doesn't completely insult white people. But people who define black people, most people look at it wrong, they either know or not know that half the time they insult black people. I really can't say what is more wrong. Correct me if I am wrong, but probably has to do with population, there are some places where non-white races are a majority than white people, so I can imagine how that worked

[up2space]

soul killing.. your a fuckin bore. and why don't you just say what you what to say instead of listening to all your references and stories... what's the fuckin point. you may want to impress the Berkeley students...or you just may be a post hippie snob ass. we dont give a fuck. blackface has more dimensions that your bullshit. and it has meaning.. there you go. dwell on that.

[up2space]

if you need to take a hour to get your point across, perhaps your intention is not to get your point across.

[up2space]

got your point after fast forwarding to the last minute. hey, you have to black face your students so you can stay white, right?. you want to put yourself on a pedestal with the big intro and the long winded lecture. inaccessability is your way of putting the black cork on the world ...makes you feel like insulated elistists... feeling big in your subsidized ivory tower. your a blackface yourself. didn't know they had a BS in BS at Berkeley.

[bapyou]

Attention deficit problem?

[up2space]

no just tired of hippie liberals. who cares about blackface. it was great entertainment. the stereotypes actually did more harm to white cultural history than good. but this issue is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to what the real issue is. then you get political. and that's where the twain shall never meet. when your out pickin cotton perhaps you may don a blackface to mock your masters.

[bapyou]

Kid? Take some writing lessons. Your comments make no sense.

Talk about long-winded rambling and not getting to the point! Sheesh!

*rolls eyes*

[AbsalomPitchingfork]

Good job generalizing, thereby making yourself less credible.

[EBanonymous]

up2@

I disagree. Blackface supported slavery by saying that w/o slavery, blacks would revert back to "savagery". Hence, "sambo" the happy to serve slave & "Zip Coon", the freed black who just douldn't do it. That's direct support for slavery & always was.

Your attept to say slaves were mocking their masters is untrue. its the other way around, and apologists like to say this "honours" blacks. That's sad.

[up2space]

i don't know you but i love you like a brother. but i think you have derailed yourself. what is the point of all this. if it's to throw eggshells, than i would rather read today's paper. listen, go move to coontown, stay there awhile until you can't take it anymore. then come back with better, more informed insight, rather than jerking your mind off everyday thinking that it's all relative. long live blackface.

[bambizzoozled]

that's right. this guy is professing from a biased position.

[gunzman11]

someone sounds a little racist

[Freecell5671]

I don't understand the point of the Blackface in the Jolson short (However, I don't have a problem with it, it doesn't shock me). He is taling in kind of an Uncle Tom type of way the launches into an incredibly European sounding (and Arduously boring and forgetable at that) song. Why was he in blackface? He didn't tell any jokes? He didn't do anything stereotypicle? It just seemed like kind of a non-sequiter to me.

[Gumlegs]

This is only a small part of the film. It's available uncut as part of "The Jazz Singer" anniversary set.

Don't try to make sense of blackface. Frank Tinney used to work in blackface without the slightest attempt to portray a black character.

[geniepiper]

Hey, I know a woman, a black woman, known as "Big Mom." Guess you can't make it up!

[bambizzoozled]

That's actually Martin Lawrence in drag. Check up under her skirt.

[vergeharget]

This lecture by a smart, knowing man frustrates me the same way his books do. He provides shifting, idiosyncratic contexts loaded with shifting, culutral references. He is more aphoristic than linear, and, finally, I can't make out his main argument. Can someone outline it? I'd be obliged. Is it, finally, as he near to closes with: "somebody has to be black up so that somebody else can be white"? And what can that mean given race in America today and Barack Obama's candidacy?

Itzik Basman

[PrestyGomez]

I completely agree. I'm all for style, but I find him unreadable.

[vergeharget]

yeah

Itzik Basman

[bapyou]

I find his work exhilirating. You can't expect it to be point A to point B linear. It gets under your skin. After reading Marcus I wonder "What did he mean by writing that phrase? That sentence?" His writing works on you. It gets into your subconcious. You mull.

[bapyou]

vergeharget: "(Marcus) is more aphoristic than linear, and, finally, I can't make out his main argument. Can someone outline it?"

I think you miss the point of Marcus' writing entirely if you expect it to be linear in the traditional sense. As he himself states (not far beyond the beginning of this talk), he had been mulling over the sentence "somebody has to be black up so that somebody else can be white". I think what he is presenting in this talk is the product of that "mulling".

[vergeharget]

Well, I have little patience with discursive writers who can't make a linear argument in "the traditional sense." What was his argument in the talk he gave? It's been a while since I've listened to it mind you. And "somebody has to *black up* so that somebody else can be white" on reflection menas less than I thought when I first heard it. What does it mean?--especially the "blacking up" part? I read Mystery Train a long time ago. Same frustration as I recall.

itzik Basman

[bapyou]

To "black up", as a verb, means, I think, to "act black" in the sense that we have come to know "acting black" in America. It's a role that black folks play, or feel that they need to play, in order to be "seen" at all.

I don't know...this talk presents a lot of varied material. I'm still mulling it over. (ha ha)

If you've read Mystery Train, recall the essay on Sly Stone and Marcus' exposition within it about the Black American folk story Stagger Lee. To me, that story IS gangsta rap.

[vergeharget]

I thought "black up" meant "black facing". The comment seems to suggest something whites need and not transcending invisibility. But from starting points it's odd--why do whites need to have blacking up to feel white? There are plenty of blacks around filling in the role of the other? But this is precisely the problem: why all the ambiguity rather than a clear statement by Marcus of what he wants to say?

But thanks for your replies.

Itzik Basman

[bapyou]

"why all the ambiguity...?"

Ambiguity is the point. If you're nervous when someone doesn't explain themselves explicitly, I think you would make a good bureaucrat.

[vergeharget]

I'll take amiguity when it's called for. I have a graduate degree in English Literature and have trucked with plently of ambiguity. But when I read expository prose I want clarity and linearity. I'll take John Donne any day over Greil Marcus for ambiguity. That said I'd like to think I'd be a good bureaucrat, but I will only accept a senior position.

Get me,

Itzik Basman

[bapyou]

Further thoughts:

If you have little patience, Itzik, then you have little patience.

I think that in order to "understand" Marcus, you can't expect a "linear" argument. His work is infused with emotion as well as intellect. You can't expect an entirely intellectual argument. This talk - and I suspect the book (which I haven't read) - are deeply entwined with America, as is all of his work that I've read. I guess that's too general of a statement, though. Go ahead and roll your eyes.

[vergeharget]

I'm patient. I once read some of Finnegan's Wake, not to mention all of The Wastleland. But Marcus is so needlessly elliptical. Take his friend Peter Guralnik. I used to live and die by his books when my head was where his was. Great, clear and expressive writing, and saying no less I think than what Marcus tries to say. With Joyce, it's me not him; with Marcus, I dunno'.

But in his book on Harry Smith, he did seem to be saying something amazing about the "other America."

Itzik Basman

[bapyou]

Last Itzik:

For what it's worth, there is a video available here on YouTube of the Firesign Theatre album 'Everything You Know Is Wrong' some audio of which Marcus utilizes in his talk. Title = 'Firesign Theatre - Everything You Know Is Wrong !'

If you watch it, be prepared to be even more confused than you are now.

[bapyou]

Greil rocks.

[Raymantico]

World's oldest snobby teen-ager

[bapyou]

Hmmmm. Interesting idea.

Have you read his work?

[bapyou]

Marcus' first book "Mystery Train' is - in my estimation - the greatest book ever written about American popular music/rock'n'roll. Parts of it are dated, but much of it stands up against time. It is powerful writing.

I can see your point about "snobbiness". I think in saying so that you are reacting to his personal manner moreso than his ideas/concepts/writing. Read him. He is a fount of ideas. His writing is rich. His interests wide-ranging.

[Raymantico]

I was just being a wag and used yr comment for juxtaposition. Didn't mean to put you on the spot. I've read the books and seen him read in person quite a few times. I generally like his writing. My favorite is Invisible Republic. The late Tim Yohannon editor of Maximum RnR was called "the world's oldest teenager". By snobby I meant brainy-snobby eg the kids in "Ghost World". A hurdle for many of us.