White Gaze, Black Art: The Influence of Black Culture on White America & The Resistance of Appropriation and Exploitation

The exploitation of people of color (POC) in the United States has been an integral facet of the country’s history since its inception. Much ink has been spilled over the realities of living in a black and brown body in any era of the United States, which often comes with violence, systemic incarceration and death at its’ extreme and fetishization, exploitation and microaggression on a larger scale felt by most POC. While many Americans have gradually (and through much labor invested by POC in activist circles, academia and interpersonal education) come to realize and accept the most obvious and physical forms of racism that are perpetrated against American POC’s, there is often a deafening silence reserved for conversations regarding the ways in which the culture and intellectual property of people of color in America is exploited, appropriated and consumed without payment, credit or the benefits of upward mobility often given to whites. This manifests itself in the rampant commodification of Black and Latinx culture, through art, music, theatre, dance and language- and not only contributes to the financial systemic oppression that these communities face, but further reinforces their place in the white American mind as an exploitable resource for entertainment and culture.

Regardless, POC have historically resisted and continue to resist against these systems of oppression in various forms, from traditional protest to self-actualized groups and entities that operate outside of the traditional means of media production and proliferation. These movements are critical in not only fending off white influence and stealth from these communities, but for providing a space for POC to engage in intentional community building without the burden of the white gaze.

    The origins of much of what has been defined as American pop culture over the years have been contested and debated countless times. This is due not only to the rapid appropriation that occurs in the entertainment industry, but the white lens that dominates all of history, one that often erases or minimizes the achievements and contributions of people of color. Early Black representation in film and music was limited to minstrel shows and blackface, wherein white actors were hired to offensively portray Black people for entertainment. This formally continued until the 1930’s, when the overtly racist nature of the practice was publicly condemned, although the influence and use of blackface has continued to influence certain corners of the entertainment industry even today (Encyclopedia Britannica, Minstrel Show: American Theatre, 2017). Over the 20th century, Black artists’ contributions to the entertainment industry were regarded controversially: the history of rock and roll is one fraught with accusations of cultural theft and erasure, and is widely considered to be borne out of British experimentation with jazz, blues and R’n’B styles pioneered by Black people. The Rolling Stones, one of the most revered rock bands in history, unapologetically admitted to this influence, with Mick Jagger stating that “We have always favoured the music of what we consider the R&B greats—Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, and so on—and we would like to think that we are helping to give the fans of these artists what they want” (Hamilton, 2016). Jagger had offered an explanation for the band's’ popularity in the United States that seemed to hint at some unnamed structural inequality, saying in 1964 that “it’s the system that’s sometimes wrong. Girl fans, particularly, would rather have a copy by a British group than the original American version—mainly, I suppose, because they like the British blokes’ faces.”(Hamilton, 2016). Much of the Black popular opinion of the band was positive, while white publications offered scathing reviews of the band in it’s infancy. But while choice quotes from the band offer one narrative of social consciousness, there is no doubting the fetishization that the comments stemmed from- take the 1971 hit “Brown Sugar”, a celebratory and callous account of slave rape, for example- and it isn’t difficult to see how the image of the Rolling Stones’ (and their popularized “bad boy” reputation) was conceived due to their proximity to blackness. Presently, if you ask most Americans to recall rock and roll bands, they’ll list The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, or Bruce Springsteen- all of whom borrowed from black culture and weren’t quiet about it. The whitening of music extends further than just rock and roll though, it pervades almost all of indie music and extends into rap and hip hop as well, and not only includes the musicians themselves, but the labels, producers and publications that praise them- Pitchfork has written articles about their complicity in the whitening of music, saying they “have celebrated Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors' use of attenuated 'afro' elements, calling the latter’s music "idiosyncratic" and saying the former owes thanks to Paul Simon, the evident creator of African music. White musicians seemingly can have it all: their almost impenetrable music scenes as well as their bastardization of most any other cultures” (Sahim, 2015). 

Certainly, the borrowing of styles and experimentation within music is cross-cultural; it would be nearly impossible to strictly define what exactly “white” and “black” music entails. But all too often, POC involvement and participation in pop culture is misinterpreted as a marker of racial equality, and often these same artists are not only erased, but demonized for their portrayals of their lived experiences. This is especially true in the musical genre of rap, borne out of the Bronx in the 70’s and 80’s. Paul Knox and Steven Pinch write that “these lyrics gave expression to the mixture of alienation, marginalization and frustration experienced by black youths, combined also with aggression and assertiveness”(Knox & Pinch, 2013, p. 178). Then and now, these lyrics (and the genre of rap as a whole) have been used to vilify artists of color, all while dominating popular music charts and the club scene in many major cities. Many of the white suburban teens who rap along to the lyrics of Bobby Shmurda or Gucci Mane have never experienced the realities of urban poverty. The gated neighborhoods they go home to at night are in no way reminiscent of the places their favorite lyrics originate from. Setha Low quotes John Hartigan in her piece “Maintaining Whiteness”, saying that “there are ‘very powerful cultural categories in the USA, such as ‘nice,’’ ‘friendly,’’ and ‘comfortable’ which Americans operate in exclusionary manners on a variety of fronts that include, but are certainly not limited to race’”(Low, 2009, p. 86). Black culture seems to operate in a convoluted space in this construct; the fruits of Black labor are ripe for consumption by white Americans, even lending a sort of cultural cache’, but only as a backdrop for white activity. Music about gang activity is fine as long as it’s catchy and can sound great in the club, but actual gang activity (often borne straight out of institutional and systemic inequality) is reprehensible and a thing to be eradicated. This is the hallmark of appropriation, when significance is erased to be replaced with meaning created by those in power as they see fit. The cultural ignorance that often comes hand-in-hand with white consumption of black media and entertainment extends further than just music, however.

    On November 15 2017, actor, producer and director Jordan Peele tweeted five simple words: “”Get Out” is a documentary”. This was prompted by the social media firestorm that was ignited by the 2017 film’s Golden Globes categorization as a comedy (Mendelson, 2107). “Get Out”, which grossed over $165 million at the box office, making it the second-highest grossing R rated movie ever after The Exorcist franchise, is a satirical horror film wherein a black male meets his white girlfriend's’ family and proceeds to discover that they are engaged in an elaborate plot to kidnap young black men and transfer their rich, white brains into younger, black bodies (Mendelson, 2017). The film, which uses overt bodily colonization to make statements on the realities of living as a black person in the US, resonated with many POC, and its characterization as a comedy, although many say was done for strategic reasons in order to give the film a higher chance of winning, had many Black people scratching their heads asking, “Well what’s so funny?” The social positioning of the film is critical in the context of how many white Americans view not only the themes discussed in the film, but Black entertainment as a whole. There was certainly comedic relief and elements in the film; as a satire, humor was used to make social and political commentary. But these comedic elements can be received very differently by different audiences- and certainly differently by white and black viewers. Historically, Black Americans’ portrayal in film has relied on stereotypes; over time, these stereotypes “progressed” from servant or slave to welfare queen or the portrayal of blacks as “incompetent, child-like, hyper-sexualized, and criminal” (Thompson & Carew, n.d). This very concept has been written about in length by a few scholars, one being Omatayo Banjo, the author of “What are You Laughing at? Examining White Identity and Enjoyment of Black Entertainment”. Banjo writes, “White audiences who may not fully comprehend the cultural context of Black humor are at risk for perceiving the humor in unintended ways. Comedy is seen as a ‘‘safe context’’ for communication about controversial topics such as race, but not all interpretations of ethnic comedies are equal. Social identity, which involves a group’s social position in relation to other social groups in a hierarchical classification system, is crucial to how messages are constructed as well as received” (Banjo, 2011). This means that for white and black viewers of Get Out, the viewing experience can feel totally different- many black viewers feel that the film is “for them”- an unapologetically black take on American race politics- and that the white gaze has a corrupting force on the film. This view has become increasingly popular over time, and led to the creation of several resistance movements fronted by POC.

    Efforts by POC to lessen the effects of this aforementioned white gaze have existed for decades- perhaps most popularly within the political separatist ideologies of the Black Panthers- but increasingly by smaller, grassroots groups of POC searching for an escape from the emotional exhaustion that marks the passage of white spaces, both literal and figurative, in a black body. In the entertainment industry, this has manifested in the creation of POC- focused arts and music collectives, such as VAM Studio, created in 2015 by Vincent Martell to promote and celebrate artists of color in the Chicago, Illinois area. "[The VAM STUDIO team] looked around, saw that all of our friends were doing cool shit, and wondered why they weren't getting the same mainstream attention as some of their white counterparts," Martell told THUMP magazine in April 2017. "From there, we just made it our mission to break into the system and disrupt everything"(Julious, 2017). VAM Studios, along with other intersectional event curation groups like amfm and Reunion, aim to provide spaces for people of color to promote their work and enjoy the company of other POC in an environment that centers their experience. Many of these groups operate on a grassroots level with the help of volunteers and community organizers, but VAM has gone one step further by playing to the corporations that often center whiteness and securing financial investment from the likes of Red Bull. While many may think of this as antithetical to an underground movement, it’s a critical step in the eyes of many, especially in a city where black-owned businesses have been systemically disadvantaged and passed over for loans and business opportunities. Research published by UIC shows that “in 2012, the average sales or receipts earned by a black-owned business was $47,246. Meanwhile, the average white-owned business had sales or receipts totaling $571,419,” and that although “businesses in majority-minority census tracts comprised about 15.2% of all business in the Chicago metro area between 2012 and 2014, they received only 8.2% of small business loans (under $100,000) and only 6.7% of the total amount of such loans” (Henricks, Lewis, Arenas, & Lewis, 2017). This makes corporate interest in these types of organizations an especially valuable asset to many- and may signal a type of hope for POC who hope for a future in which their achievements in the entertainment industry are recognized and celebrated- in a nuanced way that gives them control of the narrative and delivery, and which financially and culturally benefits them as well.

    The whitewashing of the entertainment industry has a long history that will require the dismantling of much of the tenets of white supremacy to rectify. From the overt racism that characterized much of the 19th and 20th century depictions of people of color to the subtle co-opting and appropriation of aspects of black culture, commodified and sanitized through the lens of whiteness to turn a profit, white supremacy has attempted to control the narrative of the black image in the white mind. As people of color continue to create work geared towards their experiences and lived experience and mobilize to create enclaves that promote this work, perhaps the white sociological imagination will shift to encompass these efforts- regardless, people of color will continue to influence culture and entertainment, whether their white counterparts want to give them credit for it or not. 

Works Cited

Banjo, O. (2011). What are You Laughing at? Examining White Identity and Enjoyment of Black Entertainment. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55(2), 137-159. doi:10.1080/08838151.2011.570822

Hamilton, J. (2016, October 06). How the Rolling Stones, a Band Obsessed With Black Musicians, Helped Make Rock a White Genre. Retrieved November 18, 2017, from http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2016/10/race_rock_and_the_rolling_stones_how_the_rock_and_roll_became_white.html

Henricks, K., Lewis, A., Arenas, I., & Lewis, D. (2017). State of Racial Justice in Chicago – A Tale of Three Cities. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from http://stateofracialjusticechicago.com/

Julious, B. (2017, April 27). Black Promoters Are Taking Back Chicago's Nightlife. Retrieved November 18, 2017, from https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/jpzkjx/black-promoters-racism-chicago-nightlife

Knox, P. L., & Pinch, S. (2013). Urban social geography: an introduction. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Low, S. (2009). Maintaining Whiteness. Transforming Anthropology, 17(2), 86. doi:10.1111/j.1548-7466.2009.01047.x.

Mendelson, S. (2017, April 14). Box Office: Jordan Peele's 'Get Out' Is The Second-Biggest R-Rated Horror Movie Ever. Retrieved November 18, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2017/04/14/box-office-jordan-peeles-get-out-is-the-second-biggest-r-rated-horror-movie-ever/#6f92d18b163f

Minstrel Show: American Theatre. (2017). In Encyclopedia Brittanica. Brittanica.

Sahim, S. (2015, March 25). The Unbearable Whiteness of Indie. Retrieved November 18, 2017, from https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/710-the-unbearable-whiteness-of-indie/

Thompson, J., & Carew, J. (Comps.). (n.d.). From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Representations of African Americans in Film [Duke University Libraries Exhibit]. Duke University Press.