Colin Kaepernick
Identity

We Wear the Mask

Mary McCampbell

Childish Gambino’s “This is America” is a powerful, prophetic critique of the dehumanization and moral corruption that is often normalized in American culture. The shocking video for the song is brilliant. But it is nothing new.

To say that this video is “nothing new” is not an insult—it’s an acknowledgement of the rich tradition of African-American art that both exposes and laments the ways in which a pervasive and widely accepted white supremacist mindset forces black Americans to wear masks, to dance, to shut their mouths and merely entertain.

Glover has certainly mastered this clever, convicting approach to satire. Taking time to look more closely at his predecessors will help us to better understand his brilliant video and the conditions that led to its creation.

Andre Henry of Relevant Magazine effectively argues that “This is America” is a “piece of art” that “recalls a tradition of frustrated messengers, grabbing a society by the collars and trying to shake it awake by any means necessary.” In this insightful comment, Henry is speaking of the ways in which the biblical prophets did “reactive, dramatic, offensive, and important” things in order to subvert the status quo and expose societal sins that needed to be redeemed.

I also see African-American artists such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Lorraine Hasnberry, Eldridge Cleaver, Lupe Fiasco, and Spike Lee as those frustrated messengers, taking on the role of the prophet who speaks to a culture that, largely, did/does not have eyes to see or ears to hear.

We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s famous 1913 poem “We Wear the Mask” explains that in white supremacist culture, “We wear the mask that grins and lies…with torn and bleeding hearts we smile.” Dunbar and his contemporaries knew that, although technically “free,” they were still seen as only partially human, tools for increasing white wealth or children to be disciplined. This dehumanization forced them to hide away the complexity of their humanity—the all too human anger, grief, and pain, in order to pretend that things were fine. They must work and they must entertain.

The only space for solace is in the body of Christ and in front of the Lord himself: “We smile, but oh great Christ/To thee from tortured souls arise.” The Jim Crow facial expressions, the dancing and shucking and jiving of “This is America” are modern manifestations of the masks that Dunbar describes over a century ago.

Many years later, former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver wrote about the mask again in a collection of essays called Soul on Ice (1965). In the tradition of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and so many others, Cleaver is able to poignantly explain the ways in which white supremacist ideology becomes internalized by those who have been the subjects of its abuse. In his chapter on “The Negro Celebrity,” Cleaver explains that if an African American becomes successful because of his or her body—as an athlete, entertainer, etc.—then that is culturally acceptable.

But if he or she begins to speak, to show intellect, to object or show real emotion, they are seen as dangerous. This very much relates to the long, cruel tradition of minstrel shows, something that Glover, is obviously alluding to in his video. Both black and white performers donned black face, creating childlike, foolish, yet entertaining characters, thus reinforcing dangerous and demeaning caricatures of “blackness.”

In Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 Broadway play, A Raisin in the Sun, the retelling of her own family’s struggle to move into a white Chicago neighborhood, she shows the devastating impact of internalized white supremacy.

Walter Lee Younger, the surrogate head of his impoverished family, initially decides to take a bribe offered to him by a white neighborhood society in exchange for an agreement that the family will not move into the neighborhood. Walter Lee has claimed that the world is the white man’s, with unjust rules based only on the making of money, and that he must play the “man’s” game in order to succeed.

In his eyes, he can only be a man and have a sense of family pride if he makes lots of money in order to have nice things, what Cornel West and Nathaniel West both refer to as “the paraphernalia of suffering.” It’s as if the gospel choir ecstatically singing, “Get your money, get your money, get your money, black man” is the backdrop for Hansberry’s play.

When Walter Lee tells his family about the dirty deal, he drops on his knees and exclaims, “We’ll put on a show for the man. Just what he wants to see…Maybe I’ll get down on my black knees…All right, Mr. Great White Father!” His family is horrified as he goes through the motions of a minstrel show performance, admitting that if it promises success, he will become the caricature.

This internalization of a caricature for the sake of success is something that both hip-hop artist, Lupe Fiasco, and film director, Spike Lee have critiqued in their own art. In Fiasco’s “Dumb it Down,” he makes it clear that he refuses to play dumb, to just put on a “show,” to be a body without a voice. He explains that he is peerless, like one driving a car, alone, looking through a windshield that is “minstrel.” The entire song is a scathing critique of his industry peers and the corporate world that produces them. In this sense, it is very similar to Lee’s darkly comic film “Bamboozled” about a stage production turned television show in which the black actors sing, dance, and wear blackface.

The “dumbed down” lyrics that Fiasco is resisting and the shucking/jiving of Lee’s actors are both examples of what they have been told it takes to become successful in a culture largely dominated by white supremacist ideals. Spike Lee is known for his critique of Tyler Perry’s films and television shows, shows that he thinks are focus on dumbed down, bodily humor rather than intelligent scriptwriting; he has even controversially referred to this as “coonery buffoonery.”

No to Negro Control

These examples and Childish Gambino’s jarring video also relate to the rage on kneeling in the NFL. In Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver explains the mechanism at work: “By crushing black leaders, while inflating the images of Uncle Toms and celebrities from the apolitical worlds of sport and play, the mass media were able to able to channel and control the aspirations of the black masses…”

This technique of “negro control” has been so effective that the best-known negroes in America has always been—and still are—the entertainers and athletes.” Interestingly, we see that the dominant American culture seems at peace with successful black athletes such as Colin Kaepernick and black entertainers such as Beyonce. But what happens when the athlete becomes a political activist and the diva creates a video, such as “Formation,” that names and celebrates her blackness? The black body is united to the black mind in the collective consciousness, and this becomes a threat.

Donald Glover, along with the other artists and activists mentioned, reveals the underlying narrative of the devastating internalization of white supremacy.

As he dances, smiles, wears the mask and parties, we see him destroying other black bodies. He is turning on himself because he has been told that it is the only way to succeed. And Glover, as well as his ingenious predecessors, prophetically subverts the dominant narrative to challenge us to have eyes to see and ears to hear the cries of injustice underneath the smiling faces.

 

2 thoughts on “We Wear the Mask

  1. Johnny Breezeway

    The mask argument has gone in on white “Oakies” around Eugenic theory that was later illegal and outlawed around when the Geneva Convention was revised in the 1940’s. In the Asian tradition related to masks, the original utilization of masks in some cases, were animal masks that would have looked like people not allowed to participate on a certain level at the same time, due to that person’s dental being ruined by contaminated water and so on. You’ve had African Americans that make arguments against other African Americans just like you have white people talking smack about other white people. I have a difficult time buying, in this day and age, that’s it’s entirely a racial issue and not just cosmetics and so on, these days? Their are Bible verses about you aren’t supposed to go by how people look to where the image of God taken as a cosmetic’s physical beauty argument with financial class determining the “elect” would be heretical to most. The Bible says Proverbs 22;2 the rich and poor meet together the Lord is the maker of them all. Some people might think I’m crazy to complain about it, however, it was such an obvious trafficking move and I’m against that to where with Covid havin that swab treatment and then in the waiting room it seemed like my French? or something looking nose went along with some of the beautiful gapped tooth or Creol folks looks to create shared trauma was not the right way of being to me? Maybe I’m wrong and people have to learn that without going along with a traffic and so on? However, you want people to meet sometimes? Consent is more likely with you have a party or a show and you introduce them or something? It doesn’t have to be super formal yet some formality does give more of an agreement on the meeting place? Some people should try a Christian dating service and learn some things first though? So, a disassociation along with the suicide rate where I lived really is quite terrible and a new low. You might not be guilty of this and I apologize. However, it’s not my place to judge and that’s between them and God, yet a suicide rate like that (the calls doubled where we lived and the state was the highest in the nation when it used to be one of the happiest) I’m sorry but that’s sounds like you could at least say somebody is risking Sheol with death talking over like that?

  2. Thomas W.

    Could you speak a little more to how inflating Uncle Toms creates control? Diversity in black politics and worldviews would theoretical free them from white people, actually.

    Example, would it also be a controlling measure to shout down “Uncle Toms” to keep 90% or more affiliated with one party that is still predominately run by old white people, who continue to make promises that indebt the black vote to themselves, while delivering poor results?

    When an intelligent, capable black person like Candace Owens simply disagrees politically and is responded to by other blacks as an outcast or worse? OR when highly successful Kanye West decides to validate both Glover and Owens while also a white man half the country hates? Who is doing the controlling? Does a #walkaway not generate more power for blacks against isolated control?

    Isn’t it also true that white entertainers and sports athletes are also the best known among society, as in is that about “white control” or just human nature that we follow the popular/visible? Isn’t it also true that the response is typically the same when one of them gets political? If Tom Brady was the first to kneel, the outcry would be similar at least, and if it was a no name white guy who started it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation due to zero visibility.

    So is it really a race thing? To some extent and for some cases, but I think it’s more political/worldview related.

    For instance, one reason people don’t like politics in their sports, especially football is because they deal with, see, and have to live it the rest of the week. Football has always been an escape like most entertainment for fans, and when you look at the history of what teams meant to especially a lot of blue collar workers in industrial cities who lost their jobs during the steel crash…it was football that gave them hope.
    Sunday is the day of rest, not controversy, not stress, not politics. Thats the reality even if it’s sometimes an idol. This is part of ESPN is losing ratings. They became political, and at a time in which sports news is readily available elsewhere. We watch CNN/Fox/MSNBC etc if we want politics. Sports fans like their sports to be about sports. And they hate delays and distractions from that escape. They even boo a pitcher for too many throws to first base.

    But I’ll explain further why Kapernick and the kneeling isn’t about race for the opposing worldview.

    1. Kapernick who?

    2. The other world view does not include his color, consciously or subconsciously, in it.

    3. The flag/anthem has not and is not directly associated with BLM, police, police brutality, racism, slavery, etc. Thus the kneeling on the anthem has a poorly delivered message and persuasion.

    4. The flag/anthem is largely and directly associated with patriotism and the honoring of those who fought in the past for change and freedom. This includes the veterans of the revolution, civil war, wwiI, etc which is why we are not a. enslaved b. are now controlled by the English, French, Indian, Russia, and esp not German Riech, and c. can play and watch major sports and entertainment at our leisure.

    5. This means there are at least 2 drastically different filters/world views on the matter, which is largely not even relevant to Glover’s work. Thus, if persuasion toward something better is the desired outcome, I highly recommend that the ad hominems toward opposing view holders ceases by both sides. This means refraining from suggestions that one side is supremacist and/or racist. If visibility is simply your goal, then by all means keep telling people that you devalue them.

    But we do not have to devalue white people to gain value or vice versa for blacks, especially as Christians.

    If you watch Hawk Newsome with BLM in New York, he gets this. He is far more persuasive because in my experience he values police and those who may disagree without resorting to ad homenim.

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