This 40-second commercial for HSBC bank, sent in by Michelle F., is an excellent example of the way that non-white and non-Western people are often portrayed as more deeply cultural, connected to the past, and closer to nature than their white, Western counterparts. Sometimes this is done in order to demonize a culture as “barbaric,” other times it is used to infantilize them as “primitive.” In this case, it romanticizes.
Running on both English and Chinese language channels, the commercial contrasts the wise Chinese man with the young, white man. The music, the boats, their clothing and hats, and their fishing methods all suggest that the Chinese are more connected to their own long-standing (ancient?) cultural traditions, ones that offered them an intimate and cooperative relationship to nature. Simultaneously, it erases Chinese modernity, fixing China somewhere back in time.
Michaela M. alerted us to the news that Essence, the iconic fashion and lifestyle magazine for Black women, has hired an Australian-born, White woman, Elliana Placas, as its new Fashion Director. Disappointed, former Essence fashion editor, Michaela Angela Davis, wrote:
If there were balance in the industry; if we didn’t have a history of being ignored and disrespected; if more mainstream fashion media included people of color before the ONE magazine dedicated to black women ‘diversified’, it would feel different.
In this 3-minute clip, Davis explains her position to Anderson Cooper:
The controversy over her hire is an example of a more widespread question about representation. Most agree that the presence of Black politicians, actors, models, teachers, professors, authors, and athletes (to name a few) is a good thing for Black people. It’s good, presumably, for two reasons. First, their presence in these roles normalizes Black achievement, beauty, intelligence, etc. The election of Barack Obama, for example, shows us that being Black and being the President of the United States are not mutually exclusive. The success of Tyra Banks and Alek Wek, similarly, upsets the notion that Black women aren’t beautiful. It is good for all of us to be exposed to evidence that upsets negative stereotypes about Black people, stereotypes that all of us, no matter our color, unconsciously internalize to some degree (test your unconscious preferences here).
But there is a second reason why we often believe that representation is good. It is often presumed that people advocate for their own. Having a Black woman as Fashion Director, it is hoped, will mean that the content of the magazine will be empowering to Black women. That is, that the Director will be sensitive to the historic and ongoing racist idealization of white femininity that makes Black women’s bodies, hair, facial features, and skin color seem to need fixing. Even if her racial politics are sound (and this is always a serious worry), she certainly does not have the experiences that Black woman in the U.S. often share nor, necessarily, the deep connection to the Black population that will make this a driving concern.
Essence‘s current Fashion and Beauty page with it’s August 2010 cover, featuring Janet Jackson, in the upper left corner:
The hiring of Placas is disappointing in the sense that it is a lost opportunity to put a Black woman in a position of power. If, however, Placas is going to have this job, people concerned about the empowerment of Black women need to turn to evaluating her product. The worry caused by her appointment is an opportunity to insist that Essence do right by Black women. That is, Essence should be a refuge from racism. One that, hopefully, does not subject Black women to the same sexism as White women in the name of equality. Light skin does not preclude Placas from being able to do this, just as dark skin does not protect a person from internalizing and perpetuating colorism.
Ultimately, while having a darker-skinned, Black-identified person in the role of Fashion Director would be good, the production of a magazine that empowers Black women is also very important and this is something that Placas may be able to do. It is up to us to insist that she does.
The phrase “nature/nurture debate” refers to an old competition between those who think that human behavior and psychology is determined by biology (that is, genetics, both evolutionary and individual, hormones, neurology, etc) and those who believe that it is determined by environment (that is, socialization, cultural context, experiences in childhood, etc). While the nature/nurture debate rages in the mass media, most scholars reject it altogether. Instead, social scientists and biologists alike recognize that our behavior and psychology is the result of an interaction between nature and nurture (yep, even sociologists like myself).
A recent story on NPR illustrates this beautifully. James Fallon, a neuroscientist specializing in sociopaths, had been scanning the brains of murderers for 20 years. His research had demonstrated that sociopath brains have a distinct appearance: dark patches in the orbital cortex, the part of the brain responsible for moral thinking and controlling impulses.
You can see the dark patches in the brain on the right, the brain on the left is a “normal” brain:
At a family gathering one day, Fallon’s mom mentions that there were some pretty violent types in Fallon’s own family history (it apparently didn’t come up anytime in the previous 20 years !!!) and, so, he investigates. It turns out that there were eight proven and alleged murders in his ancestral line, including Lizzy Borden, one of the most famous murderers in history. Because Fallon knows that the atypical neurology associated with sociopaths runs in families, he decided to scan the brains of all his family members. No one had the dark patches.
Except him. Fallon had the dark patches. In fact, that brain on the right: that’s him.
Not only did he have the neurology of a typical sociopath, he also carried a genetic determinant known to be associated with extreme violence.
Fallon doesn’t have the answer to why he’s not a sociopath, but scientists think that a person needs to have some sort of experiential trigger, like abuse as a child, in addition to a biological predisposition.
Significantly, [Fallon] says this journey through his brain has changed the way he thinks about nature and nurture. He once believed that genes and brain function could determine everything about us. But now he thinks his childhood [and his awesome mom] may have made all the difference.
Michael Kimmel forwarded me a blog post at Gallup updating their data on acceptance of homosexuality in the U.S. In 2009, “morally acceptable” eeked out a win over “morally wrong” and, in 2010, it took a resounding lead:
Gallup offers some really interesting answers to that question.
First, men are driving it. Women are only marginally more supportive of homosexuality today compared to 2006. But men, especially young men, but older men too, are significantly more supportive. A full 14% of men have changed their mind in the last four years! Women started out more supportive than men, but men have caught up.
Second, while members of all political parties and religions reported show increases in their level of acceptance of gays and lesbians, it is the politically moderate that are really pushing the percentages up. Eleven percent of independents and 14% of moderates changed their mind about homosexuality between 2006 and 2010. They are now as likely as democrats to endorse homosexuality (but still fall behind self-described liberals). One in 20 Republicans and conservatives also changed their mind, though in overall acceptance rate they still fall far behind everyone else.
Finally, among religiously-affiliated Americans, Catholics were the most likely to change their mind to favor homosexuality. They are as likely as political Democrats to support gays and lesbians. Religious non-Christians and the non-religious, however, kick everybody’s asses with 84% and 85% of them saying that gay and lesbian relations are “morally acceptable.”
This month Gwen and I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have submitted ideas for posts. Our inbox is alive with ideas and it makes our job exceedingly fun! We absolutely could not do it without all of your eyes. So thank you for your submissions! Also, if you’ve submitted an idea and it was never posted, please don’t be discouraged. We get far more ideas than we could possibly use. And, even if yours was a submission that we decided against using, be assured that we read it, thought about it, and sometimes talked about it together before setting it aside. We appreciate all of your help, even if it doesn’t make the front page.
Finally, please do remember that you can follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook. Soon we’ll be launching a MySpace page as well.
NEW PUBLICATIONS:
(If you don’t have the subscriptions required to access either paper, we’re happy to send you a copy, Just send us a note at socimages@thesocietypages.org.)
Gwen and my most recent essay in the print-magazine Contexts, Flesh-Toned, is now online. It draws on the long conversation we’ve been having here about the way that the use of the terms “flesh,” “nude,” and “skin” to refer to light beige colors makes darker-skinned people invisible.
Also, a paper I wrote with Caroline Heldman is now available at Sexuality Research and Social Policy. How and why hook-up culture came to characterize U.S. colleges remains a mystery. In our paper, Hook-Up Culture: Setting a New Research Agenda, we argue that the emergence of hook-up culture on college campuses is an excellent opportunity to learn more about how sexual cultures change. We review the literature, offer some hypotheses to explore, and discuss methodological requirements.
NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! July ’10):
This month we added new material to some older gender- and race-related posts. Thanks almost exclusively to Gwen for doing the hard work of updating! And thanks to those of who sent the images along!
Givenchy has some rather light “nude”-colored dresses, but Esquire responded to complaints about ignoring Black men by following up a story with a segment that acknowledged that African Americans might require or prefer different hair maintenance techniques and styles than other groups.
NPR recently featured a story on Kevin Michael Connolly. Connolly is an athlete, adventurer, author, and photographer who was born without legs.
In his memoir, Double Take, he talks about travel. People around the world, he explains, tend to stare. And, with his camera, he stared back.
Curiosity, it appears, is very human. But people in different places tend to speculate differently as to the source of his lost legs and that, he discovered, is quite culturally specific.
In Sarajevo, people tended to think that he’d lost his legs in mines during the Balkan conflicts. In New Zealand he overheard a child asking his mother if he’d been attacked by a shark. In Montana, he was asked if he still wore his dog tags from Iraq.
I broke my leg five weeks ago and, for what it’s worth (not much really), my experience, also, is that people speculate based on their own experiences and their relationship to you. An avid lindy hopper (12 years now… well, not now exactly, but again real soon), many of my dance friends immediately inquire as to whether I broke my leg dancing. My raunchy friend, Fancy, asked if I broke it “doin’ it.” The second most common guess is that I broke it stepping off a curb. It turns out lots of people do that. Who knew!
This ad for Scünci in Elle magazine, sent in by Bronwyn H., claims “A full line of hair accessories, that highlight and complement all shades of hair color.”
We previously posted Annie Leonard’s breakthrough video, The Story of Stuff, and a follow up, The Story of Bottled Water. Kraig H. sent along another by Leonard on how cap and trade will not stop climate change:
Sociological Images encourages people to exercise and develop their sociological imaginations with discussions of compelling visuals that span the breadth of sociological inquiry. Read more…
