I was immediately struck by the power of Cruz's term disengaged engagement. This seems to describe an endless cycle that is perpetuated in our country (our World, too) moreso when we look at how attention-span as fact and tool has been appropriated in a media-driven world. We are told that our children don't have the attention span to delve into deep and conflicted issues, yet we model for them a sound-byte culture of adulthood beamed into our living room in the form of "news" and its sibling, reality television. (What was once seen as sibling rivalry is devolving into cojoined twins tugging for supremacy.) This is often treated as a fact on the ground, but it is a product of complex forces, including conscious choices to feed the people what "we want them to know". I was a Media Arts major as an undergrad and took a course on Semiotics. I don't remember much except for the term inoculation. This means, like the flu shot, we give certain groups a small sample of what they are fighting for, in order to 1) satisfy them and 2) hide the real control of message. Looking back at my teenage years, I always placed The Cosby Show in this category. The powers-that-be were feeding us a popular and successful African-American family so we wouldn't really look at social issues affecting Black communities. My view was narrow in that I thought this show must be an untrue representation. I was essentializing African-Americans as only poor and only living in crime-ridden areas. However, The Cosby Show was the only show in town- the only representation of color on prime time television. Which is worse, essentializing a community with little context or no show at all?
Things haven't gotten appreciably better in the decades since. In Living Color was popular in the early 90s, but reduced the African-American aesthetic to humor and dance. The rise of hip-hop culture and rap music was, unfortunately, ripe for the appropriation. Again, because of its popularity, we can essentialize Black people as products of the hip-hop world. Is there a hip-hop world that needs to be studied and celebrated? Of course! But, where's Bill Cosby? More importantly, where is the show depicting Prince George's County, Maryland? (A majority African-American and suburban county in the D.C. metro area.) When we have have disengaged engagement, we can look and appropriate from a distance. White suburban American kids can listen to 50 Cent or Jay-Z (I'm dating myself) without any engagement in their narrative at all. That is a valid choice in itself, but appropriation is deadly when it's the only game in town. Going old school, I would have no problem with Pat Boone today if he the songs he sang were but one version among many on the airwaves.
I am troubled by the tensions I see and feel in our society when it comes to race and ethnicity. I agree that class has become a major if not the major factor in society's divisions, but race is how we "know" the divide. I see White children no longer afraid of listening to Black music. I see White children proud of their liberal attitudes about race and ethnicity (sadly, not sexuality...yet). While this fills me with hope, it makes me terribly uneasy because I also see a suburban White society that has been fashioned by the message. Told that we are making progress in race relations (using Obama and Oprah as the examples) in page five of the Cliffs Notes version of societal change. Like the slave narratives of old, the artifacts, whether they be spirituals or rap songs, are the same old, same old. I don't fear that Sociology or Anthropology will go out of style, but fear that it is looked at by many in this country as a stylistic choice rather than part of a larger call to action.
Things haven't gotten appreciably better in the decades since. In Living Color was popular in the early 90s, but reduced the African-American aesthetic to humor and dance. The rise of hip-hop culture and rap music was, unfortunately, ripe for the appropriation. Again, because of its popularity, we can essentialize Black people as products of the hip-hop world. Is there a hip-hop world that needs to be studied and celebrated? Of course! But, where's Bill Cosby? More importantly, where is the show depicting Prince George's County, Maryland? (A majority African-American and suburban county in the D.C. metro area.) When we have have disengaged engagement, we can look and appropriate from a distance. White suburban American kids can listen to 50 Cent or Jay-Z (I'm dating myself) without any engagement in their narrative at all. That is a valid choice in itself, but appropriation is deadly when it's the only game in town. Going old school, I would have no problem with Pat Boone today if he the songs he sang were but one version among many on the airwaves.
I am troubled by the tensions I see and feel in our society when it comes to race and ethnicity. I agree that class has become a major if not the major factor in society's divisions, but race is how we "know" the divide. I see White children no longer afraid of listening to Black music. I see White children proud of their liberal attitudes about race and ethnicity (sadly, not sexuality...yet). While this fills me with hope, it makes me terribly uneasy because I also see a suburban White society that has been fashioned by the message. Told that we are making progress in race relations (using Obama and Oprah as the examples) in page five of the Cliffs Notes version of societal change. Like the slave narratives of old, the artifacts, whether they be spirituals or rap songs, are the same old, same old. I don't fear that Sociology or Anthropology will go out of style, but fear that it is looked at by many in this country as a stylistic choice rather than part of a larger call to action.
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