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This is quite possibly the most bizarre controversy we’ve ever seen on campus - and between the Israel-Pakistan-India-Palestine Daily letter skirmish and “Snobs Slain Outside Rick’s” debacle last year, that’s really saying something. A SAPAC banner featuring a terrible drawing of a face in black felt pen has been interpreted as a depiction of blackface. An anonymous e-mail posted on Arbor Update calls it an “offense to the African/African-American community and…clearly UNACCEPTABLE.”
Frankly, I think this is BS. I know people who work for SAPAC and know they wouldn’t be using “blackface” to somehow attempt to further their cause of educating the public about sexualized violence. I get the impression this is just an extra excuse for the Our Voices Count crowd to knock SAPAC for something. My guess it some poor SAPAC volunteer or employee just drew a badly-rendered facial outline and colored it with black marker (they could have used green or white or whatehaveyou) as some sort of face trying to make its voice heard or somesuch, completely innocently.
posted by Brandon on October 23rd, 2004 at 4:06 amAh, and it wasn’t anonymous, FYI… it was sent by one Laban King to a few email groups (sapac@umich, ovc@umich, and showdown@umich(whatever that is)… here’s the full text:
“Attached is a pictures of a banner for Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC) displayed in the Diag (you can see it if you are walking towards the Dana Building). The organization used “black face” to promote there Speak Out Event. This is offense to the African/African-American community and is clearly UNACCEPTABLE.
From,
Laban King”
I mean, even logically, how would one possibly use “blackface” to promote an event dealing with sexual assault? I mean, I know minstrel shows really bring in the crowds these days and all…
posted by Brandon on October 23rd, 2004 at 4:12 amNot to mention the only thing I really gleaned from that letter was that Laban has a weak command of English grammar. Sorry, GSIing has turned me into a composition nazi. I actually spent in excess of 5 minutes in one of my classes explaining the differences between society/societies/society’s/societies’ to one of my classes a few days before their papers were due. And three of them STILL used those words incorrectly. Don’t get me started on the whole their/there/they’re fandango.
posted by Alex(andra) on October 23rd, 2004 at 9:53 amI agree with Brandon, but I suspect that the (at times, entertainingly) volatile political situation on campus will blow this thing way out of proportion. Where exactly is the banner?? I would also appreciate it, Alex(andra), if you didn’t kill me for any errors in this post (or any others; I swear I’ll try to be good). I was a history TA at U-Akron (where accusations were flung back and forth between English Comp instructors and practically everyone else–God, I miss that nonsense), so what the hell do I know?
posted by Lazaro on October 23rd, 2004 at 12:51 pmYou have to feel sorry for Ms. King. Going to school in Ann Arbor, all that she and her friends at SCOR can get worked up about is this and the Jamaican Jerk place across from Hill.
When you spend your whole life looking for any sign of racism and then come to Ann Arbor, this is the best you can do.
Sure is a good thing that there’s not any REAL racism out there. Good thing that Rep. John Pappageorge (R-Troy) never said something like, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re [Republicans] going to have a tough time in this election.”
Sure is good that there’s no disparity between the poverty rates of blacks and whites in nearby Detroit.
Sure is good that there’s not a single black state senator or representative from outside Wayne County.
Sure is good that black inmates only account for a slim majority of Michigan’s prison population.
Nope, since everything else in Michigan is just peachy when it comes to race relations, I’m glad that Ms. King found this egregious example of hatred in Ann Arbor. If we don’t stop these horrible people wasting their time on preventing sexual assault — which is not a problem in the slightest — from their hatemongering, they’ll be burning crosses in the Diag by Christmas.
posted by Dan on October 23rd, 2004 at 3:41 pmApropos of not much, one of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories has Wooster trapped on a boat by a crazed millionaire who wants Wooster to marry his daughter, and the only way Wooster can escape is by putting on blackface to blend into a minstrel show being performed there. Now, this was written in the 20s or something. But I was recently watching “Jeeves and Wooster,” the generally excellent 90s TV adaptation with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and I couldn’t believe it when an entire episode centered around this plot. Out of the vast oeuvre of Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories, they pick this one. It was completely jarring. Do the British just find this less offensive or something?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on October 23rd, 2004 at 5:02 pmI had assumed that Laban was a man’s name. Unfortunately there’s not actually anyone named Laban King listed in the UM directory, so I can’t check.
ps–Don’t worry Lazaro, I’ll be kind. Just don’t expect an “A.”
posted by Alex(andra) on October 23rd, 2004 at 8:19 pmHey, Dan –
Try a google search on Alexander Lipsey, House Dem from Kalamazoo.
posted by Dale on October 23rd, 2004 at 10:02 pmNot to mention our own Alma Wheeler Smith, former state senator representing Ann Arbor, and soon to be state rep from Ypsilanti. And many others over the years, especially from Flint, Pontiac, and Lansing.
But, no joke, there are plenty of things in Michigan which are explainable only by racism. For example, why doesn’t I-94 have an exit for Inkster? It’s a large and densely populated community, by Detroit suburban standards, but getting there can be weirdly indirect due to the lack of freeway access.
And then there’s the Detroit food shopping situation. The major supermarket chains all pulled out of Detroit in the 1960s. In the early 80s, the city managed to persuade Farmer Jack to build a small store on the edge of the Detroit Medical Center. It was obviously geared to serve the small community of middle-class white folks (doctors, medical students, Wayne State students) in the vicinity.
I was a Wayne law student at the time. The new Farmer Jack’s was enormously better, and at least a third cheaper, than the awful supermarket where I had been shopping, a filthy and rundown store which apparently specialized in selling long-past-freshness-date items for greater than the suggested retail price.
Apparently it didn’t occur to anyone that this new little Farmer Jack’s would offer the best and cheapest groceries for miles in any direction, a territory occupied by at least a hundred thousand black families.
The store was constantly packed with shoppers. The lines of carts at the checkouts usually extended through the aisles to the back of the store. Its hours were extended: it opened earlier in the morning and stayed open later at night than any other Farmer Jack’s in metro Detroit. And the store was financially a huge success for the chain.
Obviously the supermarket chains had forgotten that people in the city of Detroit buy food too, and that it was possible to make a lot of money selling it to them.
But even more amazing, the conspicuous success of this one store (and others Farmer Jack’s added later) did not motivate ANY of the other chains to build any stores in Detroit.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on October 24th, 2004 at 1:41 amLarry, what do you mean there’s no exit for Inkster on I-94? There’s an exit to Middle Belt Road, which leads directly into Inkster, and of course there’s the Michigan Ave. exit off I-275, which also leads to the heart of Inkster.
posted by Brandon on October 24th, 2004 at 1:17 pmOh, and Not to Mention the I-96 exits onto Middle Belt Road and Inkster Road. Not to discount the fact of rampant racism, but I’m not sure if there’s evidence to support your freeway exit theory.
posted by Brandon on October 24th, 2004 at 1:20 pmAlex(andra), thank you for your forbearance.
It’s interesting that you bring up the subject of British blackface, AAIO, as I and a number of posters were just discussing this subject not too long ago on the British Horror Films website (which is really awesome). Britain never really became much of a multi-”racial” society until after the Second World War with the prominent increase of immigration from the Caribbean and South Asia, so these reactions don’t seem to be as hardwired in British society as they are in ours. There was a British TV show called “The Black and White Minstrel Show” where people dressed up in blackface well into the 70s (it got a mention in the cult series “The Young Ones”), and even some of the Pythons occasionally did themselves up in a similar fashion. The “Jeeves and Wooster” show (perfect casting, in my opinion) was obviously depicting something fairly common in the 1920s and 1930s, but it’s definitely understandable that a plotline like that would give many people in this country the creeps (guilty). Maybe it’s just a US thing–the Kids in the Hall occasionally portrayed themselves as people of African descent, although the offensive quality was deflated for me through Mark McKinney’s brilliantly skewering his own portrayal of veteran bluesman “Mississippi Gary,” bemoaning his “lily-white, collegiate hands.”
Alma Wheeler-Smith’s really cool–I got to meet her at a Planned Parenthood beertasting and rather regretted not living in Ypsi so I could vote for her.
Inkster was the planned Ford community for black autoworkers, right? And if Detroit is primarily African-American, why single out Inkster? Is there something unusual about that particular area? I honestly have no idea; I’m originally from Louisiana and I’ve barely left Ann Arbor in two years, so I’m very curious.
posted by Lazaro on October 24th, 2004 at 1:25 pmOkay, looking at it even closer, there is almost an exit for Inkster Road off I-94 as well… there’s an Ecorse Road exit less than a 1/2 mile from that road’s intersection with Inkster Road.
I’ve got too much time on my hands. No, actually I don’t. I should be studying.
posted by Brandon on October 24th, 2004 at 2:24 pmInteresting, Lazaro. I agree, perfect casting indeed. I may even have to watch Fox’s new medical drama “House” that they were advertising during the ALCS because it stars Hugh Laurie (with an American accent.) The character looks like an intense, individualist, doesn’t-play-by-the-book type - a far cry from the good-natured nitwits he’s known for playing (although he did a great job of playing Bertie Wooster as not a complete idiot.)
posted by ann arbor is overrated on October 24th, 2004 at 3:19 pmMy understanding is that, when I-94 was built, Inkster Road “should” have gotten its own interchange, but didn’t. Other freeways have been built long since then, and the exits have been changed too. My comment was based on complaints I hear from Inksterians (Inksterites?), not from examining a map.
Inkster is a conspicuously black community set in the middle of a lot of overwhelmingly white suburbia.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on October 25th, 2004 at 1:13 amRe Jeeves and Wooster - some episodes of “Are You Being Served” portray Jews and Indians (India Indians) in ways that make my skin crawl. That show was produced in the early 80s, I think. Later British shows don’t seem to have that problem.
posted by tom on October 25th, 2004 at 8:44 amI always found the “Inkster” name amusing, in that it was chosen by Ford specifically because it was a planned black community. Hardy har har, Mr. Ford.
posted by js on October 28th, 2004 at 1:38 am(It’s fun to find out that his anti-Semitism is responsible for the Boston Babe curse myth, which they just broke. Go sox!)
I didn’t know that. So has anyone ever tried to change it, or was it sort of co-opted by the town’s residents?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on October 28th, 2004 at 1:36 pmI know that there was an attempt to change it during the ’60s, but I’m not sure why it failed.
posted by js on October 28th, 2004 at 5:20 pm.
posted by mp3 on November 4th, 2004 at 6:30 am