Two thoughts on Purple People

[browngirl]

This should be a polished essay, but I'm so tired my eyes keep unfocusing, so rather than never writing this down while waiting for the right moment, I've jotted this pair of linked thoughts.

One of the many things I noticed about this trio of splendid cosplayers is that the Princess Bubblegum has not tinted herself the same skin color as the character she's complying, but the others have: PB is pink, and while she's a pretty unnatural pink, still, many real people are various shades of pink. I found myself thinking about the recurring discussion of cosplay and skin color, and that it makes sense to only change one's skin color to one that's not seen among actual people. Painting oneself purple is an obvious costume but painting oneself brown skirts too close to the historical awfulnesses of brown face; presumably, in the Star Trek universe, one might not paint oneself purple anymore and probably won't paint oneself green, since purple and green people are real in that ficton.

There's probably a bunch of sensible essays out there about this -- I've only just begun exploring the world of cosplay. I was just thinking this and thought I'd make a note.

Speaking of sensible essays, I found this essay on "Invoking strangely colored people". Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I've seen someone say something that boils down to "It doesn't matter if you're White or Brown or Purple, if we all stop Talking ABout Race and Ignore It all racism will Go Away..." I could probably make bail if the next time I heard such a statement I went ahead and smacked the person making it. I don't know what I hate more, the idea that POC cause racism by refusing to forget who we are, or the blithe manner in whcih someone who doesn't have to deal with racism declares that because they don't none of us do or should.

[People do this about other forms of bigotry too, but that's another post.]

Ah, purple people. Where's the Purple People Eater?

Comments

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I used to teach a class called called The Psychology of Stereotyping and Prejudice. While most of the class focused on psychological theories that explain why people are prejudiced, I also wanted students to read something that would give majority students a more gut-level understanding of what it feels like to be the object of prejudice (not just racial prejudice, but also sex, age, sexual orientation, and so on).

I tried all kinds of books over the various years I taught the course, and students brushed most of them aside. "Well, that author's just weird, and that's why her life is so hard." "We passed a few good laws in the 60's, and this doesn't happen anymore." "Maybe that happens to low SES people, but it doesn't happen to middle class people, so it's really classism, not racism." Students had a LOT of reasons for discounting the experiences of various authors.

Finally, I tried Black Like Me. I hadn't used it at first because it was old even when I was teaching this course, back in the 80's, and I thought sure students would discount it on that basis. But no, Black Like Me got IN where other books bounced off. The students would listen to a white man, whereas they were skeptical about the various authors of color I'd tried. The students couldn't claim that John Howard Griffin's experiences were because of something other than color, because color was the only thing that had changed. My students didn't say, "Well, this is old, and things aren't like that anymore," even though they'd said that about any other book that was more than three years old. They were shocked and stunned and saddened.

Black Like Me could be said to use the scientific method -- vary only one thing at a time, to see the effects of that variable in isolation. The scientific method has proven itself to be a powerful tool in other contexts; it turns out to be useful in this context as well.

I used to wish that I had a magic wand or a Polyjuice potion or something, so that I could make all of my students live one month as a member of another race, one month as a member of the other sex, one month as a person over 70 (decades before they'd get there naturally), and so on. Sadly, we have to rely on autobiographies and empathy, instead. :-)

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Nod. I went in to reading Autobiography of Malcolm X wanting to be sympathetic (and the book never explains how much of the Angry Black Man stereotype comes from him), but it got me in the gut, relatively early. He was in school, and everyone was encouraged to follow their career paths, or, if guided, guided to push harder, go higher, or consider stuff that was similar. Until he said he wanted to be a lawyer, and was told he should shoot for being a carpenter.

And that was the turning point for him, as he recalled it, and I really got that. Probably because if I had my brain, and had someone tell me that, not maliciously, but because he *cared* about me, and didn't want me to pursue a useless dream, I could just *see* how that would fuck me up.

The other thing that really hit home was his talking about "conking" one's hair. One line... he discussed how they all did it, they never considered stopping, they told all the new folks to do it and taught them how... and no one *ever* told them their hair looked good. That was like, *wow*. That was like, holy *fuck*. (It helped that I read Pam Spaulding writing about black people's hair in the past, though.)

(And now I'm ever so torn, when I notice a nice afro, or some other styling that works with natural hair, I feel like saying "hey, nice hair!" if I'm sure it'll be sincere. I'm torn, because I don't tend to say things like that to random people, and is it condescending to want to provide validation?)

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*nod* In a recent talk, Neil DeGrasse Tyson drew a parallel between the discouragement and roadblocks he faced as a Black youth interested in science and the discouragement and roadblocks he's seen many women face. It's utterly wrong and horribly corrosive to society for someone to look at people and decide they can't do something just because of their demographics, whatever demographics that pre-judger decides to focus their bigotry on.

*gets off soapbox, trying not to trip*

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Heh. Reference that bit above where I said I just can't quite get what it's like to be a woman, I can only imagine. But my imagination gives me some level of insight.

ED: for some reason, that last line I wrote bothers me - I was trying to say "wow, I can get a pretty vivid picture about how much that sucks" and engaging in understatement, because I do that a lot.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I was trying to say "wow, I can get a pretty vivid picture about how much that sucks"

If it helps, that's how I read it.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Thank you; I'm having a bad day, anxiety-wise, and I'm sure everything I say is coming out wrong.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]