Commenting on TWoP, Glee, and Privilege
Jun. 2nd, 2010 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseOn the internet, no one knows you're green.
But, privilege will out and right now, last night's Glee has prompted some discussion in the episode thread there that is frosting my cookies.
The character of Mercedes made a couple of remarks about white people not being able to do funk during one scene. Now, there are exceptions -- I personally think Harry Connick Junior's "I just whisper your name" is pretty funky -- but in general, I don't disagree. Funk is culturally African-American, and DC was, in the 1970s, right in the center of the phenomenon. Hell, the fracking Mothership may be buried around here.
So.
The some of the good folks at TWoP have accused the character of racism, for saying white people aren't funky. I cringed a little, but I can understand the perspective if I squint. But to say, "It's not like she's black in the 60s" or "Then we have Quinn aplogizing to Mercedes for apparently being black and having a hard life as if being black is a handicap and we've had even one scene of her being an outcast b/c of her skin color. Somehow being black which has never been an issue for Mercedes in a clearly diverse school ..."
This "clearly diverse school" has a couple of people of Latino heritage, a South Asian principal, several Jewish students, several Asian students, and Mercedes. I can't think of a single other African-American student we've seen at that school. Is she oppressed? Canonically, her parents are dentists, so she's middle class. But she's still the only black kid at her school. Day in, day out, she sees no one else who looks like her, not a teacher that we've seen, not a fellow student, not even a janitor. It's her and her parents in all of West Lima, Ohio (I doubt its truly representative of the region, but, within the show's universe, this is the case.).
I'm so damn furious with these people. Yes, things are definitely better than they were in the early 1960s for African-Americans. What does that have to do with the underpinnings of Funk as a movement and a music? Yes, Mercedes is middle class. How does that help her to feel connected in a high school where there's no one else who looks like her? In Britain, I think class, as documented by accent, outweighs skin color, but, culturally, in the US, race is the identifier.
I don't feel I can talk about this at TWoP. I may not have the right to speak up on this one. I like the boards and much of the community I've found there, but the level of privilege these people are assuming is just putting me into perma-cringe.
But, privilege will out and right now, last night's Glee has prompted some discussion in the episode thread there that is frosting my cookies.
The character of Mercedes made a couple of remarks about white people not being able to do funk during one scene. Now, there are exceptions -- I personally think Harry Connick Junior's "I just whisper your name" is pretty funky -- but in general, I don't disagree. Funk is culturally African-American, and DC was, in the 1970s, right in the center of the phenomenon. Hell, the fracking Mothership may be buried around here.
So.
The some of the good folks at TWoP have accused the character of racism, for saying white people aren't funky. I cringed a little, but I can understand the perspective if I squint. But to say, "It's not like she's black in the 60s" or "Then we have Quinn aplogizing to Mercedes for apparently being black and having a hard life as if being black is a handicap and we've had even one scene of her being an outcast b/c of her skin color. Somehow being black which has never been an issue for Mercedes in a clearly diverse school ...
This "clearly diverse school" has a couple of people of Latino heritage, a South Asian principal, several Jewish students, several Asian students, and Mercedes. I can't think of a single other African-American student we've seen at that school. Is she oppressed? Canonically, her parents are dentists, so she's middle class. But she's still the only black kid at her school. Day in, day out, she sees no one else who looks like her, not a teacher that we've seen, not a fellow student, not even a janitor. It's her and her parents in all of West Lima, Ohio (I doubt its truly representative of the region, but, within the show's universe, this is the case.).
I'm so damn furious with these people. Yes, things are definitely better than they were in the early 1960s for African-Americans. What does that have to do with the underpinnings of Funk as a movement and a music? Yes, Mercedes is middle class. How does that help her to feel connected in a high school where there's no one else who looks like her? In Britain, I think class, as documented by accent, outweighs skin color, but, culturally, in the US, race is the identifier.
I don't feel I can talk about this at TWoP. I may not have the right to speak up on this one. I like the boards and much of the community I've found there, but the level of privilege these people are assuming is just putting me into perma-cringe.
