In the Mix: Race, Whiteness and Gender in Popular Culture
In my talk entitled In the Mix: Race, Whiteness and
Gender in Popular Culture, I shall discuss how we can
bring together people from different cultural contexts,
and different positions in society, into the field of popular
culture. In the process of trying to achieve change in
a hierarchical society, every individual or group has to
grapple with certain contradictions. On the one hand
there is, despite all differences, the common ground that
we can share. As women, and in order to fight patriarchy
and establish the rights of women today as well as
their rightful place in history, we try to build bridges as
well as form alliances and co-operation between blacks
and whites, heterosexuals and homosexuals, those from
eastern and western ideologies, as well as between the
developed northern and underdeveloped southern hemispheres.
At the same time, however, there is always a
boundary shaking and dividing the ground that we
regard as common but which separates us.
Black popular culture has been a major global influence;
many white Western women still assume that we all
share the same common ground – at least when we are
on a club dance floor. And we may well do – so long as
no one raises questions about racism, sexism, homophobia
and anti-Semitism in popular culture. Black feminists
and women with migrant backgrounds in German
speaking lands have criticised the attitudes of white
Western feminists for ignoring racism in their/our
daily life and work.
Based on the aforementioned criticism and feminist
theories articulated and expounded by Alice Walker,
Judith Butler and bell hooks, I will describe certain
(colour) prejudices and try to locate whiteness in the
field of popular culture. As bell hooks notes, whiteness
is not simply a question of skin colour, rather whiteness
is a concept that underlies racism, colonization and
cultural imperialism. What racist stereotypes are to be
found in popular culture when white Western cultural
critiques address the subject of pop music by Black or
immigrant artistes? How visible is whiteness as a set of
discursive practices in popular culture, practices that
remain for the most part unseen and unmarked?
On basis of my analysis, I would like to invite the
audience to discuss the following questions: How can
we address cross-cultural sisterhood between individuals
and groups from different backgrounds in the field of
popular culture? What precepts are necessary in order to
establish spaces for anti-racist and queer feminist work?
Organisation: City of Women
In collaboration with: Društvo ŠKUC-LL, Klub Monokel, AKC Metelkova mesto
With the support of: Austrian Cultural Forum
