The talk on the racialization of space and New Orleans was underway, and Dr. Staidum showed a picture of New Orleans at the time of the Luisiana Purchase to the audience. The fledgling city is layed out in a way that is both plan-like and picturesque, with clean divisions of land and a harbor full of ships and commerce. “This point of view,” he says, “is from a plantation. The viewpoint of the slave has been borrowed and the enslaved body removed.” Whites continue to commodify and market certain parts of blackness while abhoring and resisting others. The example Dr. Staidum led in with was New Orleans. The city conjours images of wild celebration and partying, the french quarter, Cafe Du Monde, but this is an outsider perspective, a tourist gaze. The space is othered as one of excess, as opposed to one of deficiency, which Dr. Staidum proposed are the two primary categories black spaces are othered into in the South. A striking piece of evidence of this othering is the news reaction to Hurricane Katrina, wherein victims of the disaster (majority black, of course) were labelled “refugees” in their own home city.
This particular way of distancing New Orleans from typical white experience is predatory, but also lucrative, as it draws gaggles of tourists for Mardi Gras trying to experience the “other” in measured amounts. But that measured amount is a reduction and not indicative of the whole. The little bit of New Orleans that Mardi Gras goers may experience is not “authentic New Orleans” as much as the compound product of many businesses vying for tourist money, businesses that have changed the experience itself to more closely match expectations of those tourists.
The “other” does not exist intrinsically, it is manufactured when a group decides that something or someone is not like themselves. Where the expectation of tourists is changing the substance of New Orleans Mardi Gras, a similar phenomenon is taking place with hip-hop music. Professor McKinney pointed out one day in class that 80% of hip-hop is purchased by white people. That means the majority of the money going towards and expectations about hip-hop come from white people, too. So, if it’s more lucrative to rap about wanton violence and trapping and partying than it is to rap about, say, the black Southern experience a la OutKast, then that‘s what a lot of rap will be made about. Middle and upper-class white people consume hip-hop because it‘s the other; it can represent behaviors and lifestyles they otherwise don’t have access to. Little do they know that the “other” they seek is a product of their own taboos and dreams, not necessarily the black culture supposedly represented.
Just as Dr. Staidum dissected the meaning of "other" he also brought attention to the significance of perspective. Especially with how perspective relates to map making. When looking at images of New Orleans, Stadium points out that slavery or race is largely absent from the images, which conversely depict prosperity and hopeful futures. For a city built on slave labor and plagued by racial tension, this image is largely misleading. It is this perspective combined with the idea of "other" that allows whites, in particular, to inflict authority and objectivity, be that on hip-hop or the city of New Orleans as a whole.
ReplyDeleteBeing a New Orleans native, I was really able to connect with you the way you viewed the situations that were talked about in Dr. Staidum's presentation of New Orleans and how people perceive its spatial awareness. So many tourists see New Orleans as a big party city where people come down to have a great time but in reality, never grasp the feeling of what it means to be a New Orleanian. Personally, there is a great sense of pride and respect that I hold very near and dear to my heart being from New Orleans. That feeling that I previously talked about which is often overlooked is the sense of culture and unity that the people of New Orleans possess. In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina wiped through New Orleans and left the entire city in shambles. There were nearly 2000 fatalities going along with the numerous amount of injuries. The people of New Orleans literally had everything to lose, but still found a way to persevere through something so horrifying and turn it into a positive situation. Families were doing everything they possibly could to make sure that their children had food, drink, and shelter. There were people sleeping on flooded highways, empty stores, and well as the Superdome (New Orleans Saints football stadium) itself. Itwas such a difficult situation for so many New Orleanians, because literally everyone had to redirect their sense of living. This is where the city came together and formed an indescribable bond that would eventually lead to the rebuilding of our city. This unity that we have in the city of New Orleans is part of the culture that we celebrate during Mardi Gras and is what makes New Orleans such special and unique space.
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