Urban ethics and theory

Attention Conservation Notice: Memes are a thing (!) and we have to understand them and their market to understand the NPR commenter’s comments about racism and classism that I snarked about yesterday, and that my comments are a distraction from the focus on racism, and thus, contribute to racism. After trying to understand memes and the meme market, I find out that the NPR writer runs a site that explains this stuff in full sentences, which is the only way I am going to be able to understand any of it.

So my rant yesterday about the focus on Charles Ramsey’s alien-ness in an NPR blog post prompted my brilliant students and fellow educators to point out, mostly via Fboo, that I am full of crap, missing the point and distracting us from the more important issue about the racism embodied into what happens to the images of Charles Ramsey via meme-ification (this is a word!) and the memed Charles Ramsey will be used as entertainment, and that how in this market, images of black men and women trade on demands of racist and classist majority culture–like other parts of the entertainment market.

It’s this last part–the media and entertainment market surrounding memes–that I have completely missed. Sure, I’ve seen memes on Facebook, but I didn’t know that people pay attention to them because I don’t. Really? This is a thing? I have always understood the marketability of Onion Joe Biden or Onion Ray LaHood…but people actually listen to AutoTunes of stuff? On purpose? (To which everybody who isn’t me says, “YAH DUH”. To which I say: hey. I barely know who Justin Bieber is. I only recently learned what My Humps is, and who Honey Boo Boo is. And I was not happy learning any of it and vowed to avoid learning any more if I could. I don’t follow links on the Internet willy nilly because otherwise how do you ever finish reading anything ever?)

Then my students referred me to Reddit and told me I needed to go there to learn what the Things are and so I did and….

…..WHOA. WHAT THE..?

I can’t do this. Can not.

But when smart people tell me I am being stupid and racist, I believe them, and I try to go out and learn stuff to help me get less stupid and racist, short of becoming more entangled with the Interwebs. I’m getting up there, kids, and I’ve only got so many years of reading ahead of me.

Less terrifying than the looming time suck of Reddit, I was referred material from UCLA’s Frank Gilliam, Dean of my beloved Luskin School (and a political scientist) problematizing the Antoine Dodson meme (which I missed entirely when it went around), and to knowyourmemes.com about Antoine Dodson.

I unfortunately could not find Frank Gilliam’s material archived (please send if you have it), and I read through knowyourmemes….but I still don’t really understand them, other than to note the only really high-profile ones that appear to have gotten my attention are GrumpyCat and TextsFromHillary (this latter of which shut down right at the point where it would seem that they could have cashed in.) The rest, I have to admit, I don’t remotely understand–I went through entries on College Republicans and College Liberals, Catholic memes, atheist memes, memes about atheists, Socially Awkward Penguins memes, memes about various policy positions (which I do see on Fbook, to my utter confusion; not having a gun makes you a victim?) Overly Attached Girlfriends, Frogs, Sad Bears, Sudden Clarity Clarence, Confession Kid, a mallard duck that dispenses advice of dubious worth, Scumbag CEOs with inexplicable hats–and! Successful Black Man.

I have to admit, I don’t understand most of them. What could POSSIBLY be entertaining about what Antoine Dodson and his sister went through?

But the routinization of violence towards African Americans in general and black women, in particular, that’s there.

I gave up on memes once I (finally) figured out that the money that gets made here comes through advertising (I know, duh), and that the Meme-stars themselves can trade on their celebrity as well, but that it is not necessarily the case until these folks start managing their celebrity strategically, a lot like reality tv. (I think).

But I did finally went out to find more writing by the original NPR blogger, Gene Demby. Jackpot–I should have started there. He has some good analysis on Huffington about politics more generally, but his own website specializes in image culture and entertainment. A look at PostBourgie.com, the website that I believe Demby founded, rather indicates one reason why I so missed his point in my rant yesterday: Demby is starting waaaaaaaaaaay ahead of me with understanding these media markets and images of black people that are produced and consumed in them.

And this site uses FULL SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS. Thank the lord.

The website is an ensemble set of writers, all of whom appear to be excellent. Some posts that I learned from:

What’s In A Name: Kind of A Lot

Not saying Quvenzhané’s name is an attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to step around and contain her blackness. Yes, sometimes black people have names that are difficult to pronounce. There aren’t many people of European descent named Shaniqua or Jamal. Names are as big a cultural marker as brown skin and kinky hair, and there’s long been backlash against both of those things (see: perms, skin bleaching creams, etc.). The insistence on not using Quvenzhané’s name is an extension of that “why aren’t you white?” backlash.

Good kids, Bad Cities

There’s a large contingent of folks who think that Negroes in our nation’s many hoods don’t take violence seriously, that it’s something that folks shrug off or ignore. I can’t believe this even bears saying aloud, but no one considers the possibility of violence more than the people for whom violence is a quotidian reality; they think about that shit all the time. This is not some abstraction to them. The decision not to talk to the cops isn’t cosigning grisliness, it’s about simple self-preservation. There are all those teenagers who wear t-shirts emblazoned with the faces of their slain friends, all those makeshift shrines at streetlight posts with stuffed animals that read “Gone But Not Forgotten.”

Martin Luther King Was Not Santa Claus

More than that, I wonder what those sponsors would think if they were transported back to Grosse Pointe, on March 12, 1968, to hear King deliver his “Other America” speech, including the line, “a riot is the language of the unheard.” I suspect they wouldn’t recognize that Dr. King. I wonder how many of us would.

ATTENTION CONSERVATION NOTICE: Yes, people are racists, but NPR reeks of classism as it scolds racism. Maybe NPR people only eat the wee tips of organically raised kale while wearing their immaculate pink chiffon at home, but the rest of do have an occasional McD’s run while wearing coffee-stained t-shirts and fat pants before performing acts of heroism. Imagine!

Representations in the media matter. Recently, challenges to how black men are represented have come across my path. The first from Clarence Thomas in comments about how Barack Obama is approved by the liberal elite and managed to win the presidency this way-, and this, from NPR, about the “wacky black neighbor” with regard to Charles Ramsey and (and many other wacky neighbors from news stories that I’ve never heard of). From NPR:

On the face of it, the memes, the Auto-Tune remixes and the laughing seem purely celebratory. But what feels like celebration can also carry with it the undertone of condescension. Amid the hood backdrop — the gnarled teeth, the dirty white tee, the slang, the shout-out to McDonald’s — we miss the fact that Charles Ramsey is perfectly lucid and intelligent.

The original video of Mr. Ramsey is, IMO, awesome. Honestly, how often is it in life that something truly interesting happens to one and you get to tell a great story? Doesn’t he get to be a little excited and proud of the story? Can’t we be genuinely excited for him? Is it really so evil of us to enjoy the fact that three young women that we thought were dead are actually alive, and the gentlemen who helped them isn’t a prissy bore on camera?

I’m sure there is a puerile element to expecting Mr. Ramsey to “perform”, but there is a great deal in this particular paragraph from NPR (and the rest of the story) about what “we miss” (what do you mean “we”?) that straight up pisses me off with its OWN tone of condescension about class and reminders about, golly, how “well-spoken” Mr. Ramsey is despite all the grave, grave flaws about Mr. Ramsey just enumerated. Here goes:

–The gnarled teeth. Yeah, my teeth are bad, too. It’s called crap health care and getting old. Dentists in most states aren’t required to accept to state programs and so most don’t because, unlike slapping caps on rich kids, taking care of poor people’s teeth doesn’t buy your boat or greens fees.

Except that a lot of us in America, even white people, have crap teeth, too–but I’m betting your average NPR reporter doesn’t hang with those types very often. Maybe some people are gawking at the teeth (NPR writer, I’m looking at you)….but there are a lot of us out here who don’t see Ramsey’s teeth as anything other than a middle-aged man’s teeth–because that’s what middle-aged men’s teeth look like in some families and communities. You should have SEEN my dad’s teeth before dentures.

Simply because he doesn’t have the approved-for-television pre-fab coastal smile does not make him a freak of nature to us, or a “wacky uncle.” To us, he’s just a guy, and we didn’t notice the teeth until you pointed to them and noted that those teeth are a mark of his status.

I’m 40 years old, I have a PhD, and I’ve been well enough off for 15 years that I have dental, and I’m STILL trying to fix the mess of my teeth that comes from growing up poor.

–the dirty white tee. Ok, this one I find befuddling. Do NPR commentators NOT wear t-shirts? If they do wear t-shirts, do they only wear colored ones because nothing says “hood” like a white tee? Frankly I never noticed the tee shirt was dirty, and when I read this, I went back and watched the video twice and I STILL don’t think it’s particularly dirty. I actually think the NPR writer just assumes the tee is dirty because, well, you know.

But even if it is dirty, are you kidding me?

I dunno, maybe NPR listeners and reporters all swan around at home wearing immaculate pink chiffon, but at home I mostly wear t-shirts, a large variety of them, some of them white, and many sporting holes in the armpits and coffee stains on the front. Why? BECAUSE I’M AT HOME FOR GOD’S SAKES, and I don’t wear nice clothes to pick up dog poop in the yard, paint my shutters, or anything else one does at home. What? You’re supposed to change out of your grubbies when you are dealing with a panic-stricken woman who has been kept prisoner for A DECADE?

Hold on, I know you want your freedom from the sadistic fk who has held you captive all these years, but can you wait until I put on my skinny jeans, ironically nerdy tee and hair prodo?

I’m going on record right now: any acts of heroism in my neighborhood that require my participation had BETTER be able to cope with me having bedhead and wearing fat pants while I perform them.

–the shout-out to McDonald’s. You know what, coastal denizens? IT’S JUST McDONALD’S FER CHRISSAKES. There are parts of the world where people don’t act like eating at McDonald’s is tantamount to consuming weapons-grade plutonium with a poop chaser. I MISS BEING AROUND PEOPLE WHO CAN JUST SAY THEY EAT McD’s without turning it into some big THING. I mean, McD’s has not gone out of business, so it’s safe to say that some people still go there. Maybe NPR people only eat the tips of organically raised kale while wearing their immaculate pink chiffon, but the rest of do have an occasional McD’s run. OK?

Just like the teeth deal, many of us grew up and live in places where they talk about things other than our bodies-as-temples and yoga and pilates and blah blah blah–like having an occasional McDonald’s meal just when a person long assumed dead asked you to help her in her escape attempt. Some of us (read Midwesterners and Southerners) do not blather on about our gluten-free, celiac this, vegan that, special that, allergy locavore freaking blah-de-blah-blah. Yes, McD’s is not good for you. It’s not good for the planet.

And while I am pleased that people wish to be healthy, yay you, it would be nice if we supposedly educated elites could have a conversation about something other than food and how we’re all far too, too precious little snowflakes to besmirch our precious selves with McDs or the like. Fine, don’t besmirch, but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD the dude got a be a hero! Can we just focus on that instead of his g-d lunch?! Just for a minute?

–The hair. The man’s hair was fine, people. FINE. See above: me, coffee stains, bedhead, and fat pants.

Edited to add: Commenters via Facebook have noted that I am missing that the NPR writer is problematizing the racism and classism of people who are going to appropriate Ramsey’s image into memes and other things for internet circulation, and that I am missing that critique because I have missed that world of internet production. That’s right. But if that’s the critique, then the critique needs to focus on the problematic details of the reductive meme subculture and those who populate it instead of the details of the man who become their object. The NPR story goes on and on about the “weird” people selected for these memes, and the problem isn’t their inherent weirdness or marginality. It is the elite status of image-makers and these manufactured images make money–something I admit I don’t actually know anything about. That would be a useful critique.