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labricoleuseIf you read a range of sources in the blogosphere, you probably are already aware of the fact that this week has been International Blog Against Racism Week (August 6-12, ending today).
I've read with interest--and often exasperation--discussions sparked in other blogs about a whole panoply of issues relating to race, bigotry, and prejudice.
I think that discussion itself is of great import--airing of feelings, respectful debate, even heated argument is better than silence and avoidance. Talking leads to thinking, and sometimes thinking facilitates changes of heart and mind. Even in the discussions that have exasperated me, i know many people's hearts are in the right place, that they are trying to understand or to make others understand, and that in and of itself is hopeful.
I did not want to make a randomly off-topic post, along the lines of "I know this blog is normally all about costume craftwork, but today i'd like to talk instead about the social and economic challenges faced by an interracial couple in rural Tennessee!" However, in the past couple of days, two situations have presented themselves which are both topical for La Bricoleuse, *&* address aspects of racism and race-based prejudice (and, in one of the two cases, sexism as well).
The first issue relates to these out-of-print historical reference texts i am in the process of editing, annotating, and updating with modern safety information.
Trades that used to be passed on via apprenticeship (particularly millinery and shoemaking/cordwaining) have changed drastically in the last century. Almost all shoes are mass-manufactured in factories now, and most are structurally vastly different from, say, the handmade brogue of the 19th century. Milliner-made hats are no longer something that everyone owns more than one of; many people only own a knit toque for winter and a cap or simple cloth hat for bad hair days. If you want to learn proper millinery or old-fashioned shoemaking, for many people it's not as simple as going down to the local expert and asking them to take you in on a mentorship basis.
Black Americans are one demographic where upscale millinery still flourishes in the form of church hats; black women and men who wish to enter into a millinery career might have a cultural advantage in terms of their likelihood for securing hands-on training from a successful practicing milliner, instead of relying solely on books and experimentation. I wonder too about residual gender prejudice with respect to millinery, a trade that has been conventionally a woman's profession, now practiced on a couture level by men such as Phillip Treacy and Stephen Jones. But all this is a-whole-nother discussion entirely than the topic at hand, from which i digress (though if you would like to comment about millinery in modern black culture, or gender and millinery, please feel free to do so).
The point is, for many modern artisans in millinery and cordwaining and glovemaking and other niche-arts, the tips and tricks you learn from observation of a trade master are fading. As a teacher, it is in my interest to facilitate the perpetuation of knowledge, and as i only teach six students at a time, my one-to-one apprenticeship interaction is thus limited. By sharing reference works, i have the opportunity to open that circle wider.
In the interest of preserving a collective body of knowledge about these almost-lost arts, i decided to track down texts that themselves are almost lost, works written in the 19th century or at the turn of the twentieth by then-experts in various fields; i decided to undertake to annotate them, edit them for a modern reader, add glossaries and indices and new illustrations and photographs, cautions against obsolete unsafe practices and recommend safer modern alternatives. In this way, those who are in the process of self-teaching may have the benefit of another contemporary artisan's perspective; they would not have to muddle through outdated vocabulary or wonder about modern innovations in safety precautions.
These works of which i speak are now in the public domain, but how does the public find them if they are not readily available? Some, one can find reprints of or used copies now and then, but some are nearly lost to the ages. For example, one parasol text i've been tracking is apparently so rare, only five copies are reputed to exist; I've only just confirmed that one of those copies is missing or was catalogued in error, bringing the total known copies extant down to four (two in the UK, one in the US, and one in France).
Anyway, it's a big undertaking, but it appeals to me, and i think it has value.
And of course you are now wondering, what the heck does this have to do with racism?
Simply thus: the first text i have been working on, a fin de siecle work on the manufacture of straw hats, a book filled with fascinating and useful information, techniques, patterns, and historical tidbits--written by an accomplished manufacturer of straw hats, a white Englishman--is also peppered with casual racist and sexist statements, and if I continue with my aim of reissuing an updated version of it, i have to address and deal with the inherent bigotry, one way or another.
It is no news to anyone that a white Englishman at the turn of the twentieth century was openly and unabashedly racist and sexist, so it is no surprise that the author, a product of his time and now certainly long dead, would have thought nothing of making racist statements about Asians within the context of a discussion of the Chinese and Japanese straw hat industries, or sexist statements about the hierarchy of female and male workers in the English and Panamanian straw hat manufacturing structures. His prejudice isn't manifest as the active, terrifying sort (such as the advocacy of lynching, for example); it's the insidious, passive sort of racism, the "of course all THOSE people are such-and-such" variety of bigotry.
And the point is, it's there, the bigotry, and as an editor I must decide: excise it, or leave it as a record of the times? Perhaps spoiler it in introductory remarks, "Caution: racist drivel in Chapter Three!"? (Ok, more professionalism in the wording than that, but you get the gist.)
When i originally conceived of this plan, it had been my idea that, other than minor changes in the modernization of punctuation and capitalization conventions, i would not cut any of the original text of these works--i only planned to add footnotes, extrapolating on the info or clarifying or cautioning against an obsolete practice.
Then the other day in preparation for my upcoming mask course, I was reading a scholarly work on maskmaking traditions of indigenous cultures of Africa and Asia, published in 2005. The author of this book attempts to analyze the meaning and import of the various mask traditions from a neutral perspective, and makes reference to some 19th-century and fin de siecle works in the course of discussing how earlier scholarship about masks was conducted through the shadowy lens of the authors' own culture and preconceptions and prejudices. He frequently refuses to quote from the works directly, because he says he does not wish to perpetuate their inherent racism. Instead he relies on paraphrase, allusion, and summarization of the contents of these referenced early texts.
This got me to thinking: which is ethically worse? To reproduce racist observations of an earlier age as part of a larger work in which you can refute them, or to gloss over and eliminate evidence of earlier generations' manifestations of racism?
I feel that to ignore it, to eliminate its ugly presence in a historical context, is in fact counterproductive. Sure, it's a punch in the gut to be reading along--to use the text i'm editing as an example--and there in the midst of some great first-hand information about the 19th century straw hat industry, is a gross racist or sexist generalization. I feel like to remove it is revisionist, though, in a literal, damaging sense--ignoring is right up next to forgetting, and forgetting is often the predecessor of repetition. Quote it but refute it, i think, is preferable to pretending it's not there.
I don't know, i realize that whatever i decide, it's not going to mend every rift in the shredded fabric of modern race relations or something; there are probably only a few hundred people in the world who'd want to sit down with a book about straw hat making and read it cover to cover anyhow. Some of those few hundred will be of Chinese or Japanese descent, however, and a good many will be women. I am obligated to all my potential readers to come up with a solution that respects that the original text disparages.
* * * * *
The other issue directly relates to my forthcoming mask-making course. It's fairly cut-and-dried, not requiring nearly so much verbose outlay as the former.
The theatre for which i work is not one that traditionally produces a lot of mask-work. (The exception being this coming season, in which i will be producing more masks than have probably been produced thus far in its history! Again i digress.) As such, we have very little in our stock for me to pull from and use as examples in my class. I like to show students physical examples of what we're talking about--in my millinery class we look at actual vintage and antique hats, how they are made, what they feel like in the hand, etc. I would like to do the same for my mask class, so i have spent the past week roaming around in stock, pulling out everything we have that is a mask, and i've discovered a few decent things. (Look for an upcoming photo-post of what i've found, early in the coming week.)
I also turned up a set of masks that pose a distinct problem: nine beautifully made, brilliantly painted, detailed, high quality, professionally constructed masks, some of which are...well, what look to my 21st century eye to be stereotypical Asian caricatures. I can tell from the labeling inside that they were used in a production of Good Person of Setzuan, no idea how long ago. Our theatre's production history doesn't show record of having ever performed that play, so it is possible they were donated as a set at some point in time. Judging from their shape--half masks of particular structure--the show's concept was probably rooted in Commedia dell'Arte, with the play characters being presented as racially altered versions of the Commedia stock characters (Il Dottore, Brighella, Arlecchino, etc.)
As examples of maskwork, in terms of production technique, they would be valuable to share with my class. You see, however, why i hesitate to use them.
Do i hide them back in stock? Do i store them in a box and only bring them out for class? Do i repaint the faces of them before classes begin? Or is that the physical equivalent of whitewashing? I have just over a week to decide what to do.
* * * * *
So there you have it, two points in which race and costume craftwork intersect for me. I would love to hear responses, input, respectful debate, anecdotes, recollections, etc.
I understand there's some cataloguing of IBARW posts on del.icio.us, which i am not registered on, so if this post is something that someone else wishes to add over there, please feel free to do so.
I've read with interest--and often exasperation--discussions sparked in other blogs about a whole panoply of issues relating to race, bigotry, and prejudice.
I think that discussion itself is of great import--airing of feelings, respectful debate, even heated argument is better than silence and avoidance. Talking leads to thinking, and sometimes thinking facilitates changes of heart and mind. Even in the discussions that have exasperated me, i know many people's hearts are in the right place, that they are trying to understand or to make others understand, and that in and of itself is hopeful.
I did not want to make a randomly off-topic post, along the lines of "I know this blog is normally all about costume craftwork, but today i'd like to talk instead about the social and economic challenges faced by an interracial couple in rural Tennessee!" However, in the past couple of days, two situations have presented themselves which are both topical for La Bricoleuse, *&* address aspects of racism and race-based prejudice (and, in one of the two cases, sexism as well).
The first issue relates to these out-of-print historical reference texts i am in the process of editing, annotating, and updating with modern safety information.
Trades that used to be passed on via apprenticeship (particularly millinery and shoemaking/cordwaining) have changed drastically in the last century. Almost all shoes are mass-manufactured in factories now, and most are structurally vastly different from, say, the handmade brogue of the 19th century. Milliner-made hats are no longer something that everyone owns more than one of; many people only own a knit toque for winter and a cap or simple cloth hat for bad hair days. If you want to learn proper millinery or old-fashioned shoemaking, for many people it's not as simple as going down to the local expert and asking them to take you in on a mentorship basis.
Black Americans are one demographic where upscale millinery still flourishes in the form of church hats; black women and men who wish to enter into a millinery career might have a cultural advantage in terms of their likelihood for securing hands-on training from a successful practicing milliner, instead of relying solely on books and experimentation. I wonder too about residual gender prejudice with respect to millinery, a trade that has been conventionally a woman's profession, now practiced on a couture level by men such as Phillip Treacy and Stephen Jones. But all this is a-whole-nother discussion entirely than the topic at hand, from which i digress (though if you would like to comment about millinery in modern black culture, or gender and millinery, please feel free to do so).
The point is, for many modern artisans in millinery and cordwaining and glovemaking and other niche-arts, the tips and tricks you learn from observation of a trade master are fading. As a teacher, it is in my interest to facilitate the perpetuation of knowledge, and as i only teach six students at a time, my one-to-one apprenticeship interaction is thus limited. By sharing reference works, i have the opportunity to open that circle wider.
In the interest of preserving a collective body of knowledge about these almost-lost arts, i decided to track down texts that themselves are almost lost, works written in the 19th century or at the turn of the twentieth by then-experts in various fields; i decided to undertake to annotate them, edit them for a modern reader, add glossaries and indices and new illustrations and photographs, cautions against obsolete unsafe practices and recommend safer modern alternatives. In this way, those who are in the process of self-teaching may have the benefit of another contemporary artisan's perspective; they would not have to muddle through outdated vocabulary or wonder about modern innovations in safety precautions.
These works of which i speak are now in the public domain, but how does the public find them if they are not readily available? Some, one can find reprints of or used copies now and then, but some are nearly lost to the ages. For example, one parasol text i've been tracking is apparently so rare, only five copies are reputed to exist; I've only just confirmed that one of those copies is missing or was catalogued in error, bringing the total known copies extant down to four (two in the UK, one in the US, and one in France).
Anyway, it's a big undertaking, but it appeals to me, and i think it has value.
And of course you are now wondering, what the heck does this have to do with racism?
Simply thus: the first text i have been working on, a fin de siecle work on the manufacture of straw hats, a book filled with fascinating and useful information, techniques, patterns, and historical tidbits--written by an accomplished manufacturer of straw hats, a white Englishman--is also peppered with casual racist and sexist statements, and if I continue with my aim of reissuing an updated version of it, i have to address and deal with the inherent bigotry, one way or another.
It is no news to anyone that a white Englishman at the turn of the twentieth century was openly and unabashedly racist and sexist, so it is no surprise that the author, a product of his time and now certainly long dead, would have thought nothing of making racist statements about Asians within the context of a discussion of the Chinese and Japanese straw hat industries, or sexist statements about the hierarchy of female and male workers in the English and Panamanian straw hat manufacturing structures. His prejudice isn't manifest as the active, terrifying sort (such as the advocacy of lynching, for example); it's the insidious, passive sort of racism, the "of course all THOSE people are such-and-such" variety of bigotry.
And the point is, it's there, the bigotry, and as an editor I must decide: excise it, or leave it as a record of the times? Perhaps spoiler it in introductory remarks, "Caution: racist drivel in Chapter Three!"? (Ok, more professionalism in the wording than that, but you get the gist.)
When i originally conceived of this plan, it had been my idea that, other than minor changes in the modernization of punctuation and capitalization conventions, i would not cut any of the original text of these works--i only planned to add footnotes, extrapolating on the info or clarifying or cautioning against an obsolete practice.
Then the other day in preparation for my upcoming mask course, I was reading a scholarly work on maskmaking traditions of indigenous cultures of Africa and Asia, published in 2005. The author of this book attempts to analyze the meaning and import of the various mask traditions from a neutral perspective, and makes reference to some 19th-century and fin de siecle works in the course of discussing how earlier scholarship about masks was conducted through the shadowy lens of the authors' own culture and preconceptions and prejudices. He frequently refuses to quote from the works directly, because he says he does not wish to perpetuate their inherent racism. Instead he relies on paraphrase, allusion, and summarization of the contents of these referenced early texts.
This got me to thinking: which is ethically worse? To reproduce racist observations of an earlier age as part of a larger work in which you can refute them, or to gloss over and eliminate evidence of earlier generations' manifestations of racism?
I feel that to ignore it, to eliminate its ugly presence in a historical context, is in fact counterproductive. Sure, it's a punch in the gut to be reading along--to use the text i'm editing as an example--and there in the midst of some great first-hand information about the 19th century straw hat industry, is a gross racist or sexist generalization. I feel like to remove it is revisionist, though, in a literal, damaging sense--ignoring is right up next to forgetting, and forgetting is often the predecessor of repetition. Quote it but refute it, i think, is preferable to pretending it's not there.
I don't know, i realize that whatever i decide, it's not going to mend every rift in the shredded fabric of modern race relations or something; there are probably only a few hundred people in the world who'd want to sit down with a book about straw hat making and read it cover to cover anyhow. Some of those few hundred will be of Chinese or Japanese descent, however, and a good many will be women. I am obligated to all my potential readers to come up with a solution that respects that the original text disparages.
The other issue directly relates to my forthcoming mask-making course. It's fairly cut-and-dried, not requiring nearly so much verbose outlay as the former.
The theatre for which i work is not one that traditionally produces a lot of mask-work. (The exception being this coming season, in which i will be producing more masks than have probably been produced thus far in its history! Again i digress.) As such, we have very little in our stock for me to pull from and use as examples in my class. I like to show students physical examples of what we're talking about--in my millinery class we look at actual vintage and antique hats, how they are made, what they feel like in the hand, etc. I would like to do the same for my mask class, so i have spent the past week roaming around in stock, pulling out everything we have that is a mask, and i've discovered a few decent things. (Look for an upcoming photo-post of what i've found, early in the coming week.)
I also turned up a set of masks that pose a distinct problem: nine beautifully made, brilliantly painted, detailed, high quality, professionally constructed masks, some of which are...well, what look to my 21st century eye to be stereotypical Asian caricatures. I can tell from the labeling inside that they were used in a production of Good Person of Setzuan, no idea how long ago. Our theatre's production history doesn't show record of having ever performed that play, so it is possible they were donated as a set at some point in time. Judging from their shape--half masks of particular structure--the show's concept was probably rooted in Commedia dell'Arte, with the play characters being presented as racially altered versions of the Commedia stock characters (Il Dottore, Brighella, Arlecchino, etc.)
As examples of maskwork, in terms of production technique, they would be valuable to share with my class. You see, however, why i hesitate to use them.
Do i hide them back in stock? Do i store them in a box and only bring them out for class? Do i repaint the faces of them before classes begin? Or is that the physical equivalent of whitewashing? I have just over a week to decide what to do.
So there you have it, two points in which race and costume craftwork intersect for me. I would love to hear responses, input, respectful debate, anecdotes, recollections, etc.
I understand there's some cataloguing of IBARW posts on del.icio.us, which i am not registered on, so if this post is something that someone else wishes to add over there, please feel free to do so.
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Date: 2007-08-12 04:58 pm (UTC)In the book repro., format constraints will be harder. Tho' I bet the number of professional editors you know like myself &
I've really enjoyed the history you've reproduced & mentioned so far, & I'd love to see what else you're digging up!