2022 & 2023 Slideshow

Slideshow Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship

Slideshow The Journal of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Dedicated to Undergraduate Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Volumes 18–19 2022–2023

Slideshow is published biennially by the Washington University Center for the Humanities. Its contents are licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC). Please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ for the full text of this license.

Slideshow is published annually by the Washington University Center for the Humanities. Its contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please see http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/ for the full text of this license.

Questions about Slideshow and requests for additional copies should be directed to merlekling@wustl.edu or to: The Center for the Humanities MSC 1071‐153‐20 Questions about Slideshow and requests for additional copies should be directed to Washington University or to: merlekling@wustl.edu 1 Brookings Drive St. Louis, MO The Center for63130-4899 the Humanities Washington University in St. Louis Campus Box 1071 AOne Note on Format Brookings Drive For theLouis, sake of uniformity and readability, Slideshow articles have been formatted Saint MO 63130-4899 using the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, even in cases where the authors’ home discipline used AAA, APA, or MLA formatting. However, in recognition ofA the interdisciplinary Note on Format character of Kling research, our authors were allowed toFor choose either CMS’s Author-Date systemSlideshow (more characteristic ofbeen the social the sake of uniformity and readability, articles have formatted sciences) or its Notes-Bibliography system (more characteristic of the using the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, even in cases wherehumanities) the author’s for their citations. original honors thesis work used AAA, APA, or MLA formatting. However, in recognition of the interdisciplinary character of these pieces, our authors were allowed to choose either Chicago’s Author-Date citation system (more characteristic of the social sciences) or its Notes-Bibliography system (more characteristic of the humanities) for their citations.

Contents Foreword Dr. Wendy Love Anderson

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2022 Editor’s Note Kiara Mallory

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Being-Online: A Heideggerian Phenomenology of Virtual Embodiment Lauren Bush

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Shot Dead in Dallas: The Kennedy Assassination and the Persistence of Conspiracy Malcolm Douglass

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“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain”: Emmett Till and the Poetic Contours of Memory Kiara Mallory

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¿México Vive Aquí?: Space, Power, and Identity in the Cherokee Street Frontier-Border Christian Monzón

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2023 Editor’s Note Jack H Grimes

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Femcees and Identity: Representation, Racial Authenticity and Genre Categorization for Black Women in Contemporary Hip-Hop Aaliyah Allen

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Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party”: Transforming German Masculinity from Pacifist to Fascist in the Great War JH Grimes

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How Spain Made Orwell: The Development of a Literary Persona Matthew Layden

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We Made the Films: Transformation of the Women Textile Worker Ideology During the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) Hechen Henry Liu

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The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color: Racial Preference in the 21st-Century Bedroom Ranen Miao

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continues >

The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok Jordan Rivera

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Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons: Canonizing a National Myth Chloe West

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Contributor Bios

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Foreword Welcome to Slideshow 2022-23, marking nearly two decades of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Program at the Washington University Center for the Humanities! This double issue represents both volume 18 and volume 19 of Slideshow, with a total of eleven articles researched and written across three very eventful years.

The Kling Class of 2022 applied to the Kling Program just as the world began to shut down in response to COVID-19; they were the first Kling class to be interviewed via Zoom, and they will probably always have the dubious honor of being the Kling class with the fewest group dinners and the most class time on Zoom. None of them were able to study abroad during their Kling Fellowships (although at least one remedied that immediately after graduation). All of their projects had to shift in response to the pandemic: certain kinds of ethnographies and oral histories were impossible, certain kinds of memorial and protest even more urgent, certain forms of technological mediation suddenly widespread. Across four Fellows, they completed seven majors and two minors: African and African-American Studies, English Literature, Germanic Languages and Literature, History, Latin American Studies, Medical Humanities, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, Political Science, and Religion and Politics. Somehow, they each found time to write and submit a senior honors thesis in one of their majors. And they also wrote amazing, thoughtful articles for Slideshow – articles of equal or greater quality as those written before COVID-19 upended our world, articles that ask questions at the heart of the humanities.

The Kling Class of 2023 were also interviewed on Zoom, but their projects were shaped less by the pandemic and more by the forces of social change swirling in its wake. They studied abroad and, barring a few weeks here and there, met in person. One of the few Kling cohorts to continue to the end of the program without a single student departure, the Class of 2023 supported first a smaller senior and then an equally large junior Kling class above and below them. They also helped the program transition from its direction under Professor Jean Allman to Professor Stephanie Kirk, and they advocated for increased student stipends. Their intellectual curiosity was unprecedently wide-ranging: one of them wrote two separate honors theses, and out of five additional honors theses, four were clearly distinct in topic and/or methodology from their authors’ respective Kling articles. Their majors and minors include American Culture Studies, Anthropology, East Asian Studies, History, Legal Studies, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Religion and Politics, Sociology, Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Writing. The articles they produced for Slideshow are conceptually, chronologically, geographically, and disciplinarily diverse, but each of them is remarkably satisfying in its attention to humanistic inquiry.

I am very proud of what our Fellows have accomplished, and I know the rest of the Kling team shares my feelings of pride. I especially appreciate the work that Arts and Sciences faculty mentors have done in guiding these projects, from meeting with

vi | Slideshow students to reading drafts to attending presentations. I also want to express special gratitude for the Kling program’s directors and my amazing seminar co-instructors: Professor Jean Allman, who has spent more than a decade first as a Kling faculty mentor and then as the Kling Program’s greatest champion, and Professor Stephanie Kirk, who has thrown herself into nurturing and expanding the Kling Program. The strength of the Kling Program going forward is a testament to the extent of their mentoring skills.

I am also saying goodbye to the Kling Program after thirteen years, going on to my own next adventure. I will miss the warmth and collegiality of our weekly seminar, the fun of learning about new topics and concepts through each year of Fellowship projects, and most of all the joy of mentoring some of the finest students anywhere. However, I am confident that I am leaving the Kling Program on strong footing with this issue of Slideshow and its varied, exciting, and meaningful contributions to scholarship in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences.

Wendy Love Anderson Assistant Director of Academic Programs, Center for the Humanities Managing Editor, Slideshow

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Editor’s Note The Spring ’22 graduating cohort of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship has endured many obstacles over the course of the fellowship, but we have been resilient. I couldn’t be more proud of the work that this cohort has done: beginning in what we understood to be a “normal” setting, moving to a completely virtual format, and ending with a hybrid structure. While some of us entered this fellowship expecting to learn and grow in the classroom, travel for research, and connect in person; we made the most of our hybrid Zoom experience. The time and effort that each individual in this cohort put into creating an article that showcased their research and writing abilities is evident in the articles that make up this 2022 Slideshow.

Merle Kling has been a transformative experience that has taken each of our ideas and abilities and reshaped them into articles that interrogate cultural and ethnic power and boundaries, raise suspicion about presidential murder controversies, explore the relationship of Black trauma and death, and quite literally question virtual embodiment and human existence.

Our Kling experience has been a dynamic journey. As we navigated through the pandemic, our work both developed and advanced, and contributed to our more extensive research projects. Did I mention each individual in this cohort simultaneously completed an honors thesis in our respective departments? I guess you could say I’m proud of the work we have done in spite of the environment our research grew in. We appreciate the guidance of the 2021 cohort, the critiques and praises of the 2023 cohort, and are excited to welcome the 2024 cohort.

What’s more, I thank Professor Jean Allman and Professor Wendy Love Anderson. Without their guidance and support, the Kling articles would not be the refined research they are today. Professor Allman’s humor, Professor Anderson’s exuberance, and both of their intellects played a crucial role in our enjoyment and progress throughout this fellowship.

I am elated to be a part of the 2022 graduating cohort of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship and the projects that came out of this experience.

In this Slideshow issue, you as a reader have the opportunity to step into the minds of four individuals who exercised diligence and perseverance in constructing and progressing ideas about existence in American society and beyond. To Malcolm, Lauren, and Christian: we did it!

Your editor, Kiara Mallory

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Being-Online: A Heideggerian Phenomenology of Virtual Embodiment Lauren Bush In Being & Time, Martin Heidegger reimagines the thinking agent as Being-in-theworld: inextricably intertwined with its environment and the things therein. This radical break from subject-object thinking earned Heidegger a seat among the founding figures of the philosophy of technology and a persistent citational prominence in the discipline.

However, many Heidegger scholars criticize his work for failing to acknowledge how our everyday understanding of things as Being-in-the-world is shaped by our bodies. This has led many philosophers of technology to question his relevance in modern-day discussions of technology, especially immersive technologies in which our embodiment plays a central role. In a divergence from this critique, I argue that Heidegger offers notable insights to theories of embodiment despite seldom discussing the body directly. Using virtual reality as a case study in conjunction with a close reading of Being & Time’s account of spatiality, I demonstrate that Heidegger’s phenomenology illuminates the malleable nature of embodied human agency and, in turn, the unique form it takes in the digital age.

Keywords: Heidegger • postphenomenology • embodiment • mediation • virtual reality

Introduction In the early days of the internet, technology enthusiasts and Luddites alike began predicting that artificial intelligence would one day render the body completely dispensable: we could upload our consciousness to the computer and “live in the cloud as symbolically represented brain waves, leaving the body to be upgraded, replaced, or simply abandoned” (Bailey 2016, 221). Nearly forty years later, ambitious tech giants have turned this once outlandish fantasy into an imminent reality. On October 28, 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (1984–) announced his plans to build the metaverse, an embodied Internet where you are in the experience, not just looking at it [on] a screen…Everything we do online today—connecting socially, entertainment, games, work—[will] be more natural and vivid...Screens just…cannot deliver that deep feeling of presence, but the [metaverse] can.1 Zuckerberg’s provocative and somewhat foreboding statement highlights what makes virtual reality (VR) technologies like the metaverse so unique. Unlike computers, printers, and smartphones, VR immerses the user in a completely virtual environment, such that one feels present in a space and avatar where one does not 1 The Metaverse and How We’ll Build It Together – Connect 2021. 2021. YouTube. www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Uvufun6xer8&t=326s.

2 | Slideshow physically dwell (Vindenes 2018). This phenomenon, which I shall call virtual embodiment, has garnered the attention of neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers alike, all of whom hope to understand how human consciousness allows for the occurrence of such a phenomenon.

In the fog of unknowns raised by the phenomenon of virtual embodiment, one thing remains clear: the accelerating rate of technological innovation and the development of evermore immersive virtual spaces challenges our preconceived notion of what it means to have a body. At the same time, the ubiquity of digital devices in our everyday lives continues to blur the line between the virtual and the real. It is against this backdrop of our increasingly mediatized world that I pose the question, how does VR technology impact our sense of bodily ownership and our perception of spatial presence?

To place the lived body at the center of our discussion of VR, I shall proceed from the standpoint of phenomenology. Beginning with Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) in the first half of the twentieth century, phenomenology takes our everyday experience as its point of departure and, through an examination of that experience, seeks to reveal the a priori conditions that structure it (Smith 2018). With phenomenology, we can consider VR from a perspective that focuses on how it mediates our experiences of presence and embodiment.

Phenomenological approaches to technology are often accredited to German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), most notably his 1954 lecture, “The Question Concerning Technology.” In this work, Heidegger argues that “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological” (Heidegger 1954, 311), but rather a kind of orientation through which we perceive the world. In this way, technology is not a neutral tool but an active mediator of human experience and action. Heidegger was one of the first philosophers to see technology as a topic worthy of philosophical inquiry. Today, most philosophers of technology endorse some variation of non-neutrality, earning Heidegger “more citational prominence than his chronological peers” (Ihde 2010, 12).

Oddly enough, Heidegger’s “citational prominence” in the philosophy of technology is primarily limited to “The Question Concerning Technology.” Few philosophers of technology engage with his earlier work Being and Time, which contains the phenomenological groundwork for the non-neutral conception of technology in this lecture. Although there are some notable exceptions to this trend from postphenomenologist Don Ihde (1934–), Ihde neither engages with Heidegger’s comments on the spatiality in Being and Time nor provides his own account of technologically mediated spatial perception (Viljoen 2010, 317). Such an account is critical; to understand how technology mediates our spatial perception and sense of bodily ownership, we must first understand the primordial mode of embodiment from which this mediation can occur.

In recognition of the untapped potential in Heidegger’s Being and Time for illuminating the phenomenon of virtual embodiment, the present study examines Heidegger’s depictions of spatiality and the lived body in Being and Time and critically evaluates their potential for thinking about VR.

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An Overview of Being and Time In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger aims to articulate the question of the meaning of Being,2 that is, what is it that makes beings intelligible as such? To accomplish this aim, Heidegger begins by inquiring into the kind of being that can pose such a question, which he calls Dasein (Being-there). Dasein is an entity who, “in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it” (B&T 32/12), which is to say, a self-interpreting entity who understands that it exists, who says “I am” and has a “mineness [Jemeinigkeit]” (B&T 68/42). As such, Dasein is the kind of Being that we are as human beings. In its everyday activities, Dasein operates with a preontological understanding of the world3 and its contents, or a pre-theoretical grip on what entities are and that they are. For this reason, Heidegger takes Dasein as his main clue for uncovering the conditions of understanding the meaning of Being in general.

This existential analytic of Dasein, as he calls it, begins with a phenomenological description of Dasein’s everyday Being-in-the-world. Here, Dasein primarily and ordinarily encounters other entities as equipment (Zeug) ready-to-hand (zuhanden). Equipment is defined by its function in a referential whole, its usefulness for some activity. For example, the meaning of a hammer is its usefulness for birdhouse building. Phenomenologically speaking, equipment in use is transparent: as I am engaged in the activity of birdhouse building, I have no conscious awareness of the hammer, the nails, or the workbench as distinct objects in the way that I would if I were to “just look at the ‘outward appearance’ of Things” (B&T 98/69). Instead, my experience is of the ongoing task. By the same token, I, too, become immersed in the activity of birdhouse building such that “I have no awareness of [myself ] as a subject over and against a world of objects” (Wheeler 2020). Thus, in its everyday absorbed coping, Dasein’s awareness is “non-subject-object in form.” That is, the categories of subject and object cannot accurately characterize our most basic ways of encountering entities.

The categories of subject and object do apply to a “deficient mode of concern” (B&T 103/73), a derivative kind of encounter with innerworldly entities.

When Dasein engages in the natural sciences or purely reflective contemplation, “the entities under study are phenomenologically removed from the settings of everyday equipmental practice” (Wheeler 2020) and are therefore disclosed as independent objects whose mode of Being is called presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit). This transformation of the ready-to-hand into the present-at-hand is matched by a corresponding shift in Dasein from an engaged agent to a detached observer. These types of encounters are therefore fundamentally subject-object in nature. Importantly, 2 I follow Macquarrie and Robinson (2008) in using capitalized “Being” (Sein) to denote the ontological—that which is concerned with the meaning of Being in general—and lowercased “being[s]” (ein Seiendes, das Seiende) to denote the ontical—that which is concerned with facts about entities or things.

3 For Heidegger, the world (without quotation marks) and the “world” are two completely different things. The world denotes the context of meaningful projects in which we, as, Daseins, are engaged, whereas the “world” denotes the physical universe as physics understands it. The world is comprised of equipment ready-to-hand, whereas the “world” is comprised of the merely present-at-hand.

4 | Slideshow however, grasping things as neutral objects present-at-hand in this way is only possible against a backdrop of a way of being in the world in which entities are disclosed as ready-to-hand. In Heidegger’s words, “the kind of dealing which is closest to us is…not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather a kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use” (B&T 95/67).

As our everyday absorbed coping makes manifest, we are not minds distinct from objects but rather “engaged actors in a significant whole” (Polt 1999, 49) or, in Heidegger’s jargon, Being-in-the-world. As fundamentally Being-in-the-world, we “live in a world [and know] our way around…We care for the objects and persons [around] us; we do not just stand indifferent to them” (Escudero 2021, 311). As Daseins, then, we remain inextricably immersed in “this context and bound up with the things that confront [us] here” (B&T 82/56).

Heideggerian Motifs in Postphenomenology For Heidegger, the equipment we employ in our everyday activities impacts the actions we take and the way we navigate our world. Today, this focus on the phenomenological effects of equipment on human agency and perception forms the foundation of contemporary scholarship on technological mediation, most notably postphenomenology. Developed by Don Ihde in the 1970s, postphenomenology emphasizes the technological mediation of experience. To say that technologies mediate our experience is to say that they “set up spaces of possibilities that…enable and constrain certain perceptions and actions” (Aagaard 2017, 527). These possibilities, in turn, shape what goals we perceive as possible and worth pursuing, which impacts how we perceive meaning and act in our environment (Verbeek 2005, 196). Consider, for example, how a car constitutes the world as more accessible to me (Vindenes and Wasson 2021, 3), or how a pair of eyeglasses constitutes my perception as sharper and more vivid.

Postphenomenology’s understanding of technological mediation is a clear nod to phenomenology’s focus on experience and praxis, as demonstrated by Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein’s absorbed coping with entities ready-to-hand. When immersed in our everyday projects, equipment in use withdraws from our direct attention and becomes a part of our relation to the world. Building on Heidegger’s notion of the ready-to-hand to account for qualitative differences between particular technologies, Ihde outlines four basic forms of technological mediation: embodiment relations, hermeneutic relations, alterity relations, and background relations (Ihde 1990).

Particularly relevant for the present study are embodiment relations, in which “external objects can be incorporated into the body schema [i.e., the lived body]” (Bailey 2016, 218). This kind of relation takes the form of a “simultaneous sensory-extension-reduction” (Viljoen 2010, 313)—some aspects of our perception are enhanced while others are weakened. The telephone, for example, extends the auditory sense while reducing others. Like Heidegger’s equipment ready-to-hand, technologies in embodiment relations are transparent in their use and act as invisible

Being-Online | 5 extensions of sense perception.4 To return to the telephone example, we speak to other people through the phone; we do not talk to the phone itself.

Transparency is also at play in Ihde’s hermeneutic relations, in which a technology promotes a specific interpretation of the world. Here, “being intentionally directed toward the world through a technology transforms our perception in accordance with the characteristics of that particular artifact” (Aagaard 2017, 526). Such is the case when one reads brain activity from an MRI or PET scan. Other technologies, including ATMs and calculators, constitute what Ihde calls alterity relations, in which we directly interact with a device, such that “the world withdraws into the background” (Vindenes & Wasson 2021, 3). Lastly, there are background relations, in which technology acts as an “implicit condition affecting the environment” (2). The dull hum of the air conditioner and artificial lighting of an office building, for instance, form the context for human experiences and actions, even though we may not be consciously aware of it.

Responding to Postphenomenology’s Divergence from Heidegger As the prefix “post” indicates, postphenomenology also distances itself from phenomenology in several ways. For starters, it replaces the “immaterial subjectivity” characteristic of Husserlian consciousness5 with empirical analyses of “bodily relations to technologies” (Aagaard 2017, 525), thereby favoring embodiment over phenomenology’s “disembodied view-from-nowhere.”6 It also replaces the fixed essences characteristic of Husserl’s phenomenology with the concept of multistability (Aagaard 2017, 525), which refers to the fact that technologies have different meanings or uses in different contexts or cultures.

This divergence from phenomenology’s typical subjectivity and fixed essences manifests in Ihde’s critique of Heideggerian phenomenology. In Heidegger’s Technologies: Postphenomenological Perspectives, Ihde writes with regard to Heidegger that, “just as technologies may become antiquated and abandoned, so [too], I believe, should ‘philosophies of technology’ be seen to become antiquated and abandoned” (Ihde 2010, 13). Of particular concern for Ihde is the abstract nature of Heidegger’s analysis of technology in “The Question Concerning Technology.” In this text, Heidegger states that “the essence of technology is by no means anything 4 The degree of transparency experienced in embodiment relations depends on the user’s familiarity with the device.

5 Husserlian consciousness refers to Husserl’s “dualistic view that experience involves an immanent mental content distinct from our encounter with a transcendent, outer reality” (Aho 2009, 31).

6 Heidegger also criticizes the subjectivity of Husserlian consciousness, arguing “that our more basic ways of relating to things are in practical activities like hammering, where the phenomenology reveals our situation in a context of equipment and in being-with-others” (Smith 2018). We see this line of thought in Heidegger’s discussion of spatiality as well, where he openly criticizes Husserl’s subjectivist treatment of space. He writes, “space is not to be found in the subject, nor does the subject observe the world ‘as if ’ that world [was] in a space; but the ‘subject’ (Dasein), if well understood ontologically, is spatial” (B&T 146/111). For an in-depth explanation of how Heidegger rejects Husserlian subjectivity in his discussion of space, see Dreyfus 1999, 128–140.

6 | Slideshow technological” (Heidegger 1954, 311) but rather a mode of revealing the world. By adopting this view, Heidegger avoids having to analyze specific technologies. This approach, Ihde argues, “keeps one from seeing particularities of technologies and thus makes it impossible to discern the differences of contexts or of cultures into which technologies are embedded” (Ihde 2010, 21, emphasis added).

Notice that the italicized portion of Ihde’s critique points to the definition of multistability. Here, then, Ihde contends that Heideggerian phenomenology and multistability are incompatible. However, this is not the case. For starters, the Heidegger of Being and Time sees the meaning of a given piece of equipment as its use within a context of involvement. Since this context is not static, the identity of equipment ready-to-hand is inherently multistable. Looking retrospectively at Heidegger’s account of equipment in Being and Time reframes his later assertion that “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological” as an explicit endorsement of multistability: the essence of technology is not technological because the meaning of a particular technological artifact is not solely determined by its material composition. Instead, its purpose is primarily determined by its function in the context of Dasein’s projects and ambitions, which are undoubtedly subject to cultural change.

Therefore, Heidegger can allow for the multistability characteristic of technology.

But can he account for and explain the multistability of specific technologies across contexts and cultures? In this case, Ihde is justified in his observation that Heidegger’s approach overlooks the qualitative differences between technologies. These differences seem critical in differentiating between the mediating effects of, say, a smartphone and a windmill.7 However, I shall argue that the generality Ihde sees as a weakness in the Heideggerian project is actually advantageous in analyzing the technological mediation characteristic of VR. As Gunkel and Taylor explain, In line with Heidegger’s claim that “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological,” [there are] essential aspects of media that, somewhat paradoxically, are better understood when one moves away from specific media examples and instead concentrates upon the broader implications for a society pervaded by mediated objects…In this way, Heidegger’s thought provides access to a core aspect of mediated life that more overtly media-focused approaches are actually ill-equipped to consider. (Gunkel & Taylor 2014, 5) Importantly, this is not to say that Ihde’s approach is incorrect. On the contrary, I am simply suggesting that it is suited for articulating a more specific level of technological mediation. And while postphenomenology has contributed a great deal to the ongoing effort to understand our relationship to technology and its effects on the human condition, there is much more to be said about the lived body as the primordial mediator between subject and world and hence as the foundation from which specific forms of technological mediation, including that which occurs in VR, can arise.

7 This is partially the result of differences in Heidegger’s emphasis and focus. After all, he is concerned with an explanation of the nature of Being in general. For such an analysis, it seems a bit superfluous to analyze specific technologies.

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The Limitations of a Postphenomenological Account of VR To further demonstrate the domain-specific utility of Ihde’s methodology, let us consider the difficulties that arise when we rely solely on Ihde’s relations to explain virtual embodiment. More specifically, which of Ihde’s relation(s), if any, captures what is phenomenally unique about VR? To begin, recall that postphenomenology replaces the “immaterial subjectivity” characteristic of Husserlian consciousness and its “disembodied view-from-nowhere” with concrete, “bodily relations to technologies” (Aagaard 2017, 525). The central role of embodiment in postphenomenology’s account of technological mediation is evidence of its indebtedness to Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), who argued that the habitual use of certain artifacts “blur[s] the classical distinction between subject and object, body and world” (526). As he explains in Phenomenology of Perception (1945), To get used to a hat, a car or a stick is to be transplanted into them, or conversely, to incorporate them into the bulk of our own body. Habit expresses our power of dilating our Being-in-the-world, or changing our existence by appropriating fresh instruments. (Merleau-Ponty 1945, 166) The relevance of habituation for Ihde’s embodiment relations is clear, but how does it illuminate the type of mediation characteristic of VR? According to Justin Bailey, we can use Merleau-Ponty’s habituation to explain how one integrates VR into their body schema, such that one “habituate[s] herself not just to a keyboard but also to a virtual world” (Bailey 2016, 218). He justifies this claim through the words of Merleau-Ponty himself, who states, “sometimes the signification aimed at cannot be reached by the natural means of the body. We must, then, construct an instrument, and the body projects a cultural world around itself ” (Merleau-Ponty 1945, 147–148).

To be fair, habituation does capture how one incorporates the physical VR equipment into their body schema; one can become so familiar with their VR headset that it withdraws from their conscious awareness. But this does not at all entail, as Bailey suggests, that one habituates oneself to a virtual world, virtual objects, or their virtual avatar. So while Merleau-Ponty’s notion of habituation adequately accounts for the transparency of the physical VR equipment, we have yet to explain the degree to which the virtual becomes phenomenally transparent.

To illustrate this nuanced point more clearly, consider the use of a gaming controller to manipulate a character in a first-person game like Overwatch or Halo.

Here, the controller acts as a hammer or keyboard, phenomenally speaking; with habitual use, the controller withdraws from the user’s direct awareness, and our use of it becomes automatic. The habituation at play here constitutes one of Ihde’s embodiment relations. Now suppose one uses a VR headset to manipulate their virtual avatar. Here, one controls the body of their virtual avatar through their physical body and the physical VR equipment to induce a feeling of being their avatar and being in their virtual world. The more familiar one becomes with the “controls,” the more transparent they become.

8 | Slideshow As previously explained, it seems permissible to describe the transparency of the VR headset as an embodiment relation. It also seems acceptable to describe our direct interaction with the virtual environment as an alterity relation. To summarize what Ihde’s relations say about VR so far, We embody parts of the VR technology (hardware, avatars, tools) as part of our subjectivity in a transparent embodiment relation. [At the same time,] the objectivity of our experience (environment, actors, social scenarios) is also mediated by the same VR technology, constituting an opaque alterity relation in which the [physical] world is in the background. (Vindenes and Wasson 2021, 4) But what about the feeling of immersion and presence—of really being there— in a virtual body? This does not seem to fall under the umbrella of an alterity relation, for our directedness toward our body, whether virtual or physical, is a directedness toward my body, not toward a device separate from me. Unlike my interaction with an ATM or calculator, my experience of being in this particular body has the character of “mineness” (B&T 68/42), as Heidegger phrases it; it is something over which I have ownership and hence subjective control. Conversely, I do not adopt the first-person perspective of the ATM when I use it.

Even calling our interaction with the virtual environment an alterity relation might still be cutting corners. Although our awareness of a virtual environment does contain a sort of transparency, the transparency at play here is not identical to the kind of transparency we experience with equipment. Metzinger acknowledges this subtle difference under the ironically vague term “phenomenal transparency” (Metzinger 2018), where “the medium [whether it be a physical or virtual world,] takes a transparent role so that the content it presents is not subjectively experienced as a representation” (Vindenes and Wasson 2021, 2). In other words, the transparency that occurs in VR is that of the simulated nature of the virtual world, not the virtual world itself, for we remain directed toward the virtual world as an objective environment when we are immersed in VR. At this point, we have come full circle to the claim that the specificity of Ihde’s approach becomes shortsighted in a phenomenal account of VR. VR acts as an “extreme meta-medium” in that “virtually all other media can be reproduced within it” (Vindenes and Wasson 2021, 4). In other words, all of Ihde’s relations can occur in VR. So Ihde’s relations can explain the mediation between our virtual avatar and the virtual objects and environment with which and in which we interact. But because all of Ihde’s relations can occur within the virtual, they cannot account for what distinguishes VR from other technologies, such as printers or radios.

Unlike Ihde’s relations, Heidegger’s notion of Being-in-the-world captures our directedness toward the virtual environment and the transparency of its nature as a representation or simulation. Because the world is not the physical “world” but rather a context of involvements and significations, we are still Being-in-the-world, even when this world happens to be virtual. Immersed in the virtual landscape, “we do not just occupy a space in a system of objects, but rather live in a world [and know] our

Being-Online | 9 way around…We care for the objects and persons [around] us; we do not just stand indifferent to them” (Escudero 2021, 311).

From a Heideggerian perspective, then, we can say that our access to the virtual environment is doubly mediated: first through our lived body, as explicated

by Heidegger, and second through the technological equipment in question, as explicated by Ihde. But at the end of the day, it is because the lived body already mediates primordially that something like Ihde’s technological mediation can occur.

Having defended and foreshadowed the utility of Heideggerian phenomenology in explaining our experience in VR, let us now return to the subject of spatiality in Being and Time and the picture of embodied agency that it produces.

The Spatiality of Dasein’s Being-in-the-World Just as presence-at-hand cannot fully capture the way we engage with entities within the world, Heidegger’s discussion of spatiality aims to show that objective space cannot fully capture the spatiality characteristic of Dasein (B&T 134/101) which, for him, depends on Dasein’s concernful Being-in-the-world: To encounter the available in its environmental space8 remains ontically possible only because Dasein itself is “spatial” with regard to its Being-inthe-world…[Dasein] is “in” the world in the sense that it deals with beings encountered within-the-world and does so [with] concern and…familiarity. So if spatiality belongs to it in any way, it is possible only because of this Being-in.

(B&T 138/104) To put it simply, “full-fledged space consists not of points where objects are located, but of places where things and people…matter to us” (Polt 1999, 59).

To explain the function of Dasein’s concernful Being-in-the-world in the spatial way that equipment shows up as near or far, Heidegger introduces the concept of Ent-fernung (de-severance).9 For Dasein, things can be near or far in a practical sense. Nearer means readier-to-hand or easier to use, and farther means more difficult to access or use. Importantly, physical distance is only one potential ingredient in Dasein’s ability to bring something near. Some things are ready-to-hand because they are within reach, while others are hard to use because it would take a long time to get to them. However, in the most fundamental sense, “Dasein brings things close in the sense of bringing them within the range of its concern” (Dreyfus 1999, 130–131).

8 Environmental space—which I frequently call (existential) spatiality—refers to the space of entities ready-to-hand and thus corresponds to the world (without quotation marks). In contrast, Descartes’ res extensa (pure extension)—which I call objective space, physical space, or the “world”—refers to space as physics understands it and is quantified by measurements of distance.

9 Instead of de-severance, I use Dreyfus’ translation of Ent-fernung as “de-distancing” because it captures the original German meaning of the term more accurately. As Dreyfus explains, “the literal translation of Entfernung is ‘remoteness’ or ‘distance,’ but Heidegger uses the word with a hyphen which, given the negative sense of ent, would literally mean the abolishing of distance. He uses it this way to mean the establishing and overcoming of distance, that is, the opening up of a space in which things can be near or far” (Dreyfus 1999, 130).

10 | Slideshow For this reason, decreasing objective distance is not even necessary for Dasein to bring something near. Consider, for example, the way in which the radio brings near that which is quite far from Dasein in terms of physical distance: An essential tendency toward nearness lies in Dasein. All kinds of increasing speed which we are more or less compelled to go along with today push for overcoming distance. With the “radio,” for example, Dasein is bringing about today a de-distancing of the “world,” which is unforeseeable in its meaning for Dasein, by way of expanding and destroying the everyday surrounding world.

(B&T 103/140) Because “circumspective concern decides as to the nearness and farness of what is primarily available environmentally” (B&T 142/107), distance from Dasein is “not to be defined with respect to the location of Dasein’s body” (Dreyfus 1999, 133): If Dasein, in its concern, brings something nearby, this does not signify that it fixes something at a spatial position with a minimal distance from some point of the body…Bringing-near is not oriented towards the I-thing encumbered with a body, but towards concernful Being-in-the-world. (B&T 142/107) Dasein can be spatial only as care, in the sense of existing as factically falling.

Negatively this means that Dasein is never present-at-hand in space, not even proximally. Dasein does not fill up a bit of space as a Real Thing or item of equipment would…It is by no means just present-at-hand in a bit of space which its body fills up. (B&T 419/367–368) To express this same concept without the Heidegger jargon, suppose that a glass of water and a set of car keys are both twelve inches away from me, equidistant from my physical body in terms of objective space. Now suppose that I am suddenly overwhelmed with thirst, and I direct my attention toward the glass of water. The car keys will then withdraw from my awareness, for they do not concern me at the present moment. Although the two objects are objectively equidistant from me, the glass of water is phenomenally closer to me. In this example, “that which is presumably ‘nearest’ is by no means that which is at the smallest distance” from me (B&T 141/106).

Heidegger’s ‘Awkward Relationship’ with the Body: Responding to Criticism Heidegger’s account of spatiality, specifically his “awkward relationship” (Wheeler 2020) with the physical body, has long been the subject of fierce criticism and the source of many furrowed brows. Scholars such as Hubert Dreyfus (1929– 2017) and Maria Villela-Petit read Heidegger as asserting that it is not necessary for Dasein to have a physical body to bring things nearby. We see this interpretation at work in Hubert Dreyfus’ comments on orientation (Ausrichtung, directionality), the mode of Being-in-the-world accounting for the directions—right/left, front/back,

Being-Online | 11 up/down—in terms of which Dasein orients itself. As Dreyfus explains, “right and left would seem to depend on having a body. But Heidegger again holds that the body is not essential” (Dreyfus 1999, 137). Instead, he sees orientation as “a result of the fact that not all equipment is accessible at the same time. I can turn to one thing or another but not both at once.”

There are a handful of comments that, on the surface, seem to support Dreyfus’ reading. In what has become a regularly quoted aside, Heidegger shrugs off the problem of Dasein’s embodiment, mentioning only parenthetically that “the spatialization of being in one’s lived bodily nature [Leiblichkeit] hides a whole problematic of its own, though we shall not treat it here” (B&T 143/108). He justifies this exclusion early on, noting that: One is accustomed to understand…the whole human being…as a bodily-soul-like-spiritual unity. Body, soul, spirit might designate areas of phenomena which are thematically separable for the sake of determinate investigations; within certain limits their ontological indeterminacy might not be so important. (B&T 47/48) There are also multiple points in Being and Time where Heidegger equates the body with a thing merely present-at-hand. Such an equivocation implies that, when we think of ourselves as (merely) a body in physical space, we are operating at a “derivative mode of concern” (B&T 103/73). For example, “Being-in…is a state of Dasein’s Being…So one cannot think of it as the Being-present-at-hand of some corporeal Thing (such as a human body) ‘in’ an entity which is present-at-hand” (B&T 79/54).

It is in response to such comments that Villela-Petit raises the question, “How is one to understand Dasein’s character of Being ‘mine’ if one does not [consider] the ‘here’ and the ‘there’ constitutive of intersubjectivity which, from the start, manifests itself as an intercorporeal phenomenon” (Villela-Petit 2004, 143)? Here, Villela-Petit points out that, because the concept of Being-in-the-world presupposes that we always exist embedded in a contextual framework, it seems more intuitive to postulate that Dasein’s existential spatiality depends on its bodily constitution—that corporeality is central to the way we define meaning and navigate our world.

But nothing about Heidegger’s account of spatiality treats the human body as a necessary condition of what it means to be Dasein, the type of being that we are as human beings.

While initially compelling, such critiques result from a superficial reading of Heidegger. Upon further examination, his view concerning the physical body is much more subtle. In response to Villela-Petit’s concerns, Heidegger does not deny that we always exist in a physical body. In The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, he states, “neutral Dasein is never what exists; Dasein exists in each case only in its factical concretion…As factical, Dasein is…in each case dispersed in a body” (Heidegger 1978, 137). In other words, Dasein is necessarily embodied and hence must have a body, but this need not be a human body. As such, the human body has nothing to do with what Dasein is at its most fundamental level.

12 | Slideshow Heidegger qualifies his description of Dasein in this way because he is not exclusively interested in human beings but rather in something more fundamental that human beings and intelligent non-human beings would theoretically share.

An alien species with a hive mind or a high-tech robot could potentially qualify as Dasein, despite not having a biological body in the way that humans do. At the very least, nothing in Heidegger’s analysis rules that out. For this reason, “the interpretation of [Dasein] must be carried out prior to every factical concretion” (Heidegger 1978, 136), including our factical concretion as biological human bodies. So there is, indeed, a sense in which Dasein is not necessarily materially embodied in the exact way that we are as human beings, given the “generality of Dasein’s way of Being as essentially self-interpreting activity” (Dreyfus 1999, 41). Nevertheless, it remains necessary for Dasein to have some factical concretion, even if it is not a human body.

While the human body is not a fundamental component of Dasein, it is clear from Heidegger’s analysis of Being-in-the-world that Dasein’s bodily comportment forms the context of its actions and perception, a fact that Charles Taylor (1931–) aptly describes as engaged agency. Here, “an engaged form of agency is one whose world is shaped by its mode of Being [i.e., embodiment]. This mode of Being provides that context in which the experience of this agent is intelligible” (Taylor 2011, 328).

As Taylor clarifies, two different meanings are conveyed by the assertion that our bodily constitution shapes our experience. The first sense is an ordinary statement of contingent causality. For example, if I am in a room with no windows and one closed door, I cannot see if anyone is standing on the other side of the door. Here, physical causes—in particular, the physical construction of the walls as solid and opaque and my inability to see through solid surfaces with my human eyes— determine the function of my perception as an agent and my relation to the space.

In the second sense, my bodily constitution shapes the nature of my experience by giving me a pre-understanding of “what it is to act [and] to get around in the world [in] the way we do” (Taylor 2011, 327). For example, the spatial terms that describe my experience—up/down, left/right, forward/backward—only make sense in the context of me being materially embodied in the way that I am. From the start, I understand myself as in a room and behind a door, and it is from this primordial understanding of my spatiality that I can comprehend my inability to see beyond the opaque surface. In this way, my material embodiment makes my experience of space comprehensible (325). This second sense of the assertion that our bodily constitution shapes our experience describes the type of agency characteristic of Dasein, according to Taylor. In short, my material embodiment, my physical body, shapes my existential embodiment (lived body or engaged agency), the way I relate to and act in the world.

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Strengthening Being and Time’s Rudimentary Lived-Corporeal Body Distinction While I agree that this is the idea Heidegger intended to convey, Taylor fails to mention that Heidegger did not make such a distinction between material and existential embodiment in Being and Time explicitly. In fact, he did quite the opposite. In Heidegger’s time, distinguishing between these two forms of embodiment was rather trendy. Beginning with Max Scheler (1874–1928), many twentiethcentury German philosophers distinguished between the lived body (Leib), “the body as experienced immediately and directly by an agent,” and the corporeal body (Körper), “the body as an object of the external senses” (Großheim 2021, 463). For instance, in The Levels of the Organic and Man (1928), Helmuth Plessner (1892– 1985) proposes that “the lived body is not identical with the corporeal body,” such that “human beings have a corporeal body but are a lived body.”

A particularity of Heidegger’s view in Being and Time is that he does not differentiate between the lived and corporeal body but instead combines them under the neologism “lived corporeal body” (Leibkörper). This move is very on-brand for Heidegger, considering his lifelong criticism of the traditional subject-object dichotomy. Yet, he fails to provide a detailed account of the lived body in Being and Time. And even in the face of fierce criticism, his later elaborations on the phenomenon were halfhearted at best. Consider, for example, the amusing anecdote highlighted by Michael Großheim in his contribution to The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon: When in 1972 Medard Boss confronts Heidegger with Sartre’s remark that Heidegger has only given six lines of being in time to examining the lived body, Heidegger responds: “I can only answer to Sartre’s accusation with the ascertainment that what is bodily [das Leibliche] is the most difficult [topic] and that I had not had anything more to say about it back then.” (Großheim 2021, 463) To be fair, Heidegger did begin to distinguish more explicitly between material and existential embodiment later in his career. In The Will To Power as Art (1936), for example, Heidegger follows Plessner in asserting that “We [do not] ‘have’ a body [Leib] but ‘are’ a body, and feeling as a self-feeling belongs to the essence of this form of being” (GA 43:117, quoted in Großheim 2021, 464). Here, Heidegger sees the lived body as an essential part of what it means to be a human being and, more importantly, as something distinct from our material embodiment.

This distinction continued to take shape throughout his career. But it was not until 1965 in the Zollikon Seminars that Heidegger “pointedly seize[d] this topic, now distinguishing the lived body from the scientifically examined body by [way of ] their distinct spatiality” (Großheim 2021, 465). In light of the development of his thoughts regarding this distinction throughout his career, it is safe to assume that Heidegger was indeed working toward such a distinction in Being and Time, as Taylor suggests.

14 | Slideshow

Being-in-the-World as Mixed Reality Having appealed to a “distinction between material (present-at-hand) and lived (existential) ways in which Dasein is embodied” (Wheeler 2020), we find ourselves with a Heidegger-inspired understanding of VR that is prima facie similar to what Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss have dubbed the “mixed reality” paradigm,10 according to which the physical and digital are inextricably intertwined yet maintain unique properties. Correspondingly, virtual reality does not threaten to completely disembody us but instead extends the possibilities for embodied human agency. As Oliver Grau explains in Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion: What is central in this reimagining of VR as mixed reality…is a certain specification of the virtual. No longer a wholly distinct largely amorphous realm with rules all its own, the virtual now denotes a “space full of information” that can be “activated, revealed, reorganized and recombined, added to and transformed as the user navigates…real space. (quoted in Hansen 2006, 2).

What emerges from the mixed reality paradigm is “the central [mediating] role played by the body in the interface to the virtual” (Hansen 2006, 2). As Carsten Strathausen explains, the body and media “are inextricably intertwined because digital technology reconfigures the body as medium” (Strathausen 2009, 156).

Eugene Thacker echoes this very point in Biomedia, arguing that the “biological and the digital domains are no[t] ontologically distinct, but instead… inhere in each other” (Thacker 2004, 7). With regard to embodiment, this implies that “the digitally encoded body is not just some dematerialized visual entity in the computer, because it still retains its biological dimension as living tissue” (Strathausen 2009, 157). In Thacker’s words, “the biological body is inextricably ‘technological’” because the technologically mediated body “never stops being biological” (Thacker 2004, 14).

As the mixed reality paradigm suggests, the malleable nature of embodied human agency allows VR technologies to open new possibilities for “imagining and inhabiting the world” and hence new, virtual modes of existential embodiment.

At the same time, we remain “grounded in and governed by…corporeality, locality, visibility, and temporality” (Bailey 2016, 213) as biological beings. It is for his reason that VR cannot unravel the “irreducible intertwining of [physical] body and world” (Viljoen 2010, 314–315).

10 Note that postphenomenology is a methodology for empirical analyses of technology, whereas mixed reality is a theoretical or metaphysical framework under which pospphenomenological analyses would operate.

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Mixed Reality’s Underlying Claim of Virtual Non-Autonomy In identifying the virtual and physical as two distinct yet deeply intertwined realms, the mixed reality paradigm, at its core, amounts to an endorsement of what Jeff Malpas calls the causal non-autonomy of the virtual (Malpas 2009). To say that the virtual is causally non-autonomous is to say that “the existence of the virtual is causally dependent on structures outside the virtual realm (e.g., physical computer servers, the power infrastructure, etc.) and that our interaction with the virtual world is, in the end, afforded to us by our physical bodies and senses” (Kofoed-Ottesen 2020, 2).

Understood causally, the claim of non-autonomy is unproblematic and difficult to deny; obviously, we must use our physical bodies to put on and operate our VR headsets. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of VR technologies currently available rely on one’s motor movements to control their virtual avatar. However, the whole point of the current Heideggerian framework has been to focus “less on causal-physical circumstances and more on the lived phenomenal experience of individuals” (Kofoed-Ottesen 2020, 2) in VR. So, although the claim of causal autonomy is unproblematic, it is also not particularly insightful in the present context.

The desire to have a framework that goes beyond a causal account of VR has led many scholars—including Malpas, Bailey, and Ihde—to conflate causal non-autonomy and assert that, if the virtual and physical are causally non-autonomous, so too must they be “contentually” or phenomenally non-autonomous. To say that the virtual is contentually non-autonomous from the physical is to say that “the content [i.e., society, culture, meaning] that is embodied in the virtual is always dependent on the everyday world in which the virtual is embedded” (Malpas 2009, 136).

This understanding of non-autonomy is far more contentious. For starters, the belief that our experience of the virtual is necessarily dependent on their involvement in the physical world is merely the result of the “contingent epistemological situation” (Kofoed-Ottesen 2020, 4) we tend to be in with regard to the way virtual worlds are constituted. We know that “computers generate a virtual world, that hardware allow[s] us to enter that world, and that our own agency allows us to exit that world whenever we choose.”

But it is easy to imagine a scenario in which one does not have this knowledge.

For instance, consider a Matrix-style situation where an individual was put into a VR headset the second they were born and essentially grew up in VR. Even if they had to use their physical body to move their virtual avatar, they would, from the start, assign these movements to their virtual body, as they would with their senses as well.

So although physical machinery and bodies causally enable the virtual, “this does not preclude the possibility that virtual [worlds could] operate within a place which is phenomenologically independent of the non-virtual” (Kofoed-Ottesen 2020, 3, emphasis added).

16 | Slideshow We reach this same conclusion by deploying Heideggerian concepts. Firstly, it seems fair to say that Heidegger would define the virtual as a transient and more tenuous mode of being than the physical. After all, it is not finite like the physical world but rather an “ever-amendable and repurpose-able environment” (KofoedOttesen 2020, 5). But the unstable nature of the virtual world need not exclude the virtual from forming a world, in the Heideggerian sense. After all, the world in Being-in-the-world is not strictly the physical “world” but merely a context of significations. Likewise, recall that “the interpretation of [Dasein] must be carried out prior to every factical concretion” (Heidegger 1978, 136), including our physical embodiment. Nevertheless, it remains necessary for Dasein to have some factical concretion, even if it is not a human body. In theory, then, a Being that is primarily virtually embodied would still qualify as Dasein.

This assertion is reinforced by the notion of engaged agency at play in Heidegger’s Being and Time. Recall that the nature of engaged agency is that form of agency where my bodily constitution shapes my orientation to the world. If we are still in our physical body, this orientation, even in virtual simulations, will remain guided beforehand by the orientation we have acquired as a physically embodied being. At the same time, however, if engaged agency depends on the phenomenal experiences facilitated by being in a particular kind of body, then we would expect VR to at least be able to facilitate a new mode of existential embodiment. Thus, while the world grounded in the physical body does, indeed, provide the “relevant contentual node of connection” between the virtual and physical realms, “it is wrong to assume that this lifeworld is the only or the more phenomenologically primary one” (Kofoed-Ottesen 2020, 4).

Addressing the epistemological motivations for an endorsement of strong mixed reality brings to light what I see as the biggest problem with the view. In particular, if we assume the necessity of contentual non-autonomy, then we risk trivializing the possible and existing phenomenal differences between these two realms. In so doing, it becomes more difficult to uncover the social, political, and cultural effects of our increasingly mediatized world. So while it is causally true that “it is only once we have seen the irreducibility of our [physical embodiment] that we can begin to think about what it might mean to extend oneself into online [and virtual] spaces” (Bailey 2016, 218), we must be careful not to conflate this inconsequential causal observation into a phenomenological necessity. For it is “only because we can understand virtual reality as a valid phenomenological alternative to physical reality [that we] can also begin to understand the distinctive problems [and possibilities] that may occur with their proliferation” (Kofoed-Ottesen 2020, 6).

As was the case in my critique of postphenomenology, here too, my argument is nuanced. On the one hand, acknowledging the epistemological constraints motivating Malpas is not to deny contentual non-autonomy; the fact of the matter is, at present, meaning-making online is grounded in and governed by our physical lifeworld. What is more, contentual non-autonomy helps us to understand

Being-Online | 17 how our experiences in VR can leave a lasting impact on us even after exiting the virtual realm. On the other hand, jumping to the conclusion that the physical body will always govern meaning-making online is to misinterpret the current state of VR technology as a necessary condition of the virtual as such. Yet the current state of VR technologies is, in reality, only that; the development and improvement of which, I might add, is growing exponentially. Therefore, it seems a little presumptive to conclude that meaning-making will always be restricted to the physical world.

At the same time, these epistemological constraints make it difficult to follow Kofoed-Ottesen in endorsing the possibility of the phenomenal autonomy full-stop.

For it remains unclear whether it is possible to have an instance of Dasein embodying an entirely virtual and autonomous body schema when that Dasein was not once embodied at some point, such as in the case of a Dasein born as an embodied human being whose consciousness was later uploaded to the internet. So it might well be that, if you take a human being and upload their consciousness onto the internet, they are no longer a human being but a radically new kind of being. Still, it is not clear whether Heidegger’s phenomenological framework would not apply to them.

And it remains worthwhile to think about how they would be different from human beings, not only because doing so might teach us something about what it is to be a human being, but also because it is likely to teach us something about that more general kind of Being that Dasein is supposed to be. If we take the mixed reality paradigm so far as to make the virtual and physical ontologically and phenomenally inseparable, then this type of inquiry is suddenly rendered impossible.

Conclusion During the two years of research of which this article is the culmination, a global pandemic has drastically increased our reliance on and the normalization of virtual interaction as a means of navigating our everyday lives. Nearly half of my undergraduate experience has been dubbed “remote” or “hybrid learning,” terms now all too familiar to students and teachers across the globe. Even when we finally achieve a post-pandemic “normal,” there are no signs of this COVID-catalyzed tech boom slowing down. On the contrary, many companies—including Apple, Twitter, and Google—have made working from home a permanent installation via a hybrid model. Of this, tech companies have certainly taken notice. The brand Magic Leap regularly markets its augmented reality (AR) headset toward businesses wanting to “increase productivity in the workforce [by enabling] remote assistance, digital work instructions, and 3-D meetings.”11 What is more, the gear through which we access augmented realities is becoming increasingly discreet. At the 2022 CES technology exhibition, TCL revealed its new smart glasses to take and share pictures and project GPS directions into one’s visual field. Smart contact lenses are on the way as well.

Together with athletic companies like Adidas, Mojo Vision is creating contacts that display real-time data on a user’s athletic performance (Chow 2022). All the while, 11

www.magicleap.com/en-us

18 | Slideshow Elon Musk is planning human clinical trials for his Neurolink brain chip, designed to allow someone with paralysis to essentially “use a smartphone with their mind” (Neate 2022).

While AR pushes the limits of workplace and athletic performance, VR has become the next big thing for gamers. To heighten the immersion already enabled

by VR’s visual and auditory simulations, VR-compatible gear allows the user to feel bodily sensations based on their actions and perceptions in the virtual environment.

The startup company Owo, for example, touts $450 haptic shirts with which a user can feel “a gunshot, the wind, someone grabbing your arm, or even a hug from a loved one” (Chow 2022). Meanwhile, environmental simulators, such as the VORTX fan, analyze a game’s audio and video “to trigger physical effects [such as] the heat from a grenade explosion or the wind whipping across your face as you dive into an intense battle royale match.”12 Shiftall has scaled up this innovation, creating a full-body suit that allows the user to feel temperature changes via a sensor placed on their neck.

Before we know it, VR will be able to simulate every one of the human senses, and the virtual world will become so realistic that it will be nearly indistinguishable from our nonvirtual experiences.

Some might say that VR is just a trend, but I would strongly disagree; VR is merely a step along the trajectory of technological development on which we have been for decades. What is more, the rate of technological innovation today has only bolstered the prediction made at the onset of the internet, only now with greater specificity and enthusiasm: many experts anticipate that, by the year 2045, we will achieve “digital immortality” by uploading our consciousness to computers and possibly back into a different biological body.13 Granted, this timeline assumes that we figure out exactly what consciousness is, but it seems plausible that the technology will be there when we finally do.

In light of these developments, we finally arrive at the question: Is Being-online still Dasein? In a nutshell, yes, but it is case-dependent. The way I see it, what is required for Dasein to remain as such while virtually embodied is an awareness of its finitude. For Heidegger, knowledge of our finitude or mortality manifests existentially as an understanding of the fragile nature of meaning-making, of our understanding of selfhood and worldhood. Therefore, acknowledging this finitude is a necessary first step toward living authentically. According to Heidegger, we live authentically when we embrace our unique nature as world-disclosers or meaning-makers. To live authentically, then, is to first discover through an awareness of our finitude that we are the sole arbiters of meaning in our world and then embrace this responsibility.

For all of human history, this finitude has been afforded to us by our physical constitution as mortal biological beings. In the case of digital immortality, our fundamental nature as finite is obliterated. One could program in some sort of virtual mortality in the instance that we can one day live exclusively in VR. But without any sort of finitude, digitally immortalized consciousness would not qualify as Dasein but would instead constitute a completely different mode of Being altogether. At the 12 13

“VORTX.” Whirlwind FX, https://www.whirlwindfx.com/products/vortx.

“2045 Initiative.” 2045 Initiative, http://2045.com/.

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Speculative

Currently Real

Status Level Case (Non)Autonomy? Dasein?

1 First-person video games; computer games involving the creation of an avatar 2

AR

3

VR with knowledge of physical embodiment

4

VR with no knowledge or awareness of physical embodiment; a Matrix-style scenario

Causal non-autonomy and contentual autonomy

5

A purely virtual yet finite embodiment

Causal non-autonomy concerning physical equipment; causal autonomy concerning the physical body and senses; contentual autonomy

6

“Digital immortality”

Explanation Instances of absorbed coping with equipment ready-to-hand that vary in terms of Ihde’s human-technology relations A middle ground between levels 1 and 3; we are in the same world, but it just has more stuff in it, specifically, virtually constituted stuff

Causal and contentual non-autonomy

Yes

VE constitutes a distinct mode of existential embodiment, one that is not yet independent of our physical body but hypothetically could be. But each case is one of engaged agency and therefore still qualifies as Dasein.

No

The second we lose finitude, we are no longer Dasein. At the very least, we lose the possibility of living authentically as such.

20 | Slideshow very least, it eliminates the possibility that we could live authentically. The following chart summarizes the gradient of answers I propose to the question of how virtually embodied one can be before they no longer qualify as Dasein. Granted, these answers are, at present, only speculative. Yet they serve as an illustration of the fact that philosophical perspectives initially deemed “outdated” (Ihde 2010, 13) remain an insightful tool for imagining the future of VR technology and our relationship to it.

Thus, to understand VR from a phenomenological perspective is to see those aspects of the human condition that, when altered or redefined, reveal what it means for us to be. It has been the intention of this paper to analyze VR through a Heideggerian lens to illuminate the inherently malleable nature of embodied human agency. Along the way, we have found that a Heidegger-inspired understanding of VR allows the virtual world to be phenomenally unique and existentially relevant without disregarding the “real world” impact that our virtual interactions have on our understandings of selfhood and worldhood. In this way, a Heidegger-inspired view of virtual embodiment offers a middle ground between the implausible claims of complete virtual physical singularity and the equally unrealistic denial of all interaction between the two.

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Kofoed-Ottesen, Mathias. “On the Possible Phenomenological Autonomy of Virtual Realities.” Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology 20, no. 1 (2020): 1–7. doi:10.1080/20797222.2020.1857945 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception [originally published 1945].

Translated by Colin Smith. Routledge Kegan Paul, 1962.

22 | Slideshow Neate, Rupert. “Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Firm Neuralink Lines up Clinical Trials in Humans.” The Guardian, January 20, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/ technology/2022/jan/20/elon-musk-brain-chip-firm-neuralink-lines-upclinical-trials-in-humans.

Polt, Richard. Heidegger: An Introduction. Cornell University Press, 1999.

Smith, David Woodruff.. “Phenomenology,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/phenomenology/.

Strathausen, Carsten. “The Philosopher’s Body: Derrida and Teletechnology.”

The New Centennial Review 9, no. 2 (2009): 139–64. Michigan State University Press. http://jstor.org/stable/41949647.

Taylor, Charles. “Engaged Agency and Background in Heidegger.” In The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, edited by Charles B. Guignon, 202–21. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Thacker, Eugene. Biomedia. University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Verbeek, Peter-Paul. What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

Viljoen, Marga. “Embodiment and the Experience of Built Space: The Contributions of Merleau-Ponty and Don Ihde.” South African Journal of Philosophy 29, no. 3 (2010): 306–29. doi:10.4314/sajpem.v29i3.59153.

Villela-Petit, Maria. “Heidegger’s Conception of Space.” In Critical Heidegger, edited by Christopher E. Macann, 134–57. Routledge, 2004.

Vindenes, Joakim and Barbara Wasson. “A Postphenomenological Framework for Studying User Experience of Immersive Virtual Reality” Frontiers in Virtual Reality 2 (2021). doi:10.3389/frvir.2021.656423.

Vindenes, Joakim. 2018. “Virtual Embodiment.” Matrise. http://matrise. no/2018/07/virtual-embodiment/.

Wheeler, Michael. 2020. “Martin Heidegger.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ fall2020/entries/heidegger/.

| 23

Shot Dead in Dallas: The Kennedy Assassination and the Persistence of Conspiracy Malcolm Douglass The sudden assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas deeply affected the nation, as it forced heartbroken Americans to make sense of a tragic and confusing event.

This article analyzes one crucial impact of the assassination, the conspiracy theories fostered

by Kennedy’s assassination. This culture of conspiracy remains strong despite the significant amount of time that has passed since the assassination. This article uses oral histories from average Americans to delve into the paranoia that surrounds Kennedy’s death. These oral histories are crucial in broadening the historiography that surrounds the assassination and reveal how it became unsolved in the minds of many Americans. Specifically, this article argues that Lee Harvey Oswald’s televised assassination and the lackluster efforts of the Warren Commission are key causes of the still-growing conspiracy culture. Understanding this phenomenon is crucial to tackling present-day problems of conspiracy.

Introduction The assassination of United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy could have remained simply a day of deep sorrow and loss. Those feelings certainly characterized November 22, 1963, when an assassin suddenly ended Kennedy’s life in Dallas, Texas. In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, every American turned their attention to the bloody events of Dallas. My grandmother, Grace Watts, recounted that “You’ve heard the expression, you could hear a feather drop? That’s what I observed. It’s like time stood still.”1 Like my grandmother, the rest of the nation, shocked and heartbroken, struggled to process what had so suddenly happened, openly mourning their slain leader.

However, the sorrowful emotions of that day were not ultimately how Americans came to think of the assassination. Instead, the trauma of Kennedy’s murder inspired a pervasive paranoia that ultimately culminated in a widespread culture of conspiracy. Therefore, to examine the roots of Kennedy conspiracy culture is to examine the roots of a much larger conspiracy in American culture. This alarming growth of widespread conspiracy culture is due to the lackluster way in which the United States government handled the assassination, a failure that led Americans to reject government explanations and embrace conspiracy. Historians have often sidestepped these uncomfortable questions of conspiracy that surround the Kennedy assassination; this article differs by interviewing people about their personal thoughts about the assassination. The potential of the further growth of conspiracy is truly frightening, which means that conspiracy is something that must be properly understood.

1

Malcolm Douglass interview with Grace Watts, 0:18.

24 | Slideshow

Camelot and Coverups The works of historians who have written about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are divided into two main groupings. The first of these is “the Camelot works” which is by far the more prestigious of the two groups, as it contains nearly all the celebrated works that cover Kennedy.2 Generally, Camelot historians centered on topics such as Kennedy’s tribulations and his first presidential run, treating the event that abruptly ended Kennedy’s time in office as a brief conclusion.3 The Camelot label does not mean that the work is sanitized, as failed elements of Kennedy’s presidency such as the Bay of Pigs invasion are represented in the Camelot grouping. Rather, a Camelot work is better characterized as hewing to the events of Kennedy’s life deemed appropriate for scholarly inquiry.

Many Camelot scholars heavily incorporate the experiences of former Kennedy administration officials. One of the best examples of this is the Kennedy biography Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye. Written by two of Kennedy’s close friends and White House aides, David Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye is notable because it was one of the first books written by members of the deceased president’s inner circle. While not all Camelot literature originates from Kennedy administration alumni, there is an abundance of Kennedy-adjacent Americans.4 All together, these books serve to reinforce the legacy of John F. Kennedy, preserving an image of him as a young and dynamic figure but only lightly touching on his demise.

While this focus on the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy by those who knew him is understandable, there is a cost to this approach. In ignoring the assassination and the suspicions that arose because of it, a significant aspect of Kennedy’s life lies untouched by the historiography. Again, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye is emblematic of this phenomenon. Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye might seem like an unobjectionable portrait of the assassination, as O’Donnell and Powers offer their first-hand accounts of that day in Dallas.5 However, their account does not address the conspiracy theories that surround the assassination. As people who rode with Kennedy’s motorcade on that fateful day, there was an opportunity to address fears of conspiracy.

Instead, the book brushes past conspiracy, concerning itself with the maintenance of Kennedy’s image.

2 “Camelot” is a frequent nickname for the Kennedy administration, a reference to the court of the legendary King Arthur. My use of the name in describing certain parts of the historiography is due to the mythologizing that is often associated with Kennedy’s presidency.

3 For works that relate to these early Kennedy days, I would refer my reader to Fredrik Logevall’s seminal JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century. While an excellent examination of Kennedy’s early life, it falls into the Camelot works category as it chronicles the motion picturesque rise of Kennedy rather than his strange demise.

4 I define Kennedy-adjacent Americans as individuals who served in the Kennedy administration or were connected to the Kennedy family in some aspect. While these people’s perspectives certainly offer insight into the inner workings of the Kennedy White House, I argue that they are overrepresented in the historiography already and too incentivized in maintaining the perception of Camelot to be solely relied on. I expand on this criticism in the oral history methodology section found later in this introduction.

5 O’Donnell, Powers, and McCarthy, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (Little, Brown, and Co., 1972), pp. 25–35.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 25 This inattention to conspiracy is present in many other works, even in books that are purposefully situated outside Camelot. Michael Hogan’s The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a work which explores Kennedy’s continued cultural relevance, does little to address the actual assassination or the theories of assassination that are relevant. Although Hogan makes a connection between the media coverage of the assassination and American belief in conspiracy, little attention is paid to addressing those thoughts, much less countering them.6 There are, of course, scholars who have decoded the fears of conspiracy that are relevant to the assassination. Kathryn Olmsted’s Real Enemies and Robert Goldberg’s Enemies Within both address the root causes of conspiracy culture around the Kennedy assassination.7 But these works, not quite raised to the status of Camelot works, suffer for not sidestepping the question of conspiracy. The conspiracy gap in Camelot is important because Americans care about the assassination. Even more pressing is the fact that many of them believe in some form of conspiracy.8 However, while the questions of conspiracy remain mostly unanswered in prominent works, there are individuals who address those questions.

The works that focus primarily on the assassination itself are far less polished and exclusive. The common thread that runs through these works is the notion that there was some nefarious force, be it a large group or a few select individuals, that was not properly prosecuted for its role in the Kennedy assassination. Accordingly, I refer to works that fit this description as “the coverup grouping.”

Parsing through works classified in the coverup grouping can often be a rigorous endeavor, for there is a wide range in quality and seriousness of scholarship.

Rather than being composed mostly of historically based works, coverup works are a big tent. There are some academics among these authors, but there also are plenty of journalists, political figures, and even average citizens who have written on what they see as the hidden narrative behind the assassination.

The existence of these two groupings reveals a real failure by the academic community to address an issue that the public clearly yearns to understand better.

By mostly ignoring the issue, the academic community is not stopping discussion of the questions people have about the assassination; rather, it is ceding the ground to far more dubious sources. While the failure of the academic community to address the Kennedy assassination is not the primary cause of the conspiracy culture that surrounds it, the academic community certainly contributes to the problem by treating the issue as a sideshow.

These comments are not meant to denigrate the Camelot school and are certainly not meant to promote those in the cover-up camp. However, the partition 6 Michael Hogan, The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 71–74, 155.

7 Kathryn Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 111–148; Robert Goldberg, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America (Yale University Press, 2001), p. 105–149.

8 Art Swift, “Majority in U.S. Still Believe JFK Killed in a Conspiracy,” Gallup.com (Gallup, May 7, 2021), https://news.gallup.com/poll/165893/majority-believe-jfk-killed-conspiracy.aspx.

26 | Slideshow between these two groups reveals a few things about the current state of the historiography that surrounds the Kennedy assassination. If there was less of a disparity between the two, then it is certainly possible that still-virulent theories of conspiracy would not be as widespread.

This article deviates from both camps by relying primarily on oral history.

These reflections, collected from non-Kennedy-adjacent Americans, allow people to explain how they became suspicious, which is essential to engaging in dialogue with the skeptical. This stands in contrast to other scholarly works, which mostly implement the oral histories collected by the JFK and LBJ presidential libraries.9 While these oral histories are excellent, they leave plenty of room for new scholarly inquiry, especially to raise up the voices of those ignored by these archives.

The emphasis on voices outside the archives imparts a sense of urgency to the collection of oral history as well. The unfortunate truth is that the sixty years that have passed since the assassination have seen many perspectives lost. Therefore, the oral history used in this article aims both to preserve undocumented perspectives and to broaden the cultural history of the assassination. These interviews add rich reflections that create a fascinating picture of the many ways the assassination disrupted American life. Most importantly, they help illustrate how the events of the Kennedy assassination fostered conspiracy thinking. The oral history interviewees are also all people who, while respectful of the president to at least some degree, didn’t personally know him. This is decidedly different from previous works, which, again, rely heavily on the experiences of Kennedy administration officials who personally knew the president.10 In collecting oral history, I have strived to remain objective, phrasing my questions during the interview process neutrally. While I have throughout the research process remained unconvinced by any conspiracy theories that I have encountered, that skepticism did not apply to the interviews. After all, the people I interviewed were doing me a favor, not signing up to be harangued by some twenty-one-year-old. It would also run counter to my desire to include new perspectives on the Kennedy assassination if I tried to modulate what those experiences could be. Finally, my research for this project convinced me that it was rather easy to see how someone could end up believing in conspiracy based on the way in which information about the assassination was communicated. I had many questions relating to how the interview process would play out. Accordingly, I consulted with students and professors who had worked in the oral history field before I conducted any oral history interviews.11 I am immensely grateful for everyone who took the time to talk to me, interviewer and researcher alike.

9 John F Kennedy Oral History Collection, John F Kennedy Presidential Library. Lyndon Johnson Oral History Collection, Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library.

10 A great example of this is the book Johnny, We Hardly Ye. The Kennedy advisors who wrote the book knew the president, and it shows. More specifically, I would orient my reader to Robert A. Caro’s The Passage of Power (Vintage Books, 2013), pp. 340–350, and Michael J. Hogan’s The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 50–55, as examples of histories that, while excellent, rely heavily on the experiences of administration officials to recount the assassination.

11 I talked with students involved with the Washington University African Oral History project.

Specifically, I am thankful to former Oral History Project president Ellen Bresnick for sharing her experiences with collecting oral history interviews, as well as professors Jean Allman and Timothy Parsons for their guidance.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 27

“Everybody Was Crying because He Was Such a Young President”: Understanding Kennedy When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald, he became the fourth president to be assassinated and the eighth overall to die in office. If anything, it is surprising that Kennedy is the most recent president to be assassinated, as nearly every president in the modern era has faced an assassination attempt of some kind.12 While the fact of Kennedy’s death by assassination did not represent a novel occurrence, it did inspire something that had not happened previously; namely, an intense belief that the slain president had been murdered as part of a far-reaching conspiracy. This disjuncture, the conspiracy culture that persists around Kennedy’s assassination, is explained by several factors particular to Kennedy.

Conspiracy culture came to surround Kennedy’s death in part because of his significant popularity at the time of his death, a popularity that is still durable today.

Kennedy’s death is different in that it remains an open wound for many Americans.

One of the Americans interviewed for this project, Joanne Laposa, recalled that “everybody was crying because he was such a young president” when asked to reflect on Kennedy’s assassination.13 The somber reception of the news is in part explained by the fact that Laposa and her family, like the slain president, were of the Roman Catholic faith. That connection of faith made the loss of the president particularly heavy for Laposa’s family. However, poll numbers reveal that the pain experienced

by Laposa’s family was far from unique, as Kennedy’s approval rating at the time of his death was near 60 percent.14 Had Kennedy not died, it is possible it would have slipped. However, the assassination clearly overrode feelings of growing discontent.

This strong sense of national grief inspired by Kennedy’s murder is shown by how Americans remembered (or chose to portray) their votes in 1960. Slightly less than 50 percent of the country had voted for Kennedy then, but in 1964, 63 percent of Americans claimed they had voted for the slain president.15 Regardless of how they felt about the president in the days before the assassination, Americans quickly rallied around Kennedy’s memory.

The circumstances of his death are worth examining because Kennedy was remembered so fondly by Americans, a slightly surprising situation considering Kennedy’s narrow election to the presidency in 1960. Often, close elections leave bitter feelings; however, Kennedy was immediately popular. The high approval rating referenced earlier was in part due to his relative youth, young family and dynamic administration.16 Laposa alluded to this sentiment when she remarked that Kennedy 12 For my assertions about death and the presidency, I am particularly indebted to Mel Ayton’s Plotting to Kill the President: Assassination Attempts from Washington to Hoover.

13 MD interview with Joanne Laposa, 0:40.

14 Gallup, “Presidential Approval Ratings—Gallup Historical Statistics and Trends,” Gallup.com (Gallup, August 12, 2021), https://news.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratingsgallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx.

15 David Miller, “To Tell the Truth to Pollsters,” CBS News (CBS Interactive, August 15, 2007), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/to-tell-the-truth-to-pollsters/.

16 Michael Hogan, The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, pp. 3–10.

28 | Slideshow was such a young president. Many of the other people interviewed for this project felt that Kennedy was getting the nation where to needed to go, such as interview subject Maurice Norwood, who said that “he was really trying to do a lot of positive things for the nation for everyone.”17 When asked to elaborate on how well Kennedy was doing in accomplishing these goals, Norwood said “I think he was succeeding.

And that was one of the impetuses behind him being assassinated. He was making some changes that others didn’t particularly care for, certain radical groups.”18 There is a sinister implication to what Norwood is saying, the idea that “radical groups” didn’t like the positive efforts of Kennedy’s presidency and thus decided to tragically silence him.

The continued importance of Kennedy’s memory and persistence of conspiratorial belief are therefore clearly tied to Kennedy’s popularity. Kennedy’s perception by many as a trailblazer, one committed to changing America’s future, certainly accentuated the shock of his loss. Additionally, it helped foster a belief that his assassination was somehow connected to these anticipated changes, that Kennedy’s progress was halted by sinister groups that Norwood alludes to.

Another interesting aspect of this phenomenon is that despite the widespread belief in conspiracy, polling shows that there is no definite group that is assigned the blame for the assassination.19 This trend showed up in my oral history interviews as well.

Norwood himself did not name a particular group that he thought responsible for the assassination. Tellingly, my grandmother, Grace Watts, who also subscribed to conspiracy thinking had a hard time answering the question, reflecting, Oh my god, that any number of people who might have wanted that to happen... I don’t know. Because I think for the most part, Kennedy was very popular. And I just can’t imagine that someone would want him dead, particularly so early in his administration, but then I’ve since learned that human beings can be incredibly cold and cruel and have any number of reasons for wanting to create havoc.20 Both my grandmother and Norwood were tremendous fans of Kennedy and deeply mourned his loss. They also both believed that a conspiracy occurred. Yet they could only approach the question of who was responsible with vagueness. They exhibited a belief in conspiracy but their lack of clarity as to who was responsible shows how tangled the alleged conspiracy surrounding Kennedy truly is.

17 MD interview with Maurice Norwood, 1:46.

18 MD interview with Maurice Norwood, 1:55.

19 Art Swift, “Majority in U.S. Still Believe JFK Killed in a Conspiracy,” Gallup.com (Gallup, November 13, 2013), https://news.gallup.com/poll/165893/majority-believe-jfk-killed-conspiracy.aspx.

20 MD interview with Grace Watts, 27:35.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 29

“Mr. President, You Can’t Say Dallas Doesn’t Love You!”: The Ride through Dealey Plaza On the morning of November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy landed at Dallas Love Field in Texas. He was in the state that day both to heal wounds in the state Democratic Party and to gear up his campaign for the upcoming 1964 presidential election. The state was considered vulnerable ground, for it had voted for Kennedy in 1960 by a margin of only two points, despite the presence of vice president and native son Lyndon Johnson on the ticket. With his national popularity on rockier terrain than it had ever been, Kennedy hoped to build support and fundraise among the state’s wealthy Democratic oil baron donors.21 The plan for the day was to attend a luncheon with local civic and business leaders and then fly to Austin via Air Force One for a fundraising dinner.22 Travelling via motorcade, Kennedy, and Texas Governor John Connally rode with their wives in the presidential limo along a preplanned and publicly released route designed to allow spectators to see the president.23 The crowds that day rapturously greeted the president, leading Governor Connally’s wife, Nellie Connally, to exclaim “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you!” as the two couples cruised through a portion of the city known as Dealey Plaza.24 Suddenly, a sharp crack echoed throughout the plaza. Initially, there was confusion, with many of those present believing the sound to be the backfire of a motorcycle.25 But several people, including Governor Connally, knew immediately that the crack was the sound of a high-powered rifle actively firing upon them.26 In a moment, the president went from waving to the joyous crowd to grimly clutching his throat. It was clear to everyone that he had been struck.

This first volley did not kill Kennedy, leaving him wounded but alive. However, the president was soon struck with another direct shot. In total, the assassin fired three volleys from his perch on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.27 Both President Kennedy and Governor Connally suffered significant wounds.

Desperately, both were rushed to nearby Parkland oHspital, but it was clear that Kennedy’s wounds were too severe for him to survive. Only a half hour after the shooting, Kennedy was declared dead. About an hour later, Lee Harvey Oswald, the man believed responsible for the president’s slaying, was captured inside a movie theater and taken into police custody.

21 Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 271–274.

22 Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 307–312.

23 William Manchester, The Death of a President: November 20–November 25, 1963 (Harper and Row, 1967; reprinted Little, Brown, & Co, 2013), pp. 151–154.

24 Caro, Passage of Power, p. 313.

25 Ibid.

26 Manchester, 0, pp. 238–240.

27 The number of shots fired is actually a significant source of controversy, something I address in the section on the Warren Commission.

30 | Slideshow Naturally, Kennedy’s shocking execution raised questions of conspiracy, not least in the minds of the nation’s government officials that day. Soon after the pronouncement of Kennedy’s death, his vice president, Lyndon Johnson, took the oath of office inside a darkened and sweltering Air Force One. These circumstances reflected the depth of the fear of conspiracy; the plane was dark because all its cabin windows were closed in case of another sniper lurking.28 This fear was further justified by the ominous timing of the assassination, as the murder coincided with nearly half the president’s cabinet being en route to a conference in Japan.29 The plane was quickly turned back to Washington upon receiving the news. To further guard against any would-be assailants, Air Force One flew with military fighter jets on the ground ready to rush to its assistance.30 What these various details make clear is that many in the government feared a wide-reaching conspiracy on the day of the assassination, an understandable concern considering the multiple coincidences that had converged on that day. While many of these officials would also struggle to deal with their grief as they processed the death of their leader, these precautions betray a fear and confusion that would not be publicized heavily. Five days later, when President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress (but really the nation), there were certainly references to grief and the horror of the situation. But despite Johnson’s declaration in the speech that “the greatest leader of our time has been struck down by the foulest deed of our time” and his assertion that “no words are sad enough to express our sense of loss,” his speech does nothing to address the fear he and other government officials felt on that day.31 There were certainly other factors that started the country down a road that of persistent suspicion. But the failure by American government officials to disclose their shared fear represents a missed opportunity to head off the growth of conspiratorial thought. The effect of their silence was the creation of an image of a heartless government, one potentially involved in the plot that many would come to believe killed Kennedy.

“It Was Like a Slumber.”: The Loss of a President Famously, many Americans have distinct memories of where they were when they heard the news that the president had been shot. This mass recollection of trauma is referred to by some scholars as the “Kennedy Moment.” The interviewees for this project were no exception, as all of them could remember clearly where they were, no matter their age at the time. My great-aunt May Watts vividly remembered the shock of that moment even sixty years later, remarking that “it was like a slumber. You’ve, you’ve seen it; you had to believe because you’ve seen it on TV…but yet you didn’t want to accept it, although you’ve seen it when it happened. You know, but every everyone was upset about it, because of the type of president that he was.”32 28 Manchester, Death of a President, pp. 238–240.

29 Caro, Passage of Power, p. 320.

30 Caro, Passage of Power, p. 354.

31 November 27, 1963: Address to Joint Session of Congress printed in Schulman, Lyndon B Johnson and American Liberalism, pp. 181–185.

32 MD interview with May Watts, 3:19.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 31 Grace Clark, then a student at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, spoke to her mixture of emotions on the day of the assassination. She certainly could still remember the deep sadness she felt when she heard of Kennedy passing. Talking to me on the phone, she vividly remembered processing the news with her fellow students in the school cafeteria: “Everybody was in tears. I remember one of the things that impressed me the most was—now remember, this is my first semester of freshman year, so, I was very impressed with all these older girls who are very sophisticated and very world knowledgeable and very independent. And I was just astonished to see them all crying, and they all wanted to talk to their mothers.”33 Despite the deep sorrow felt by Clark and her fellow Goucher College students on that day, there was one part of the tragedy that elicited a positive feeling in them. As Clark put it, “I know we all took great pride that the woman who gave the oath of office to Johnson was a graduate of our college.”34 This anecdote serves as an encapsulation of the wide range of emotions experienced by countless Americans on that day. While Clark’s experience is unusual due to her feeling school pride as well as grief, plenty of other Americans found fellowship and solidarity as they processed the assassination.

Richard Faircloth, who was a high school student at the time of the assignation, felt a particular connection to the president. The previous spring, Faircloth’s father, a Washington, DC cop, had suffered a heart attack while in service of protecting Kennedy.35 Faircloth remembered seeing the first bulletin: “It [came on] with the news break. And that turned out to be the first announcement in DC on that station. And I thought it was a joke. And then they kept talking and it wasn’t. So, I met my father and mother coming in from grocery shopping and I said, ‘You have to turn on the radio right now.’

My father and my mother were very diehard Democrats and very emotionally affected by this. I only saw him cry twice; once at Kennedy’s funeral, which was on TV, and then when I got my degree.36 As Clark, Faircloth, and Watts’ accounts showcase, despite their differences, the stories told to me share common themes of shock and grief. The recollection of David Watts, my grandfather, showcases that sense of shock well. A college student at the time, Watts was on campus headed to the student union when he ran into a classmate carrying a radio. Watts recalled, “She looked at me and said, ‘The president has been shot.’ And my response was, ‘Who would want to shoot Dr. Jenkins?’

Dr. Jenkins was the president of the college. And so, it didn’t occur to me that Kennedy, President Kennedy had been shot.”37

33 34 35 36 37

MD interview with Grace Clark, 0:43.

MD interview with Grace Clark, 10:15.

MD interview with Richard Faircloth, 3:34.

Ibid.

MD interview with David Watts, 0:20.

32 | Slideshow Watts’ misunderstanding in this moment is a microcosm reflecting how unfathomable it was to Americans that the president of the United States could be successfully assassinated. Grace Clark agreed with how shocking the thought of an assassination was, stating “It was beyond the imagination of me, certainly in most people at that time, that a president would be shot.”38 This assassination was unprecedented for practically all of these interviewees, as none of them would have been alive for the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, nor would most of them have even been old enough to remember President Franklin Roosevelt’s unexpected but still natural death in 1945. Their collective disbelief was shared by their fellow Americans, as the horror with which people received the news reveals.

Maurice Norwood had an experience that is emblematic of how deeply the assassination emotionally affected Americans. One might expect that Norwood, as a student at one of Baltimore’s all male high schools, would have encountered a solemn scene at school, with classmates processing the news in stunned silence rather with excessive emotion. Instead, Norwood remembered that “most of the guys were standing on the corner crying, because even though we were at that age, we were teenagers, we were kind of like in love with him.”39 The weight of the assassination was so powerful that it demolished the masculine posturing that one might expect from high-school-age boys, instead inspiring open grief.

Reports from around the country confirm that the scene at Norwood’s high school was not an oddity. Across the country, Americans similarly handled the shock of the assassination with equally notable dismay and disbelief. According to a University of Chicago study taken the following winter, Norwood’s friends were among the half of the country who later indicated that they had wept for the slain president. They were also part of the 80 percent of the nation who reported that they felt the loss of someone dear to them.40 Additionally there are reports that in two of the nation’s largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, traffic literally came to a standstill as horror-stricken drivers got out of their cars and spread the news of the assassination to each other.41 Of course, mixed in with this grief were also strong feelings of fear. When asked what else in her life compared to the Kennedy assassination, Grace Watts paused for a moment. She said, “Well, at one point, I was in high school when I worked at the drugstore around the corner from the house, and when these guys came in and they robbed the place. And one of them pointed a gun at me. And I had no idea if I’d live through it, and I was terrified. And I think I probably felt somewhat the same after the assassination because of the violence.”42 That Watts would equate a threat of violence against her own person with violence against the president—a remote public figure whom she had never met—encapsulates how deeply the assassination was felt 38 MD interview with Grace Clark, 2:22.

39 MD interview with Maurice Norwood, 0:30.

40 Manchester, Death of the President, pp. 189–190.

41 At the time, Chicago was larger than Los Angeles, hence the phrasing “two of the nation’s largest cities.” Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 354–355.

42 MD interview with Grace Watts, 34:30.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 33 by many Americans. The attack on Kennedy was not limited to just his person; the nation experienced the assassination as a collective attack.

This national grieving for Kennedy and pursuit of answers is also reflected by the mass audience that incessantly watched the ensuing coverage of his funeral. Over the long weekend that encompassed the president’s assassination and his state funeral (November 22–25), Americans watched what was then a staggering eight hours of television daily.43 Many who were interviewed remembered this coverage vividly. As Joanne Laposa put it, “We were glued to the TV. You never had coverage like this on the TV.”44 Thanks to the television, Americans everywhere were able to experience every key moment of the funeral rites and rituals and other news that had to do with the funeral, a phenomenon that had never happened before with the death of a president, and possibly hadn’t ever happened. Many Americans also flocked to the DC to directly participate in the funeral.

From these interviews and additional research, it is clear that Americans felt a closeness to Kennedy, one that was amplified by the extensive coverage of his death.

No matter how distant this connection may have been, this unprecedented media coverage reinforced the cultural experience of the assassination as a national event.

Furthermore, the extensive coverage that the news networks offered in the wake of the assassination would be significant for the development of the assassination’s conspiracy culture.

Oswald’s Death and the Initial Swirl of Conspiracy The quick counter measures taken by American government officials show that the sudden shock of the assassination raised suspicions of a potential plot to kill the president. To individuals directly concerned with the instruments of power, this focus was understandable. Likewise, many civilians who experienced the day of the assassination worried about the potential of a more extensive plot. However, despite this early fear, these initial anxieties were distinct from the deeper feelings of conspiracy that followed. Eventually, many Americans came to suspect that Kennedy’s assassination had been part of a conspiracy that was implemented or, at the very least, covered up by the United States government. However, this was a later development that was not present in immediate aftermath of the assassination. Those who did suspect a plot initially focused their suspicions internationally rather than domestically.

These days following the assassination are best characterized as belonging to grief and the fear that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy waged against the government. This reality is reflected in the confused news coverage that flowed out of the nation’s television networks in the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s 43 A brief note for context here. In 1963 there was not the robust array of channels enjoyed today; rather. there was a total of three major networks. These networks cancelled all scheduled programming when the assassination happened, devoting their airtime to only coverage of the assassination. So, from this information, it is certain that Americans who were watching TV were watching coverage of the assassination during those eight hours a day. See Caro, Passage of Power, p. 342.

44 MD interview with Joanne Laposa, 3:45.

34 | Slideshow assassination, such as the rumors reported by some anchors that Vice President Lyndon Johnson had suffered a heart attack or himself had been struck by one of the bullets fired in Dealey Plaza.45 While these rumors were quickly dispelled, their existence shows that even the news stations struggled initially to make sense of what had occurred in Dallas.

There is additional evidence from the news networks that reveals that fears of a wide-ranging conspiracy were not what weighed most heavy on Americans’ minds in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. As one of NBC’s news anchors, Chet Huntley was one of the leading media figures who informed the nation that President Kennedy had passed away from his wounds. However, Huntley did not just present this somber news, he also editorialized by asserting, “There is in this country…an ominous and sickening popularity of hatred. The body of the president, lying this moment in Washington, is the thundering testimonial of what hatred comes to and the revolting excesses it perpetuates.”46 In response to his coverage, hundreds of Americans wrote to Huntley over the following days to express their gratitude for his coverage of the traumatic death of the president. These letters, preserved at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, are an intriguing source, as they document immediate reactions to the assassination that are uninfluenced by later notions of conspiracy. While Huntley was not the only one to receive these kinds of letters—First Lady Jackie Kennedy received an enormous outpouring of support expressed via letters—the letters addressed to Huntley represent a fully raw account of how people felt about the assassination, as the news anchor had no true personal connection to Kennedy. This contrasts the letters addressed to the first lady, which were certainly filtered by the tact inherent to anything that is addressed to a surviving spouse.

Naturally, a tremendous sense of grief characterized most of this correspondence. The depth of this feeling is shown in a letter written by Joseph J. Schultz of St. Louis, who said that “the assassination of President John F Kennedy has brought shock and sorrow to all free loving people throughout the world.”47 Another letter writer, fourteen-year-old Lawrence Scritchfield of Ash Grove, Missouri, spent most of his letter discussing his design for what he hoped would be an assassination-proof presidential limousine.48 However, one can feel the deep grief expressed in his closing line, “I wish I could tell the world how I felt about John F. Kennedy, but how I feel cannot be put on paper.”49 As the hundreds of other letters that express similar sentiments prove, Schultz and Scritchfield were hardly alone in their grief.

45 Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 355–357.

46 Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963. November 1963: 21-23. CHPP-AU01-001.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

47 Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963. November 1963: 21-23. CHPP-001002-p0026. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

48 Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963. November 1963: 21-23. CHPP-001002-p0010 - CHPP-001-002-p0012. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

49 Ibid.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 35 In addition to the immediate and immense grief displayed, these letters offer a glimpse into what Americans thought had caused the assassination. Rather than expressing belief in plots and additional gunmen, the letters that address root causes instead pointed to cultural issues like Huntley’s comments in the broadcast that inspired the letters. An excellent expression of this sentiment is found in a letter written by Dorothy DeLomel of Corpus Christi, who remarked “Each American should search their hearts and face up to their share of the guilt— the assassin pulled the trigger—but did we not all, in one way or another, set the stage?”50 Many of these letters praise Huntley’s framing of the root causes of the assassination, eagerly asking him to send the writer a copy of his remarks to share with their friends, family, or students. These letters demonstrate that at least initially, Americans felt a sense of shared responsibility for Kennedy’s tragic demise and far less concern about what had motivated the individual triggerman to gun down their president.

However, the extensive news coverage of the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination also unintentionally helped fuel the fire of conspiracy. As part of the assassination coverage, a swarm of television crews came to Dallas Police Headquarters two days after the assassination to film Oswald’s transfer to the county jail. As Oswald was escorted by Dallas police to an armored transport, a local nightclub owner named Jack Ruby ran up to Oswald and shot him at point blank range. This shocking murder was captured on live television and thus witnessed by people nationwide. Grace Clark, in downtown DC for Kennedy’s funeral ceremony, vividly recalled seeing this dramatic event on a store window television. She reflected on the eeriness of the event, saying “It was the first time I ever saw anybody actually shot. …I mean, you know, you see people shot in cowboy movies and stuff. But never actually really shot. It took everybody a couple minutes to really process ‘Did we really see what we think we saw?’ And we realized we did.”51 As Clark’s recollection highlights, this was a sensational and jarring event. She was not alone in her shock when it came to the assassination of the president’s assassin. No one had considered that Oswald would himself be killed, especially in such a public manner. Ironically, Oswald himself was dismissive of his need for protection, dismissing such concerns with the retort “Nobody is going to shoot at me” mere moments before his death.52 Despite his dismissive attitude, the president’s murderer was himself now dead, slain before he could stand trial and be publicly questioned about his motives.

The role of Oswald’s own assassination in conspiracy culture was naturally very different from that of Kennedy’s. While shocked by Oswald’s death, the nation was naturally, not very sympathetic toward him. As the cheering of a Dallas crowd after the announcement that Oswald had been shot demonstrates, many were just fine with Oswald’s violent end. As David Watts put it, “You don’t shoot a president and get a bed of roses.”53 There was a sense among at least some Americans that Oswald had gotten what he deserved.

50 Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963. November 1963: 21-23. CHPP-001002-p0016. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

51 MD interview with Grace Clark, 14:43.

52 Spoken by Oswald mere moments before his death. Manchester, Death of a President, p. 520.

53 MD interview with David Watts, 3:37.

36 | Slideshow However, the fact that Oswald never stood trial was something that provoked suspicion. Some Americans theorized that Oswald’s murder was intended to silence him, rather than Ruby’s assertion that he killed Oswald in retaliation for Kennedy’s murder. Maurice Norwood reflected this view, remarking “I don’t think Jack Ruby, he just decided ‘I’m going to go do this without any help,’ you know. He really would have had to have a horseshoe up his butt to be at the right place, right time, without any assistance [to kill Oswald].”54 This quote also reveals the scrutiny of Ruby’s role as the assassin of the assassin. Like Norwood, many groups have claimed that Ruby had help in killing Oswald, suggesting, for example, that Ruby was carrying out a hit for the Mafia.55 Those who believe in conspiracy tend to justify this distrust by arguing that if there were no conspiracy to silence Oswald, that Ruby would not have been able to simply walk up to a person in police custody and shoot him.

This additional shock would not be completely resolved when the concerns over the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Oswald and other elements of conspiracy were addressed in the official report on the Kennedy assassination. But the televised assassination of Oswald raised uncomfortable questions in the period where Americans were still grieving the loss of their president. The Warren Commission, charged by President Johnson with answering questions such as these, would have to resolve these issues for Kennedy’s death to become viewed as simply a tragic event.

Any failure to convincingly answer the questions would further unsettle the nation, transforming grief into skepticism and ultimately a widespread belief in conspiracy.

“The Chief Justice Ought to Do Anything He Can to Save America”: The Warren Commission Naturally the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, moved quickly to investigate the his predecessor’s murder. Johnson, aware of the extreme paranoia that had risen in response to Kennedy’s death, knew that for the nation to move on, there needed to be an extensive inquiry into the assassination. He was willing to conduct such an inquiry to settle the questions that surrounded the assassination. Thus, Johnson established by executive order a body colloquially known as the Warren Commission that was tasked with investigating the Kennedy assassination. However, this approach was not Johnson’s first choice for how to handle this sensitive issue.

He, along with his trusted confidante (and future Supreme Court Justice) Abe Fortas, were wary of how a presidential commission would appear to the public. Their chief concern was that such a commission would feed the notion that Johnson was trying to cover something up by being so heavily involved in the investigative process.56 Johnson was instead content to allow the FBI or a Texas investigative body (after all, despite being a presidential murder, it was a Texas crime) go through the evidence and reach their own conclusions.

54 55 56

MD interview with Maurice Norwood. 10:37.

See Paul McCaffrey, ed., Conspiracy Theories (H.W. Wilson, 2012), pp. 95–98.

Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 440–442.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 37 However, it soon became clear that this hands-off approach was not going to be the simple process that Johnson desired. For while Johnson was willing to leave it to the FBI or a Texas commission, he did not account for the inevitable publicity jockeying that began to break out in Congress. Within a week of the assassination, separate congressional inquiries were announced by several committees.57 These fragmentary and likely contradictory congressional and FBI inquiries—a completely undesirable outcome because of the undue publicity they would inspire—had to be headed off lest the investigation of the assassination be turned into a complete media circus. Such a spectacle would not only confuse the public, it was also likely to be a public relations debacle for Johnson’s nascent presidency. Johnson had to establish a body with enough prestige to supersede all other investigations unless he wanted the assassination to become a persistent headache. Even worse was the risk that public suspicions about Soviet involvement in the assassination could snowball into heightened tensions between the two nuclear superpowers.58 Johnson’s motivations in handling the assassination were complex; simultaneously self-serving and noble, also reactionary and deliberative. Regardless of his ultimate motivation, Johnson saw the potential threat of conspiracy as being dire enough that he had to assemble a presidential commission to deal with the crisis.

With this goal in mind, Johnson put together the Warren Commission, headed by the eponymous Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, to investigate the events surrounding Kennedy’s assassination. It was far from being a top-heavy inquiry; Warren was joined on the commission by a bipartisan group of several well-respected public servants and members of Congress, including Senators Richard Russell and John Cooper, Congressmen Hale Boggs and Gerald Ford, and former CIA director Allen Dulles. Convincing this illustrious body to serve turned out to be somewhat of a headache itself, however. Johnson had to produce this respectable committee by intensely lobbying and guilt-tripping Russell and Warren, both of whom had strong reservations about serving on the committee.59 Still, Johnson ultimately wore down both men. During his meeting with Warren, Johnson repeatedly played on the Chief Justice’s World War I military service, emphasizing that the country needed him to step up again with the less than kind but persuasive comment, “I think you put on your uniform in World War I, fat as you are, and would do anything you could to save one American life. And I’m surprised that you, the Chief Justice of the United States of America, would turn me down.”60 According to Johnson, a teary-eyed Warren finally agreed to cast aside his reservations and head up the committee.61 Johnson’s relentless persuasion tactics had delivered him the commission head he desired.

57 Paul Moke, Earl Warren and the Struggle for Justice (Lexington Books, 2018), pp. 248–249.

58 Olmsted, Real Enemies, pp. 116–117.

59 Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 442–449.

60 Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964 (Simon & Schuster, 1998). pp. 66–72.

61 Beschloss, Taking Charge, pp. 66–72.

38 | Slideshow By contrast, Johnson’s persuasion of Russell involved a strange combination of full-on begging, threatening, and subterfuge. Aware of Russell’s intense disdain for Warren (due to the “outrage” of the Brown decision) and his skepticism that the Chief Justice should serve on such an inquiry, Johnson eventually broke his pitiful tone by snarling to his former mentor that “the Chief ought to do anything he can to save America.”62 Johnson refused to accept Russell’s intransigence, yelling at one point, “You’re goddamned sure going to serve…I’ll tell you that!”63 His intense pursuit of these august committee members shows that Johnson knew the importance of having a respectable settling of the issue. With the reputations of these esteemed and long-serving public figures undergirding the inquiry, Johnson hoped that the nation would be convinced that the matter was being taken seriously and investigated responsibly.

Despite the mission statement of the commission and the stature of its members, it would be naïve to believe that Johnson was attempting to create a fully autonomous investigative body. In fact, part of Johnson’s intense push to have Russell on the commission was so that he could have “his man” on it.64 This desire of Johnson’s requires some clarification, as his wish to have someone he could rely on serving on the committee does not suggest that Johnson had some nefarious purpose, as some fringe authors have suggested.65 Instead, Johnson’s motive behind having Russell on the panel was simply a hope that Russell could help to move things along quickly and reach a conclusion that would prove Oswald had been the killer.66 Incidentally, Johnson was not the only government official with his own man on the commission, as the recent release of FBI documents has revealed that Gerald Ford was keeping Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau apprised of the committee’s investigation.67 Regardless of who was informing whom, many committee members had a mutual interest in smoothing over inconsistencies and disagreements in order to wrap up the reports as soon as possible.68 The committee, like Johnson, sought to rush the process because of the factors outlined above: fear that the country would be hurt by a protracted investigation and to prevent the potential escalation of tensions with the Soviets. With these factors in mind, a quick report, which would hopefully cool the nation’s fear and allay its suspicions, was the best outcome.

This impetus to speed things up was unofficially helped by Hoover and the Bureau’s campaign of interference. The FBI’s interference was a result of the fact that Hoover and his Bureau staff had produced their own report. While the Warren Commission report was designed by Johnson to serve as the definitive inquiry into the Kennedy assassination, the FBI still released its own report. The FBI report, rapidly 62 Beschloss, Taking Charge, pp. 66–72.

63 Beschloss, Taking Charge, pp. 66–72. Emphasis from text.

64 Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 447–450.

65 While such publications are a little beyond the scope of serious history and thus this paper, for a good example of a satirical take on Johnson’s involvement that gained surprising belief among the public, please refer to Jesse Walker’s The United States of Paranoia, pp. 228–232.

66 Olmsted, Real Enemies, pp. 118–119.

67 Moke, Earl Warren and the Struggle for Justice (Lexington Books, 2017). pp. 253–254.

68 Goldberg, Enemies Within, pp. 111–113.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 39 released in December 1963, concluded that Oswald acted alone and was responsible for all shots and wounds suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally.69 However, Hoover did not appreciate another body wading into something he considered his territory and thus sought to control the Warren Commission.

Additionally, the Bureau worried that an independent investigation would reveal that it had not acted upon information about Oswald that it most likely should have turned over to the Secret Service.70 This led the FBI to effectively stonewall the commission by offering up as little information as possible, a task made much easier by the information it received from its man on the inside, Gerald Ford.71 While Hoover’s intention are murkier than Johnson’s, it is necessary to take a step back to assess them, as some point to the FBI’s interference as evidence of a coordinated government conspiracy.72 However, the interference could also simply be read as bureaucratic blame shifting, shored up by Hoover’s determination to not admit that critical security errors were made at his beloved Bureau. The Commission also received no help from former CIA director and committee member Allen Dulles, who chose to not share the information that the FBI was concealing.73 Considering the near-farcical number of double agents and occurrences of hidden information, it not that surprising that the Commission had issues.

Interference aside, the Commission had a tough task simply because of the nature of what it was trying to accomplish. Jim Gaither, who as a young clerk for Chief Justice Warren reviewed many of the report’s citations before publication, believes that the reason the report invited so much scrutiny was simple: “It is almost impossible to prove a negative, that something didn’t happen.”74 This phrasing explains a great deal, as it neatly sums up the structural difficulties the report faced.

The Commission was commissioned with the daunting task of definitively concluding the matter in which Kennedy was murdered, a daunting task considering the most important witness to the murder of the president had himself been murdered. Adding the wrinkle that the Commission was forced to quickly produce its report, the odds that the commission would furnish a satisfying report were low from the start.

The work produced by the Commission was a gargantuan 888-page tome.

This colossal report was what was ultimately presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, less than a year after Kennedy’s assassination. Hardly anything in the report was a surprise to Johnson due to his discussions with Russell throughout the Commission’s work. The size of the report makes summarizing it a little difficult, but in terms of the conspiracy culture that would flow from the report, there are a few key findings that are worth highlighting.

69 Moke, Earl Warren and the Struggle for Justice, p. 250–254.

70 Olmsted, Real Enemies, pp. 118–121.

71 Ibid.

72 One of the most famous JFK conspiracy “truthers,” Gerald McKnight specifically makes the case for a cover-up by pointing to the FBI’s odd actions as evidence of conspiracy. While I personally think McKnight’s approach is informed too strongly by his desire to uncover evidence of a cover-up as opposed to the simpler explanation of incompetence, it is worth reading his chapter “FBI Blunders and Coverups in the JFK Assassination” in his book Breach of Trust to better understand the conspiracy side.

73 Goldberg, Enemies Within, p. 113.

74 MD interview with Jim Gaither, 17:11.

40 | Slideshow First, the Commission concluded that Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy, a repudiation of the widespread fear (including in government circles) that Oswald was the agent of a foreign government.75 The commission also concluded that Oswald was responsible for all three shots fired that day, and that two of these bullets had caused the wounds suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally.76 Finally, the commission concluded that Jack Ruby acted alone in assassinating Lee Harvey Oswald.77 This set of conclusions meant that the Warren Commission had dismissed practically all theories about a possible conspiracy, assigning the blame for the terror of the assassination to one man who would similarly be assassinated by a lone gunman. In short, Lee Harvey Oswald was found to be solely responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy.

Despite bold declarations put forth in their report, it would be a mistake to assume that the Warren Commission’s members were working in lockstep throughout the process. Behind the scenes, the Commission was at times very contentious. Most strikingly, Senator Russell threatened at various points to not sign his name to the full report. Other members expressed their doubts at various points in the investigation.

Despite these concerns, the report was made public three days later.

These decisions show that the Commission’s primary concern was offering solutions to the part of the assassination that had caused confusion. The members of the Commission, along with the two key figures unofficially influencing events, Hoover and Johnson, wanted to tidily put away notion of conspiracy. However, the wisdom of this approach was always suspect. Considering the difficulty Commission members had in convincing themselves of their own conclusions, it seems foolhardy that they thought they could put to bed the notions of conspiracy in such a short time frame. In this aspect, the Warren Commission represents a lost opportunity to address the theories of conspiracy. This miss is explained by political considerations, but it is disappointing nonetheless.

“Oswald Was One Hell of a Shot. Or He Had Some Help.”: Reactions to the Report Despite the Warren Commission’s blunders, skepticism about the report’s conclusions did not instantaneously sprout in every American. For those like David Watts, it would be their further life experience that really fostered doubt in him.

When asked whether he subscribed to the various conspiracy theories that surround the assassination, he remarked, “I’ve always had my doubts. And the reason I’ve had my doubts, was not initially, but later on, especially when I was in the army, and I learned what it was like to fire weapons, and understood what it took to fire and hit a moving target. Oswald was one hell of a shot. Or he had some help.”78 75 76 77 78

Olmsted, Real Enemies, pp. 126–129.

Ibid.

Ibid.

MD interview with David Watts, 4:02.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 41 Watts’ reflection is in fact relevant to one of the pro-conspiracy crowd’s most important claims, the so called “magic bullet”. The use of the term “magic bullet” connotes skepticism as it is a derisive critique of the Commission’s report. As previously outlined, the Commission had determined that Oswald fired three shots.

It concluded that two of these shots were responsible for the injuries sustained

by President Kennedy and Governor Connally.79 This is where the magic bullet controversy originates, as that meant that the second round to strike Kennedy also struck Governor Connally, an odd trajectory for a bullet. For conspiracy believers, this seemed to be definitive evidence that there was another shooter. The questions of marksmanship were indeed a head-scratcher. It is possible that both the Commission and the conspiracy camp have assigned too much value to the quite honestly junky quality of the Zapruder film. This film is some of the only video evidence of the assassination; however it is extremely limited just since it was shot on a home camera in 1963. The quality of the film is not helped by governmental misprintings that seemed to confirm a second shooter.80 One thing that is clear is that the question of the volley, “magic bullet” or not, was not handled well by either the FBI or the Commission. There could have been any number of anomalies that a more in-depth investigation would have uncovered. Instead, the self-imposed time crunch continued to be the motivating factor.

For some, distrust of the Warren Commission was almost immediate. Though the Commission was lauded by the various organizations for its conclusion that there was no conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, there were those who met the report with blatant skepticism.81 Part of the distrust can also be explained by the relative inaccessibility of the text. The colossal size of the report did not make for an easy read.

Those who did attempt to read it often found themselves frustrated, including Grace Watts who confided that “I actually tried reading it, oh my God, and I don’t think it ever really answered the questions.”82 Others, like Maurice Norwood, were skeptical that the Commission had worked efficiently to answer the questions of conspiracy.83 This skepticism about the report is an encapsulation of how the Warren Commission members ultimately failed to convince the American public to trust in the report and thus prevent conspiratorial thought. For while those on the Commission were certainly dealt an unfair hand in terms of the time they had to investigate, they failed to produce something that most Americans could easily digest and understand.

Despite the inaccessibility of the text discouraging many Americans, there were those who did read the full report. Paradoxically, today the Warren Commission report serves as a central text for both conspiracist and anti-conspiracist alike. For while both camps view the report differently, they both agree that some of the report’s conclusions are essential in answering whether or not there was a conspiracy.

For anti-conspiracists, the report is a perfectly fine recollection of the assassination, 79 80 81 82 83

Goldberg, Enemies Within, pp. 115–117.

Ibid.

Goldberg, Enemies Within, pp. 110-115.

MD interview with Grace Watts, 29:20.

MD interview with Maurice Norwood, 13:43.

42 | Slideshow one that doesn’t need review. For the pro-conspiracy crowd, combing through the Commission’s report and sharing what they perceived to be inconsistencies with likeminded Americans became nearly obsessive.84 Though most of these skeptics had no official investigative training, they believed that they could correct what the report alleged. Still, it is remarkable that both camps have such an investment in the report.

Despite the six decades that have passed, the Warren Commission report and the conspiracy culture that clouds Kennedy’s assassination continue to be linked despite other inquiries into the event.

Strikingly, the skeptics of the Warren Commission included the new president himself. Privately, Johnson agreed with Russell that the report was fishy. Speaking to a reporter shortly before his death, he made this belief public, remarking, “I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger,” an assertion that goes directly against one of the Commission’s central findings.85 Jim Gaither, who served as both Warren and Johnson’s aide, said that Johnson personally believed that Cuba was responsible.86 However, the beleaguered report did find acceptance by some Americans.

Grace Clark, when asked what she thought of the report remarked “Oh, I thought it was probably as good a recollection as we were going to get.”87 Likewise, Joanne Laposa commented that “I always just thought it was [Oswald].88 So while the report failed to convince many Americans, there were some who accepted its conclusions.

However, as polling shows these Americans have almost always been a minority.89 With this outcome, the Warren Commission report can only be seen as a clear failure. The report’s shoddy and rushed workmanship translated, unsurprisingly, to an unconvinced American public.

Unhealed Wound: The Continued Belief in a Kennedy Conspiracy The result of these various mistakes (some quite egregious) by the federal government in handling the confusion over the Kennedy assassination have resulted in a public perception that the crime was either unsolved or covered up by the American government. Clearly, the Warren Commission failed in its mission of resolving the issue in the minds of many Americans.

Today, the assassination conspiracy has found stable footing in the minds of numerous Americans, not just the ones who witnessed the coverage of Kennedy’s assassination on their television sets. Though the Kennedy assassination has invited reinterpretation across various forms of media, Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK stands 84 Olmsted, Real Enemies, pp. 130-133.

85 Leo Janos, “The Last Days of the President,” The Atlantic (Atlantic Media Company, August 24, 2018), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1973/07/the-last-days-of-the-president/376281/.

86 MD interview with Jim Gaither, 17:11.

87 MD interview with Grace Clark, 10:15.

88 MD interview with Joanne Laposa, 5:26.

89 Art Swift, “Majority in U.S. Still Believe JFK Killed in a Conspiracy,” Gallup.com (Gallup, November 13, 2021), https://news.gallup.com/poll/165893/majority-believe-jfk-killed-conspiracy.aspx.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 43 out as an interpretation of the assassination that convinced Americans that something was being hidden from them. As conspiracy around the Kennedy assassination has fueled a veritable industry, it is doubtful that the question of conspiracy will fade away, even as the Americans who witnessed the events of November 1963 grow older and pass on.

The Kennedy assassination conspiracy’s future persistence is an open question.

One promising sign is that recent polling reveals a decline in the percentage of the United States population that believes that multiple people were involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.90 However, while there has been a decline in suspicion (in 1975, 81 percent of Americans surveyed believed in a plot involving multiple people, versus 61 percent in 2013), a clear majority of the country still believes that some kind of conspiracy was at work. This continued intense belief in conspiracy shows a real failure by successive Congresses and presidents to fully answer the questions that plague the memory of the Kennedy assassination. It seems overly optimistic to assume that these questions will be solved any time soon.

Furthermore, the recent resurgence of conspiracy culture arguably clouds the expectation that a conspiratorial view of the Kennedy assassination is on the decline.

The truth is that American conspiracy culture has drastically changed since these polls were last taken. Thanks to social media, conspiracy theories are able to spread at an exponential rate, capable of reaching millions of people and convincing them of conspiracy in mere minutes. In short, American conspiracy culture has been emboldened and exacerbated by the free rein that social media platforms allow.

A clear example of the new conspiracy status quo is the growth of the QAnon movement, the belief among some that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and finally, the January 6th insurrection. There are clear through lines between these violent conspiracies and the Kennedy assassination conspiracies. This is not to say that having skepticism about the Kennedy assassination and violent action are inexorably linked. Yet there are clear ties between this skepticism and the QAnon movement, such as the recent watch parties for the return of John F Kennedy Jr. and his father.91 Current conspiracy culture is thus clearly connected to the initial swirl of doubt that characterized the public’s reception of the Kennedy assassination.

Unfortunately, the government response to conspiratorial trends has been lacking.

Furthermore, the delay in publicly releasing several documents relevant to the Kennedy assassination under both the Trump and Biden administrations only serves to further the notion that there was a cover-up.92 These additional documents may contain nothing that changes the current understanding of the Kennedy assassination, 90 Ibid.

91 Shelby Tauber, “‘Michael Always Says There’s No Coincidences,’” New York Magazine, November 24, 2021, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/inside-the-qanon-rally-to-revive-jfk-indallas-dealey-plaza.html.

92 Vimal Patel, “Biden Delays the Release of Remaining J.F.K. Assassination Records, Citing the Pandemic,” The New York Times (The New York Times, October 23, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/ 2021/10/23/us/politics/jfk-assassination-pandemic.html.

44 | Slideshow which was the case with documents released during the Trump presidency.93 Regardless of what content is in them, they need to be released should the nation ever hope to put this painful history behind it.

Ultimately, the Capitol riot that occurred on January 6th, 2021 is a dire omen for the future of conspiracy in the United States. Putting aside the immediate violence that occurred on that day, there is an issue of trust in government that is in no way guaranteed to simply evaporate because of the horror of what occurred on January 6th. For the near future at least, conspiracy culture needs to be monitored.

Otherwise, there is the strong chance that it will produce another horror.

93

Ibid.

Shot Dead in Dallas | 45

Bibliography Primary Sources Oral history interviews – Interview with Grace Watts, June 24th, 2021 – Interview with David Watts, June 24th, 2021 – Interview with Richard Faircloth, July 21st, 2021 – Interview with Maurice Norwood, July 24th, 2021 – Interview with May Watts, July 24th, 2021 – Interview with Jim Gaither, August 27th, 2021 – Interview with Grace Clark, September 11th, 2021 – Interview with Joanne Laposa, September 12th, 2021 Chet Huntley Personal Papers, John F Kennedy Presidential Library – Dorothy DeLomel: Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963.

November 1963: 21–23. CHPP-001-002-p0016. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

– Huntley’s remarks on hate: Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963. November 1963: 21–23. CHPP-AU01-001. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

– Joseph J. Schultz: Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963.

November 1963: 21–23. CHPP-001-002-p0026. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

– Lawrence Scritchfield: Chet Huntley Personal Papers. Correspondence, 1963. November 1963: 21–23. CHPP-001-002-p0010 - CHPP-001002-p0012. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Other Primary Sources Beschloss, Michael R. Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964.

Simon & Schuster, 1998.

Janos, Leo. “The Last Days of the President.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, August 24, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/1973/07/the-last-days-of-the-president/376281/.

Miller, David. “To Tell the Truth to Pollsters,” CBS News (CBS Interactive, August 15, 2007), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/to-tell-the-truth-to-pollsters/.

November 27, 1963: Address to Joint Session of Congress printed in Bruce Schulman, Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism.

Secondary Sources Ayton, Mel. Plotting to Kill the President: Assassination Attempts from Washington to Hoover. University of Nebraska Press, 2017.

Caro, Robert A. The Passage of Power. Vintage Books, 2013.

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46 | Slideshow Hoberek, Andrew, and Peter Knight. “The Kennedy Assassination and Postmodern Paranoia.” In The Cambridge Companion to John F. Kennedy, edited by Andrew Hoberek, 164–77. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Hogan, Michael J. The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Justesen, Benjamin R. Forgotten Legacy: William McKinley, George Henry White, and the Struggle for Black Equality. Louisiana State University Press, 2020.

Manchester, William. The Death of a President: November 20–November 25, 1963.

Back Bay Books, 2013.

McCaffrey, Paul, editor. Conspiracy Theories. H.W. Wilson, 2012.

Moke, Paul. Earl Warren and the Struggle for Justice. Lexington Books, 2017.

Olmsted, Kathryn S. Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11. Tenth Anniversary Edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019.

O’Donnell, Kenneth P., David F. Powers, and Joe McCarthy. Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye. Little, Brown, and Co., 1972.

Patel, Vimal. “Biden Delays the Release of Remaining J.F.K. Assassination Records, Citing the Pandemic.” The New York Times, October 23, 2021. https:// www.nytimes.com/2021/10/23/us/politics/jfk-assassination-pandemic.html.

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“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain”: Emmett Till and the Poetic Contours of Memory Kiara Mallory The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on August 28, 1955, was a trauma that left ineffaceable marks on the African American consciousness, forever impacting our memories and identity. Understanding such trauma is crucial for addressing the suffering that the Black community perpetually endures through instances of untimely deaths and violence.

This essay provides a critical reading of three Black American elegies that use the subject of Emmett Till’s murder, one of our moments of deepest pain, to speak more broadly about African American death and dying. I am especially interested in the way that poetry has preserved this particular moment over time. By analyzing the various poetic styles, word choices, forms, and voice in these poems, I intend to explore the relationship between history, death, trauma, mourning, and memory in the reading of literature as memorial.

A white woman stands bereft and empty a black boy hacked into a murderous lesson recalled in me forever —Audre Lorde, “Afterimages”

Introduction Emmett Louis Till, born to Mamie Till-Mobley and Louis Till on July 25, 1941, in Chicago, Illinois, lived a modest life with his mother, growing very close to her following his father’s death during World War II. During a trip to visit his family in Money, Mississippi, the fourteen-year-old African American boy was accused of “whistling” at Carolyn Bryant, a twenty-one-year-old married white woman who was the proprietor of a small grocery store. In response, he was kidnapped and brutally murdered by Carolyn’s husband and brother-in-law. The details of his murder vary by account, but what is irrefutable is this: on August 28, 1955, the murderers beat him, gouged out his eye, removed his teeth, and destroyed the once recognizable face and body of Mamie Till-Mobley’s only son. After being tormented to the brink of death, Till was shot and thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a cotton-gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire.

The trial and exoneration of Till’s murderers by an all-white, all-male jury would have a lasting impact on the African American community through the reiteration of America’s disregard for Black life. Emmett Till’s death had an especially drastic effect because of his youth and innocence, the brutality of his murder, and the bogus trial that dismissed his life and importance to his community. The outcry that resulted from his harsh killing and trial highlighted the lack of justice that the Black community receives when its members are victims of racial violence or death.

48 | Slideshow Emmett Till, a catalyst for the civil rights movement, exemplifies the centrality of death in African American existence and the cyclical nature and history of Black trauma. For this reason, the literary memorialization of African American death is a salient and distinctive mechanism for the preservation of the memory of all Black Americans lost to racial violence and for understanding the impact of Black child death in America. Popularized images of Emmett Till’s corpse became a symbol of racial violence in America. His unjust killing marks a crucial moment in history and has a unique place in Black history. Till’s death exhibited the historical codes of violence exacted upon Black people who broke the rules of white supremacy in the Deep South. His murder became a source of indignation that inspired Black Americans, galvanizing civil rights activists and fueling sociopolitical activism across the nation.

Beyond its function as an impetus of the civil rights movement, Emmett Till’s case can help us understand the psychological impact of the death of Black children on the Black consciousness and the mechanisms that writers have employed to comprehend, remember, and heal from Black trauma. The mourning that follows the racially motivated killing of Black people and the cultural representations created in response to these incidents speak to the psychological effect of death in the Black community. Till’s death highlights the complexities of racial hierarchy in America.

Recognition of his death as an act of racially motivated violence provoked the expression of mourning and grief in response to his alleged whistle at or grasp of Carolyn Bryant and his consequent blatant murder. The literary memorialization of Emmett Till is a contribution to the healing of a united Black consciousness surrounding Black deaths. These memorials become a site for reflection and a foundation for progress as they reveal the power of Emmett Till’s death to shake the consciousness of this nation.

However the image enters its force remains within my eyes —Audre Lorde, “Afterimages” When Mamie Till invited us to look at the battered body of her only son, she brought us to mourn the historical and future denigration of Black life in America.

Her decision to allow for the photographic capture of her son’s body left the nation in shock and produced indelible marks of trauma and violence on the Black consciousness for generations to come. In this expansive moment, she changed the meaning of the lynched Black body. This moment is much larger than the story of one young boy. It is a moving evocation of childhood, Blackness, and the deprecation of African American racial identity in America. And though the generational circumstances of August 28, 1955, have changed, the brutality against Black bodies has an unwavering history, testifying to the significance of death and dying in twentieth and twenty-first century African America. Emmett Louis Till’s death is the epitome of Black trauma as it pervades the Black conscious, a testament to the ability of singular stories and memories to move toward, be shared, and resonate within community narratives. The particularly symbolic language of the writers who so

“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 49 diligently use literature as a memorial of African American death generates a notable nexus between Black grief and African American national experiences. What these authors have done is construct a memorial of Black death that documents the reality of this particular horrific event, inscribing Black American death with veracity and eloquence, making an account of a collective African American experience. But what about Till’s death is unique to historical moments of loss in the Black community?

Mamie Till-Mobley made the brave decision to have an open casket at Emmett Till’s funeral, leading to the in-person viewing and famous photograph that spread across the nation and publicized his cruel murder. Given the omnipresence of death in Black America, Till is immortalized in Audre Lorde’s “Afterimages,” a poem that demonstrates that mourning in the Black community is individual and yet shared, necessary yet painful, linked to specific events and yet endless. Lorde’s poem thus serves as a framework to navigate responses to the death of Emmett Till and the power of these voices to remember and bring back. Her poem, and those of other poets, both illustrates the memorialization of Emmett Till in literature and the power of Black authors to tell and recall his story in their own style.

Mamie Till summons us to discover Emmett’s body in the Tallahatchie River, to look closely at the harrowing marks of racial violence visible from his swollen, eyeless head to his raw, bloated feet. She asks us to consider the photograph that lives in the depths of our minds, to recognize the imprint that her boy’s death had on the fabric of American history and memory. Mamie’s courage unsettled masses and lifted the voices of Black America. learning to survive —Audre Lorde, “Afterimages” Death has integrated itself into Black identity. The historical reduction of and perpetual violence toward Black bodies has resulted in the inextricable link between decimation and Black identity. Despite death’s inevitability at the end of all lives, in Black America, due to the long history of anti-Black violence that results in the deaths of innocent men, women, and children, “the cycles of our daily lives were so persistently interrupted by specters of death that we worked this experience into the culture’s iconography and included it as an aspect of black cultural sensibility.”1 Ergo, the cultural trauma experienced as a consequence of the murder of Emmett Till was about both the frequency of death in the Black community and the detestation of Blackness in America. That is, if the all-white, all-male jury had not “stopped to drink pop...it wouldn’t have taken that long”2 to acquit Till’s boastful murderers and fortify the irrefutable neglect of Black life. The Black community has always been terrorized by the certitude that Black life was at the disposal of white America, and that children, regardless of their inherent innocence, were not and would never be safe from the possibility of inopportune death. Thus, death has a particularly 1 Karla Holloway, Passed On: African American Mourning Stories, A Memorial (Duke University Press, 2002), p. 6.

2 Anne Sarah Rubin, “Reflections on the Death of Emmett Till,” Southern Cultures 2:1 (1995), p. 47.

50 | Slideshow transformative role in Black America as the various occurrences of trauma leave ineffaceable scars on our memory. Because “mourning is a constantly nuanced, fractile, continuous unfolding that grows and expands with the lyrical calls and responses of each generation across time,”3 the numerous literary references to Emmett Till from 1955 to today attest to the permanence of his presence in the Black consciousness and to the ways in which we understand, experience, and cope with death and dying.

Poems have the ability to capture a moment and make it vivid through the use of locution, diction, sounds, and typography. These are some of the mechanisms by which Emmett Till’s life has been preserved. Though Till “has no voice in all that has been written about him,”4 the written accounts have preserved his life through time and have brought his passing to another level of consciousness. Emmett Till’s nuanced existence in scholarly work and literature represents the nation’s response to the complexities of his murder, creating a spectrum of the possible meanings of his death in public and private memory. Till’s death is a microcosm of extrajudicial killings in Black America. His death has intimately integrated itself into American poetry, memoir, fiction, and drama, emerging as one of the most poignant and evocative mnemonics of racial injustice.

Till is the archetype of Black male contiguity to death. His positionality in American society as well as his ensuing death reify the belief that African American life is expendable. When the possibility of untimely death was carried out with insolence and cruelty to a child in our community, “people had to consider all of that as they viewed Emmett’s body” (Mamie Till-Mobley).5 Till’s murder was an intimation for Black people to stay in our place. James Baldwin points out that for Black people, “what [white people] believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.”6 Baldwin’s words in 1962 have an unfortunate, timely relevance today, when the kismet of Black male life is seemingly death and violence. Baldwin contemplates Black male futures in America while recognizing the expectation of Black male acquiescence to white America. Baldwin’s refusal to submit to white America calls attention to the historical maltreatment of Black men in America and the necessity to never accept injustice as confirmation of inferiority. His perspective attests to the significance of the intersection of literature and social consciousness. Through the use of poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks (1960), Audre Lorde (1977), and Eve L. Ewing (2018) acknowledge the ways in which Black men have been historically subjected to

3 Rebecca Mark, “Mourning Emmett: ‘One Long Expansive Moment,’” The Southern Literary Journal 40:2 (Spring 2008), p. 123.

4 Rubin, “Reflections,” p. 47.

5 Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America. (One World/Ballantine, 2005), p. 135. Mamie discusses the realities of Black life and death that people had to encounter when visiting Emmett in his casket and in the following years through the photos of his body.

6 James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (Dial Press, 1963), p. 8.

“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 51 heinous crimes and the distinct role that Emmett Till plays in understanding how the Black male, his image, and his existence has been tainted. my eyes are always hungry and remembering —Audre Lorde, “Afterimages”

The Literary Emmett After being found not guilty in September of 1955, Roy Bryant, the husband of Carolyn Bryant, and J.W. Milam, his half-brother, admitted in an interview published in Look magazine in January 1956 that they had murdered Emmett Till.7 America’s docile acceptance of Milam and Bryant’s confession to Till’s kidnapping, torture, and murder was reinforced by the court of law’s refusal to hold the men responsible. Over the course of the past sixty-six years, writers have keenly woven Till’s murder into the fabric of American poetry. The numerous configurations reimagine the impact of the wounds of death on Black consciousness and memory, and the role that Till’s murder plays in the shaping of Black cultural identity.

Deeply impacted by Till’s case and murder, Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks wrote two related poems published in her 1960 collection The Bean Eaters: “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon” and the more laconic “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till.” What is important about “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till,” in addition to its emotive lyricism, is the visual appearance of the poem on the page. The white space expresses a necessary silence integral to the coping process; these voids represent the unspeakable horrors of Till’s tragic murder. There lies a pause,8 a momentary stillness that both commemorates Emmett Till and rhythmically structures the language as a tribute. Both poems center a portion of their lines to express the feelings of Till’s mother as a means of understanding the individual most directly impacted by his murder and to explicate grief from a maternal point of view. Focusing on the aftermath of the death, Brooks paints an image of Mamie Till as “She kisses her killed boy. / And she is sorry” (lines 7-8). Mamie’s remorse in “The Last Quatrain” is contrasted by that of Carolyn Bryant in “A Bronzeville Mother” feeling as though “The fun was disturbed, then all but nullified / When the Dark Villain was a blackish child / Of fourteen” (lines 24-26). This remorse is echoed by James Van Der Zee, who recognized that for Black children, “their dying is our sin,”9 pointing out America’s responsibility to protect its most vulnerable members.

7 Andrew Yarrow,“A Look Back at the Magazine That Exposed Emmett Till’s Killers,” New York Daily News, Dec. 9, 2021, retrieved from www.nydailynews.com.

8 “I paused at the door” (Death of Innocence, p. 133), Mamie Till notes, recalling her first encounter with Emmett after sending him to Mississippi to visit family. Mamie describes the pause before her viewing of Emmett’s destroyed body and the horror caused by observing his almost unrecognizable, tortured figure.

9 James van der Zee, Owen Dodson, and Camille Billips, The Harlem Book of the Dead (Morgan & Morgan, 1978), p. 40.

52 | Slideshow “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till” models Gwendolyn Brooks’ interest in and revision of the ballad form. Known to be composed in a variety of configurations, the ballad meter is typically characterized by an abcb rhyme scheme with a quatrain of alternating four- and three-stress lines. The influence of this classical ballad form is evident in the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks and her conception of “what poetic form revolutionary poetry should take.”10 Brooks’ profound use of a traditional poetic form to discuss Emmett Till’s death marks an important grasp of Till’s necessary presence in a narrative tradition that notably recounts tragic and heroic stories. She places a young Black boy from Chicago in conversation with the Scottish ballad “Barbara Allen,” Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” and Poe’s “Annabel Lee.”11 Remarkably brief, “The Last Quatrain” offers unfeigned insight into Emmett’s mother’s sentiment (“And she is sorry”) through the horrors that prompted her grief.

The opening of “The Last Quatrain,” a parenthetical epigraph, commemorates Emmett Till’s life and the remembrance America is left with following his death.

Brooks’ inaugural couplet jumps to “(after the murder, / after the burial),”12 underlining a past grammatical tense that functions to place the situation of Emmett’s killing in history. After his death, all that is left is remembrance and the memory of his life and impact on the Black community. Her choice to exclude aspects of his living speak to Emmett Till’s position as an ordinary boy until he was brutally murdered and took his place in the history of African American male demise. Brooks’ repetition of “after” emphasizes the reverberation of Till’s murder and his ongoing presence in her memory. The usage of the term “burial” eliminates a common literary focus on the murderers and centers Till, his mother, and those at the graveside.

The poem demonstrates Brooks’ understanding of the contradictions of death and love and of the poetry that has historically articulated them. It also conveys Mamie’s painful desire to return to the time of Emmett’s living. The nonchalance of the third line—“Emmett’s Mother is a pretty-faced thing;”—contrasts the plaintive language of the rest of Brooks’ reflection of a mother who must cope with the unspeakable, public loss of a child to racially motivated hatred. It also suggests that Emmett Till’s “pretty face” would have looked like his mother’s were it not for the damage done to it. If the first line voices the ballad’s idea of tragedy, the third line expresses the ballad’s tale of love and the simplicities of living. However, the melancholy of Till’s mother is conveyed through the following lines of Brooks’ poem, testifying to the incessant grief experienced by Mamie Till-Mobley and the Black community: 10 Karen Jackson Ford, “The Last Quatrain: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Ends of Ballads,” Twentieth Century Literature, 56:3, p. 374.

11 The anonymous “Barbara Allen,” “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats, and “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe are examples of popular ballads. Bringing up these poems is emphasizing Brooks’ effort to put an ordinary child in conversation with, and on the same level as, characters of the popular poetry and poets. The Poetry Foundation uses some of these examples to explicate the ballad form of poetry.

12 Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till,” lines 1–2.

“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 53 She sits in a red room, drinking black coffee.

She kisses her killed boy And she is sorry.

Chaos in windy grays through a red prairie. (lines 5–10) The intimacy of Mamie’s kiss is indicative of her adieu and coalesces her sorrow.

The alliteration in “kisses her killed boy” emphasizes the correspondence between unbidden death and love, and what Whitman has called a “wait for what will be exhibited by death,”13 which becomes a fondness and attachment to Emmett’s remembrance. The penitence that Mamie feels as a result of her inability to protect her young boy is echoed by Imani Perry, who considers the weight of mothering Black boys in America in Breathe: A Letter to My Sons. What Perry shares with Mamie that is so powerfully illuminated by Brooks is a desire for “them to admit that you are people. Black boys. People.”14 Brooks similarly stresses Emmett Till’s humanity by representing the tender kiss between a mother and “her killed boy.”

Correspondingly, Margaret Walker used poetic form in “For My People” to note the stage in African American history “when we discovered we / were black and poor and small and different and nobody / cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood” (lines 19–22).15 Black women writers have found it important to accentuate the importance of protecting the lives of Black Americans because of our singularly unique and endangered position in American society. Further, Walker’s poem points to the necessity of preserving those “lending their strength to the years, to the / gone years and the now years and the maybe years” (lines 10–11).

The emphatic expression and short line length of “And she is sorry” (Brooks, “The Last Quatrain,” line 8) acknowledges a role of responsibility that Mamie has taken on in the murder of her child. In response to the astonishment that Mamie faces at the death of her child, Imani Perry reflects and prepares herself, stating that “I have known from the very first day of each of your lives that I cannot guarantee your safety.”16 Perry recognizes the possibility of losing a Black son in America and 17 uses the experience of Mamie Till to avoid ever having to sit in this “red room” and contemplate life after the violent death of her son. Perry proposes that society “bar mitzvah Black American boys at eleven”18 to save Black mothers the horror of experiencing the untimely death of their children and the travesty of society viewing 13 Walt Whitman, “Night on the Prairies” line 23, in Leaves of Grass.

14 Imani Perry, Breathe: A Letter to My Sons (Beacon Press, 2020), p. 1.

15 The poem “For My People” by Margaret Walker commemorates the efforts of Black Americans throughout history who have made a life and a name in the face of society doing everything in its power to kill us, lock us up, and take away our opportunities for success and happiness in America.

16 Perry, Breathe, p. 7.

17 Mamie Till “sits in a red room” (line 5) after the death of Emmett in “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till.”

18 Perry, Breathe, p. 11. Perry discusses the shift of private grief into collective grief and the ongoing effects of the deaths in the Black community on the Black community.

54 | Slideshow young Black American children as adults. Brooks and Perry are in consensus about the consternation of losing the young boys of African America and the necessity to remember and fight for a better future for our children. They recognize the collective grief experienced from the murder of Emmett Till and call for a shift in the historical conditions of Black America. Their literary efforts to remember this death serve to prevent similar occurrences in the future. And while Brooks works to commemorate the loss of Emmett Till, Perry strives to impact the future and acknowledges that “It 19 is not enough, but we will try to prevent the next. And we will fail.” She points to the never-ending cycle of death in Black America and the efforts by Black Americans to be recognized as human and not targets. Brooks and Perry recognize, but reject, the cycle of Black male killings in America. a woman begins to weep.

—Audre Lorde, “Afterimages” In 1960, Gwendolyn Brooks responded to the horrors of Emmett’s murder through the composition of “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon.” In this narrative poem, Brooks adopts the perspective of Emmett’s accuser, underlining the reality that the Bryant family destroyed “a mouth too young to have lost every reminder / Of its infant softness” (lines 27-28). Brooks’ language intentionally describes Emmett’s youth, a20 concept that has been discussed by other poets as having “a favorite place to play,” being a 22 “young martyr,”21 and having a “youth’s body too light.” Each reference delineates the shock experienced by the Black community when one of its youthful constituents was taken away. The characteristically juvenile language functions to 23 “traumatic injuries” of experiencing the loss of a young member of the Black community. A reading of Brooks’s poem must first be contextualized with Till’s death, the subsequent trial and acquittal, and the reverberation of the killing. The death of African American men was habitual in the twentieth-century South, evident in the lynching of over twenty-five hundred Black people in the Southern United 24 States from 1884 to 1930. Shaping the power dynamic in racialized and gendered forms, the murder and violence against Black men served to assert white male domination and established a social hierarchy that kept Black Americans in their “place.” Violence against African Americans in the South was so common that it is 19 Perry, Breathe, p. 18.

20 Renee Watson, “A Psalm for Emmett Till,” Emmett Till Project, https://www.emmetttillproject. com/renee-watson. Watson emphasizes Till’s youth through a sequence of favorites, including his favorite dessert, joke, and song.

21 John Edgar Wideman, “Looking at Emmett Till,” Creative Nonfiction No. 24/25, IN FACT: THE BEST OF CREATIVE NONFICTION (Creative Nonfiction Foundation, 2005), p. 35.

22 Wanda Coleman, “Emmett Till,” Callaloo 27 (1986), p. 298.

23 Christina Zwarg, “Du Bois on Trauma: Psychoanalysis and the Would-Be Black Savant,” Cultural Critique 51 (2002), p. 3.

24 Aline Helg, “Black Men, Racial Stereotyping, and Violence in the U.S. South and Cuba at the Turn of the Century.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 42:3 (2000), pp. 576–604.

“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 55 remarkable that Emmett Till’s death received so much attention over the years. The blatant disrespect demonstrated by Till’s trial revealed Mississippi’s adherence to racial ideologies and refusal to offer justice to its Black residents. Much of the media coverage focused on Emmett Till’s mutilated body, as well as the murderers, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, and their proud public confession of killing Emmett Till within months after their acquittal. Nevertheless, what B. J. Bolden points out in Urban Rage in Bronzeville is the presence of confessions by both men and the fact that there were no accounts of Carolyn Bryant’s story.25 Carolyn’s position as the individual at the center of the murder and acquittal is contrasted with her silence in the historical record. Carolyn’s silence suggests that her role in the murder was passive, almost insignificant in public discourse.

Brooks contests Carolyn’s trivial role in history by narrowly focusing on the white woman and her responsibility in Till’s death. With a concentration on the white woman instead of a figure of hatred and domination (such as the murderers or the sheriff) or a figure of commiseration (Till or his mother), Brooks examines the detrimental effects of hierarchical power and the consequence of Till’s death as an enduring figure in Carolyn’s memory. The first question that arises is if the white woman casts herself as the “maid mild.” In “A Bronzeville Mother,” Brooks’ first stanza constructs the issue of the degree to which the woman accepts her role in the murder of Emmett Till. For her, Till’s killing is “like a / Ballad. It had the beat inevitable. It had the blood” (line 2). This “ballad,” as we come to learn in the second stanza, is a patriarchal fairy tale—a maiden threatened by the pursuit of “the Dark Villain. Rescued by the Fine Prince” (line 10)—reconstructed with reference to the Southern values of righteous white womanhood, toxic white masculinity, and 26 predatorial Black masculinity. The roles of the “maid mild,” the “Dark Villain,” and the “Fine Prince” are romantic conventions constructed in the woman’s mind, corresponding to the fraudulent story told by her in real life. The capitalization for the male roles and the lack thereof in her title signals the gender hierarchy implicit in her “Happiness-Ever-After” (line 11). The woman struggles in her role as “The beautiful wife” (line 75) striving “To be more beautiful than ever” (line 74) and wondering if “she had been worth it” (line 77) in the eyes of her husband. At the end of stanza two, she concludes that “It was good to be a ‘maid mild.’ / That made the breath go fast.” (lines 11–12). Hence, even though there were obstacles in her role, she was satisfied with playing her part.

In the third stanza, her bacon burns, and we return to this quotidian life.

Carolyn is not a maid in a castle, she is a woman in a house. This issue that Bryant faces in the construction of her fantasy is that the details of Till’s case that do not seem to fit the mold of her story. Carolyn recognizes that “He should have been older.” The ambiguity of her language highlights the countless issues with the killing 25 Barbara Jean Bolden, Urban Rage in Bronzeville: Social Commentary in the Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, 1945–1960 (Third World Press, 1999), esp. p. 111 and following.

26 See Christopher B. Booker, “I Will Wear No Chain!”: A Social History of African American Males (Praeger, 2000), esp. p. 12. Booker discusses the image of the black male as a sexual predator and the white fear constructed around but also creating this false concept.

56 | Slideshow of Emmett Till: he was too young to pose a real threat to the then twenty-one-yearold Carolyn Bryant, too young to understand the racial politics of 1955 Mississippi, too young to face Milam and Bryant, too young to be a “villain.” And despite Emmett Till being unfit for the brutality to come, Carolyn could not take him out of that fateful day and time.

Nothing could stop Mississippi. He knew that. Big fella Knew that.

And, what was so good, Mississippi knew that.

Nothing and nothing could stop Mississippi.

(Brooks, “A Bronzeville Mother,” lines 78–82) Carolyn avoids the responsibility of being the murderer of a young, innocent boy by placing the blame on Mississippi. In this avoidance of grief, she chooses an approach of silence toward this situation. “She did not speak” (line 92), “She said not a word” (line 105), and the elegiac grief of the poem disintegrates into numbness.

The tercet that ends the poem is an extension of Brooks’s “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till” and the conceptualization of Till’s life animated in American poetry. Omitting all of the details of his case, the stanza focuses on the ballad form in order to recenter the structure of this literary memorial and to bring the reader back to the beginning of “A Bronzeville Mother.” With the traditional ballad form in mind, Brooks eliminates the final line of the poem and names the literal last line “The last quatrain.” In doing so, Brooks points out the way that Till’s life went in a direction that it was not supposed to go in, that it veered from the path that a young boy should ever go down. The insufficiency of the final stanza parallels the incomplete life of Emmett Louis Till and the fact that his life was cut too short, too soon.

The last bleak news of the ballad.

The rest of the rugged music.

The last quatrain.

(Brooks, “ A Bronzeville Mother,” lines 136–138) Brooks’s 1960 poems demonstrate the closeness she felt toward Emmett Till.

The deeply personal relationship shared between Emmett Till and Black America is further evoked in the poetry of African Americans such as Audre Lorde, who has recognized the impact his death and legacy have on our conceptions of Black identity and existence.

“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 57 I inherited Jackson, Mississippi.

For my majority it gave me Emmett Till his 15 years puffed out like bruises on plump boy-cheeks his only Mississippi summer whistling a 21 gun salute to Dixie as a white girl passed him in the street and he was baptized my son forever in the midnight waters of the Pearl.

(Lorde, “Afterimages,” lines 47–55) Lorde claims Till as her own son, an important individual in her life, memory, and conceptualization of her American Blackness. With its setting in Jackson, Mississippi, Lorde’s poem is resonant of the vast majority of commemorative poetry centered on Till’s murder location of Mississippi, referenced in poetry such as Marilyn Nelson’s “A Wreath for Emmett Till”27 (2005), Renée Watson’s “A Psalm for Emmett Till”28 (2020), Eve Merriam’s “Money, Mississippi” (1956), and Langston Hughes’s “Mississippi—1955.”

Eve L. Ewing, in her 2018 poem “I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store,” takes Emmett back home to Chicago, “on Roosevelt Road” (line 15). Her return of the boy to his home serves to restore Mamie Till’s family and the loss of Emmett to Money, Mississippi. This is especially significant because of the South’s 29 efforts to keep Till (his corpse) from his mother. Additionally, the reference to Chicago amplifies the importance of knowing that Till was not from the South when he visited in the summer of 1955 and that his unfamiliarity with the racist and discriminatory practices of Mississippi made his death all the more imminent. Ewing, a sociologist and writer from Chicago, has focused her life’s work on the critical theorization of Black life. She specifically focuses on the intersections of history, racism, and other structures of social inequality in the lives of young people. Ewing’s work includes research and publication on race and racism in Chicago’s Bronzeville community. In her poem, Ewing’s encounter with the past takes the form of a conversation with Emmett Till. The conceit of her modern conversation serves to remove Emmett Till as a haunting figure of the past and locate him in the current memories and lives of African Americans today. Ewing brings Till back to life through her encounter with him in a familiar setting, the grocery store, and by means of the casual conversation they shared, as if August 28, 1955, had gone in a vastly different direction.

27 Nelson writes “a Mississippi anecdote” when discussing the facts of Emmett’s case in the poem “A Wreath for Emmett Till.”

28 In “A Psalm for Emmett Till,” Watson describes “a Chicago / boy meeting Mississippi, not just a whistling boy” (lines 29–30). She goes on to talk about other aspects that have been used to discuss Till’s case but should not be used to characterize Till as a person, a child.

29 Till-Mobley and Benson, Death of Innocence, p. 130.

58 | Slideshow The mundanity of Ewing’s poem contrasts the extreme violence of Till’s passing. At first, the poem seems ordinary: a casual stroll, closely inspecting groceries, handling fruit. The protagonist is depicted browsing produce at a grocery store, examining the aesthetic characteristics of plums. Ewing opens with an informal 30 approach to reimagining “if he’d lived.” Till is first noticed looking over the plums, one by one lifting each to his eyes and turning it slowly, a little earth (Ewing, lines 1–3) A curious image is painted of Emmett as Ewing describes his deep interest in the appearance and well-being of the plums. The “lifting” of the plums for review is repeated in line ten and denotes his consideration of the outward appearance of its figure. The plums are signifiers of Till’s own body. This is made known through Ewing’s description of signs Till is specifically looking for on the plum. checking the smooth skin for pockmarks and rot, or signs of unkind days or people, then sliding them gently into the plastic. (lines 4–6) Ewing’s poem highlights how different Till’s life would have been if he had not been murdered. The delicacy with which Till handles the fruit, “sliding them gently into the plastic” (line 5), “cradling them / in the crook of his elbow” (lines 10–11) reverses the manner with which the murderers handled Till’s body, his body being severely beaten and his corpse thrown in the Tallahatchie River. Till is observed making efforts to ensure that the object has not been subjected to any harm, avoiding an incident similar to that of the night of his kidnapping. whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire before realizing the danger of bruising and lifting them back out, cradling them In the crook of his elbow… (lines 7–11) Ewing meticulously alludes to the most controversial aspect of Till’s case: the whistle. She creates a scene where Emmett is carelessly roaming the grocery store, browsing the various produce options, “whistling softly” (line 7). The reference to the infamous whistle through Emmett’s casual whistling in the grocery store transposes 30 A number of literary works, including Janet Langhart Cohen’s 2009 play Anne and Emmett, have used the perspective of “if he’d lived.” Authors use that concept to speak with Emmett Till and learn from his experience, what could have happened, or what happened differently, or use the point of view of speaking with his (Emmett’s) own voice.

“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 59 what was said to have occurred at that other grocery store, Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, where a whistle was claimed to be a form of violation. Rather than explicitly mentioning the contention over the whistle, Ewing places this action in accordance with Emmet’s typical trip to the grocery store. In doing so, Ewing encourages readers to remember the anodyne nature of whistling and the absurdity of Till’s actual death as a consequence of an accusation of whistling. The subtle inclusion of Emmett’s whistling as he saunters through the store is a reminder of his innocence and the accusation of a harmless act that led to his barbaric murder. Similarly, Emmett’s blameless life is reiterated by Shelby Steele, scholar of African American history, who reflected on Emmett Till’s murder as a period of Black national mourning where the witnessing and sharing of these moments of tragedy are bound in the fabric of Black existence.

Oh, how we probed his story, finding in his youth and Northern upbringing the quintessential embodiment of black innocence, brought down by a white evil so portentous and apocalyptical, so gnarled and hideous, that it left us with a feeling not far from awe. By telling his story and others like it, we came to feel the immutability of our victimization, its utter indigenousness, a thing on this earth like dirt or sand or water.31 Steele recognizes Till’s emergence as a spectacle of public mourning and what Fred Moten describes as an exhibition of “kinship wounds.”32 Ewing’s articulation of the shared relationship the Black community has developed with Emmett Till is executed through her laconic claim “I knew him” (line 13). ...I called out his name and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand, looked at me quizzically for a moment before remembering my face. he smiled. well (lines 20–23) Ewing’s much anticipated encounter with Emmett is greeted with a smile. Her first and only description of his appearance is of the grin that he wears, a less popular characteristic of his remembrance. The candy bar that he holds is parallel to that of the candy he entered Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market to buy in 1955, but this time, Ewing shifts the narrative to Emmett obtaining the candy without being in harm’s way. how are things going for you oh he sighed and put the candy on the belt it goes, it goes. (lines 28–30) 31 Shelby Steele, “On Being Black and Middle Class.” Commentary 85:1 (1988), p. 43.

32 Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

60 | Slideshow Ewing’s inversion of the conclusion to Emmett Till’s life communicates the potential for communal healing and transformation following loss. Her answer to the question “What do you say to the past?” is to check on the well-being of the wounded Black community. Furthermore, the intentional use of Till’s neutral response eliminates the sadness brought about by a negative response or the confusion that arises from an overly cheerful response. Ewing allows us to hear from Emmett Till and formulate individualistic responses to our encounter with him in the poem.

Eve L. Ewing’s present-tense experience with Emmett Till allows Black America to confront the past and transforms Till’s tragic death memory into the remembrance of a life.

Emmett Till’s prevalence in the Black American consciousness is a consequence of his innocence, and ultimately, his brutal killing. Till’s role as an enduring signifier in American poetry speaks to the myriad ways in which his life was able to reach, inspire, wound, drive, and reshape the collective identity and cultural trauma of Black America. The figure of Emmett Till in poetry, in its many configurations, is a manifestation of the gravity of constant death in African American life and its ability to remain in our memories. In Audre Lorde’s articulation, “he was baptized my son forever” (“Afterimages,” line 65).

Till made his mark on the Black community for generations to come. While we continue to reject a system that so often fails to protect the Black community, we thank the poets who create timeless, indestructible memorials for those too soon passed on. adapting to breathe blood.

—Audre Lorde, “Afterimages”

Forever Fourteen Emmett Till’s enduring presence in Black American poetry is an attestation of his particular impact on the Black American consciousness through the ways that we experience, mourn, remember, and survive deaths. The death-concept poetry

by Black authors has remarkably preserved the names and stories of victims and showcased unique ways of mourning and acceptance through the shared emotions felt by Black Americans from racially motivated instances of death. Emmett Till, a leitmotif in Black American poetry, allows us to find ways to cope with, and simultaneously combat, spectacles of Black death in American society. The poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks in 1960, Audre Lorde in 1981, and Eve L. Ewing in 2018 demonstrates consistency in Black American mourning from Till’s death to today and the ability of Black authors to recognize the lasting presence of Emmett Till in Black consciousness and create work that is an embodiment of the social and literary forces of its time. These poems are proxies to illustrate the power of Black voice in the mapping of death’s scars on the Black American consciousness. Every time Till’s story is written, his memory resurfaces and his life takes on a new set of meanings.

“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 61 These poets push Black Americans to not become what Karla Holloway deems “a psychological victim of black death,”33 but to use these iterations of Till’s story to heal and remember. Emmett Till is, tragically, not alone. He is but one of a profusion of victims of the biases that challenge Black humanity. But the cadre of African American poets that have created memorials of his death reimagine the meaning of Black life in America and the role of Till’s murder. Each of these works joins a lineage of literature that shapes Black American community narratives of existence and identity and life. These Black American poems, written in response to and for the remembrance of Till, emphasize the prevalence of unjust deaths of Black Americans and the ways that we have constructed intellectual and creative modes to mourn, to recollect, and to breathe.

33

Holloway, Passed On, p. 90.

62 | Slideshow

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“I Hope You Haven’t Died in Vain” | 63 Rambsy II, Howard. The Black Arts Enterprise and the Production of African American Poetry. University of Michigan Press, 2011.

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¿México Vive Aquí? | 65

¿México Vive Aquí?: Space, Power, and Identity in the Cherokee Street Frontier-Border Christian Monzón Over three decades ago, Mexican immigrants around St. Louis’s Cherokee Street began transforming the street into a space for the creative, autonomous, and cultural expression of Mexican-American identity in a largely non-Mexican city. Today, Mexican-Americans share a delicate, tense coexistence with those living on Cherokee Street before them and the gentrifying forces attempting to settle it. Together, they create a type of borderland of complex social interaction and marginalization. Via interview-based oral histories of Cherokee Street residents and photos of Cherokee’s physical spaces, this article explores occupations of urban space as manifestations of border construction and gentrification.

Moreover, departing from existing scholarship, this project argues that neither border theory nor existing gentrification theory alone can explain Cherokee’s ongoing gentrification process. Instead, they together tell a nuanced story of agency, resistance, preservation, identity, and power in today’s St. Louis.

Keywords: gentrification • belonging • borders • frontiers • agency Map of Cherokee Street

Maroon Dots (From Left to Right): Love Bank Park, La Vallesana (above), Don Carlos (where one of my interviewees manages a grocery store—below), El Torito, Taco and Ice Cream Joint, Novedades Latino Beauty (where I spoke to a cashier), Yaqui’s, Teatopia (where I spoke to an activist from the CID), previous location of the Cherokee Indian statue (above), CID headquarters (below).

66 | Slideshow

Introduction St. Louis, Missouri, might hardly appear to be a haven for Mexican-Americans.1 At only 4 percent of the city of St. Louis’s population (United States Census Bureau 2021), the number of Latines (let alone Mexicans) seems too small to constitute a cohesive community. Growing their population by nearly 50 percent from 2010– 2020 (Schmid and Munoz 2021), Latin American immigrant communities in St. Louis have only recently begun rapidly expanding. Yet, many St. Louis community members have spoken about how, in the early 2000s, Mexican restaurants, grocery stores, barbershops, and businesses of all kinds had already begun opening along Cherokee Street2 in south St. Louis. Sounds of Mexicans listening to mariachi or speaking Spanish, smells of Mexican dishes, and murals proclaiming the street’s Mexican character dominated the area, and the space became increasingly culturally and socially Mexican.

Today, though, Cherokee Street’s Mexican identity has nearly disappeared.

Around the corner from Cherokee Street and California Avenue, pedestrians can still hear, smell, and see the same Mexican characteristics. But walking just one block east tells a different story of Cherokee Street—one of hipster bars, niche tea shops, and record stores. Even farther east, old, White owners of antique shops that have existed for generations have their own ideas for the street. Going west of California reveals a place with (on its surface) no cohesive characteristics. All these spaces constantly proclaim different, tense, conflicting visions for the street.

Put differently, Cherokee Street resembles border spaces of complex sociocultural interaction. In her classic text, Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa frames borders as more than simply geopolitical boundaries; they divide socially and culturally, too. Invisible borders separating and binarizing different populations exist, in Anzaldúa’s analysis, along the U.S.-Mexico border. Borders manifest, therefore, not necessarily as literal markers but as quiet, underlying tensions and negotiations between hegemons and counterhegemons, between the marginalized and the marginalizing, or between the displaced and the powerful.

This article engages Cherokee Street as a similar borderland. It treats the occupation of space as emblematic of power relations across the street and connects border construction to gentrification. As new, whiter, richer populations move into the Cherokee borderland and displace Mexican-Americans who lived there, Mexican establishments face deep uncertainty.

1 A short statement on terminology: Hispanic, Latinx/e, Latin American, Mexican, and Mexican-American do not mean the same things. However, I use all of them to describe the Spanishspeaking and (largely) Mexican-American people and businesses on Cherokee Street interchangeably unless otherwise noted (e.g., when speaking to a Honduran woman who does not identify as Mexican or Mexican-American). Many of my interviewees use all the aforementioned terms to refer to this population, and I attempt to recreate their way of speaking and language as accurately as possible. As such, although I recognize the oversimplification involved in doing so, I will largely do so as well.

2 Another short statement on terminology: Throughout the article, unless mentioning the Cherokee Nation explicitly, “Cherokee Street” and “Cherokee” will have the same meaning.

¿México Vive Aquí? | 67 Like all socially constructed borderlands, Cherokee Street’s borderland has more than two sides. I could explain Cherokee Street’s social climate as White newcomers vs. Mexicans, but what about the other White members of Cherokee Street’s businesses—those east of Jefferson Avenue, the antique sellers, the old money, the longtime residents? They also shape what it means to exist along Cherokee Street, and their power, while not legally operating west of Jefferson, looms over all of the Cherokee Street Community Improvement District (CID, pronounced like the English name Sid), whose domain lies to the west.

The CID, vaguely defined, is a quasi-governmental organization that gets its funds and authority from the city but collects dues and sales taxes from all businesses in its jurisdiction. It redistributes funds for seven purposes: beautification, public safety, business development, events, marketing, arts, and Love Bank Park, a public park (Cherokee Street, n.d.). Cherokee CID is only one of Missouri’s many CIDs under the Missouri Department of Economic Development. As the department website explains it, here is how CIDs form: CIDs are created by ordinance of the local governing body of a municipality upon presentation of a petition signed by owners of real property within the proposed district’s boundaries, typically encompassing a commercial, not a residential area. A CID, although approved by the local municipality, is a separate political subdivision with the power to govern itself and impose and collect special assessments, additional property and sales taxes. (Missouri Department of Economic Development, n.d.)

So, the CID behaves as an autonomous, redistributive, democratic organization.

Cherokee Lemp, the business district overseeing Antique Row, and the CID operate independently, often tensely. Their relationships to each other and the Mexican-owned businesses shape ideologies of who belongs on Cherokee Street and what it means to participate in Cherokee Street’s business, art, and residential scene.

My research contends that Mexican-American communities purposely reappropriate or reemphasize their distinctly Mexican identity in their space, that the CID manipulates space to legitimize its presence, and that antique shops along Cherokee Lemp orient their space with overtly preservationist ideologies to cling onto an imagined utopian past.

All these facets of Cherokee Street revolve around how communities manage their space. In line with existing research on borders, this project treats actors on the street as agents. I argue not only that occupying space exemplifies hegemonic relationships across the street, but also that it communicates defiance or compliance with gentrification. At the same time, it combines analysis on borders with gentrification theory, connecting today’s gentrifiers to colonial settlers. Frontier discourses, settlement, and ensuing displacement occur on Cherokee Street, and ignoring them would be to miss fundamental parts of the story. I conceptualize Cherokee Street as not a borderland, not a frontier, but some combination of both.

68 | Slideshow After using the Cherokee Statue removal process3 to contextualize relationships between the CID, Antique Row, and Mexican-Americans, I descriptively map the space using personal observations, oral histories, informal discussions, and written communications via St. Louis newspaper articles and websites. Rather than commenting on borderlands, gentrification, hegemony, identity, or terms filtered through so-called academic language, I tell a story of space, power, and identity before spending my final section connecting them. Here, I use photographs to juxtapose opposite ends of the street, to tell a nuanced story of how different agents in an urban social environment negotiate power and influence to dictate who belongs and who does not. I also use this section to use space to argue that borderlands, frontiers, and gentrification do not exist separately, but are intertwined hegemonic urban developments.

All sections serve a broader purpose of arguing for Cherokee’s relevance.

Borderland and frontier discourse surround it, even if those speaking it do not necessarily do so thinking in those terms. Revitalization, settlement, investment, and authenticity loom over everything; I view these terms like I do hegemony, border construction, gentrification, and the new urban frontier. Cherokee Street reminds me that borders can emerge anywhere. Mexican-Americans, the CID, and Antique Row shape the Cherokee Street borderland, and while I focus on only three actors, they exemplify how urban communities use space to renegotiate community identity.

A friend also interested in Cherokee Street once told me that its many stories deserve to be heard. This article tells a story of how urban space captures sociocultural tension, ambiguity, and change. Cherokee Street’s space communicates cultural preservation, reclamation, and urban development that I translate through observations, photographs, and writing—an incomplete but nonetheless detailed snapshot of one neighborhood’s gentrification process.

Statement of Identity Before the substantive parts of my article, I will acknowledge my identity. I filter my analysis through my White, male, Mexican-American, university student identity. Simultaneously, these identities grant me access. For example, my Mexican-American identity helps build rapport with Mexican-Americans on the street (albeit only after I speak Spanish or wear Mexican soccer memorabilia, before which they assume I am just another gringo). As a White male, I do not share my female-identifying friends’ discomfort/fear when men on Cherokee Street stare them down or harass them. While these factors grant access, they also hinder my credibility as an outsider. To overcome this insufficiency, I supplement personal observations of 3 Long having defined images of the street, the CID voted to remove a ten-foot-tall Cherokee Indian statue from the corner of Cherokee Street and Jefferson Avenue in September 2021. They removed it to eliminate a racist caricature of Native Americans from the community, but its removal process was also emblematic of power relations, community-building, and tense negotiations of what it means to participate in the Cherokee business community.

¿México Vive Aquí? | 69 Cherokee Street with three formal interviews, four informal conversations, and one text conversation. My interviewees offer perspectives I do not share. Passionate about the street’s success, they likewise use space to tell the street’s story.4

Literature Review I find conceptualizing urban “frontiers” and “borders/borderlands” incoherent and ambiguous. Both have the same Spanish translation: frontera. No clear distinction exists between either concept. Translating both into Spanish reflects how one can also be the other; they occupy similar meanings yet differ subtly enough to capture the urban power construction, disruption, separation, and selective inclusion that I observe on Cherokee Street in different, essential ways. Many researchers have written on both, explicitly or implicitly.

One interviewee likened Cherokee’s gentrification to U.S. settler colonialism: new populations settle urban space and dictate new cultural norms, often violently displacing those previously living and operating there. Gentrification scholars have made this argument for decades. Neil Smith, in the groundbreaking The New Urban Frontier, writes that “in the end, and this is the important conclusion, the frontier discourse serves to rationalize and legitimate a process of conquest, whether in the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century West, or in the late-twentieth-century inner city” (Smith 1996). Words like “revitalize” and “revival” often connect to gentrification, much like language of old settlers supposedly civilizing the West (Perez 2002). The same interviewee mentioned the language of “urban revitalizing” (paraphrased), arguing that revitalizing Cherokee Street implies that the area lacked vitality before the new influx of capital.

I expand upon research on the “urban frontier” by going beyond gentrification’s causes. Derek Hyra sums gentrification debates up as “production” or “consumption” explanations—“production scholars” assume policy and economics attract new outside investment, while the “consumption camp” argues that changing cultural tastes drive gentrification (Hyra 2017). Unlike Hyra, I intervene not in economic causes but in economic outcomes; after all, one manager informed me, Mexican-Americans in St. Louis no longer commonly live there but often do business there. Gentrification’s capital inflows also shape which businesses remain and which have left. Several gentrification theorists emphasize people’s displacement from places where they built rich community networks (Abu-Lughod 1994, Smith 1996, Williams 1996). My research explores how these rich community networks adapt to or resist displacement during this process by describing Cherokee’s interconnected communities’ participation in the business district and how they change their space due to perceived threats to their community.

4 I never asked for personal details of my interviewees’ lives other than their role in organizations. While telling relatively recent histories, I consider these interviews oral histories because no one commented on their lived experiences, instead discussing their knowledge of Cherokee Street and its recent history. In the pages that follow, I will not even divulge anyone’s name, only their role in the community.

70 | Slideshow Michael Allen writes in “The Spaces of Gentrification” that “gentrification is about territoriality, so its manifestation is not only in microgeographic conquest but also in quiet systems of place marking where artists are often central” (Allen 2016).

He continues: Gentrification has as much to do with the formation of class (the gentry) as it does with the occupation of space. The spatial practice of gentrification, in other words, is both physical and social. Physically, gentrification manifests in the location of the “frontier,” areas where the alterity of the built environment is in full display through provocative juxtapositions of new and old. The distinction of the rehabilitated building, the strange art gallery façade, the charming expensive coffee shop with its hand painted sign letters—these mark changing neighborhoods everywhere from Brooklyn’s Bushwick to Chicago’s Pilsen to St. Louis’s Cherokee Street.

Borrowing from Allen, I explore Cherokee Street as where “the alterity of the built environment is in full display through provocative juxtapositions of new and old.” This dichotomy, however, cannot fully describe Cherokee Street. Certainly, Cherokee has “newer” and “older” populations, but after Mexicans came and the CID re-established the business association, older populations remained. Thinking of Cherokee’s gentrification as the “frontier” is part of the story. Here, I reconceptualize gentrification on Cherokee as the other frontera.

I characterize Cherokee Street as a borderland following scholarship of postcolonial and border theory. Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera explores borderlands as spaces of complex cultural hybridity, marginalization, and interaction by incorporating her intersectional queer Chicana identity. Other scholars use similar “border thinking” about areas not necessarily tied to national geopolitical borders. Jay Donis, for example, wrote in 2016 about Kentucky as a type of historically developed borderland, identifying it as a type of cultural “frontier” and acknowledging who participated in the cultural construction of today’s Kentucky (Donis 2016).

Tomomi Emoto writes about a festival on Tsushima Island (near Japan) as a site of border construction (Emoto 2016). I borrow from scholars like Donis and Emoto by characterizing Cherokee as a similar “borderland,” despite it not existing on any politically drawn boundary.

Multiple political boundaries form the Cherokee Street borderland. Jefferson Avenue-Cherokee Street divides four neighborhoods: Benton Park, Benton Park West, Gravois Park, and Marine Villa. Cherokee Street itself represents a boundary between St. Louis’s 9th and 20th wards. Each street corner marks a different social landscape—California Avenue is the center of Hispanic Cherokee Street, Texas Avenue is the center of the “artsy” Cherokee Street, east of Indiana Avenue marks Antique Row. Going farther east or west uncovers more distinct spaces.

I cover Cherokee Street’s many borders because much literature argues that rather than having just one hegemonic culture, many agents constantly reconfigure and renegotiate borderlands (Wilson and Donnan 1998; Cunningham and

¿México Vive Aquí? | 71 Heyman 2004; Leontidou 2004; Ballinger 2004). Applied to Cherokee, many distinct actors shape the street, rather than one dominant power. These actors include Mexican-American business owners, small artists, White antique shop owners, hipster gentrifiers, and more who shape the street. Cherokee Street, therefore, effectively showcases how many actors can shape border spaces.

Along borders, and along Cherokee Street, some actors (especially underprivileged communities) paradoxically find both agency and marginalization.

For example, in spaces like Cherokee Street, those seemingly originating there celebrate themselves as trusted, belonging, and “native” but render newcomers as distrusted outsiders (Ceuppens and Geschiere 2005). Cherokee both conforms to and complicates this literature. Antique Row residents—Cherokee’s oldest population—react xenophobically against Mexican communities, but simultaneously, community governing bodies celebrate Mexicanness as essential to the Cherokee Street ethos.

Mainly, I connect border construction to the urban frontier. Arguing that occupying space communicates agency, I observe that communities shape space to convey politics of belonging. Border studies scholars often focus less on public space and more on other manifestations of community expression. Some link policing of public space to its racialization (Bass 2001, Milovanovic and Russell 2001). Others argue that U.S. government agents create unsafe spaces for migrants (De Genova 2004 and 2005, McDowell and Wonders 2009). Mohanram (1999) writes about how urban space also often connects whiteness to freedom and movement, and blackness to stillness and constriction. Cherokee Street, meanwhile, exemplifies how Mexican-American businesses manipulate space to communicate resistance. Here, space behaves both as hegemonic and counterhegemonic. How Cherokee Street communities dictate public space, therefore, serves as a useful reminder of how public space shapes invisible borders and boundaries.

Both fronteras demand consideration here. The frontier metaphor ignores Cherokee Street’s multiple disconnected communities, dichotomizing it to an “old” quickly transitioning to a “new.” Conceptualizing Cherokee only as such ignores multiagent power relations and gentrifying communities in transition.

Simultaneously, just seeing the street as a border ignores its temporality; borders describe Cherokee Street as it gentrifies, not before or after, but time remains important. As Antique Row residents cling to imagined pasts, the CID envisions a new future. Frontiers capture how new actors move into the street, reshaping its space and eliciting responses from those already there. Concurrently picturing it as a border brings an understanding of power’s blurriness, because both the marginalized and marginalizing can exercise agency.

Literature also exists on the cultural practices of the other. Emoto writes how “postcolonial celebrations recognizing local specificities of the racial, ethnic, and regional selves may subvert the dominant, colonial, or nationalist imaginings of culture, place, and history” (Emoto 2016). Performances of community identity, indeed, often challenge the dominant. More scholarship connotes these performances

72 | Slideshow as, themselves, defiance against the powerful (Hill 1996, Urciuoli 1996, Rasmussen 2006). On Cherokee, the occupation of space can similarly convey resistance. But more importantly, space’s occupation also communicates the frontera.

Beyond the Statue: The (De)construction of Community Power On September 16, 2021, the CID voted to take down the ten-foot tall Cherokee Indian statue that had long defined the street. Looking toward Antique Row, purposely painted glowing red with cold, distant eyes, it resembled the racist American Indian caricature familiar in sports mascots and the Old West. One day later, a construction crew tore it down and shipped it away. Even the artist himself wanted the statue down. On a Thursday night, the CID voted, and the platform that long held the statue lay empty the next day. But just as the platform’s eerie emptiness reminds visitors and residents of what was once there, the statue’s presence remains in the minds of those who silently resent its disappearance. I contextualize my article with the statue’s removal because it introduces a recent example of tension along the street manifesting in an alteration of public space and previews the tension I discuss further in the article.

A community activist described the process leading up to the vote to me, as he led the meeting that tore it down.

For years, we’ve just sort of been taking this [narrative where we say,] “We should get rid of the statue,” “When’re we going to get rid of the statue?”

“When the fuck’re we going to get rid of the statue?” “The statue is racist,” “The statue is racist, when’re we going to get it down?” and it kind of hit a boiling point where the artist has not been a fan of it…And all of us have sort of been on this, like, you know, “Let’s stop being reactive as a district and start being proactive as a district,” and we’ve all heard complaints about that thing for a decade or more and the only reason we haven’t taken it down is because of the nostalgia and how it defines our district visually, and how it’s a reference point.

Yet, a Washington University professor familiar with the street described it differently. According to him, I did find it kind of problematic, because they’re not actually listening.…

[The CID is] like an entrenched, close circle that isn’t particularly good at communication. With the Indian Chief removal, they did have a press release, but leading up to it, there was no real dialogue and…literally on Thursday night, they voted, and ten minutes later, they took the statue down and made a press release, and I think a lot of people were just like “What? Huh? Wow.” To me, in their inner circle, that decision had probably been discussed for months, but they never went up and down the street and asked business owners, “Do you want it down? What do you think?”

¿México Vive Aquí? | 73 The professor and the activist’s different visions of the vote speak to the statue’s eerie, paradoxical representation of street politics. For the activist, tearing down the statue represents an anti-colonial politics, but for the professor, it reflects an institution not listening. One sees it as justice, another as power. Both, however, capture the statue’s divisiveness.

Zooming out, some important physical features distinguish the area around the statue. Standing at the Jefferson-Cherokee intersection, it looked toward Antique Row, yet remained on the CID’s side. Indeed, although the CID represents Jefferson Avenue to Nebraska Avenue, the CID’s (and the activist’s) office sits right at the statue’s corner. Like many CID operations I explore later, the statue’s removal is both antiracist and inclusive and political. It marks the CID’s territory and the CID’s efforts to legitimize itself as the street’s dominant force.

This vote marked tensions between the CID and both Antique Row and Mexican-Americans near California. Members of the CID explain rifts among every entity. The CID director describes language barriers, along with the mentality of the Mexican-American business owners. Likewise, the activist frames Cherokee’s Mexican-American community as more grounded in market principles: “A lot of those business owners are really about their money.” While the members of the Mexican-American community to whom I spoke described their opinions with more nuance, my conversations did showcase the capitalist, money-oriented drive that the activist referenced. Indeed, following the CID director’s and the activist’s assessments, few Mexican-Americans voted. Few even participated in debates on the statue.

Speaking to Mexican-Americans, however, it became clear that few even knew of the statue’s removal until afterward. One Hispanic business owner let me know his frustrations with the CID, explaining that every time they ask him why he never attends their meetings, they do not let him know when the next one occurs. Sometimes he just prioritizes his business, he said. Regarding the statue, he wondered to me why they did not advertise it much. One day, he told me, it just left without a trace.

Jokingly, he said he would have moved it to the roof of his store rather than take it down.

Of course, the CID’s motivations behind the statue’s removal understandably stem from its racist, offensive portrayal of Native Americans. The activist puts it well: “A board of all white people commissioned a white artist to make imagery representing a native person of a tribe that never lived here.…and the skin was painted red, for fuck’s sake. What representation [were some of the defenders of the statue talking about]? Who is representing what, and what relevance does that image even have?”

He raised questions of why the statue’s disgusting, racist, anti-Indigenous appearance should represent the street.

I ask here, who determines the community’s identity? Who makes big decisions, regardless of how noble they are? Who decides to tear down the statue?

The professor points out the confusion after the statue’s removal, contradicting the activist, saying, “Part of the big deal is still this question of, if that’s not the identity of the street, if that’s not the right icon, then what would be? I don’t know if there’s a

74 | Slideshow consensus, and I don’t know if the CID is really the body to lead that.” Discussing the statue’s removal with other community members supported the professor’s claims. Of four Hispanic business affiliates to whom I spoke, two did not even know the statue had been torn down. I thought of the CID director and a few Mexican-American community leaders’ points about Hispanic residents’ disassociation with the CID. Hispanic residents’ ignorance of not only the CID but also the statue’s removal reflects the statue’s representation of space and influence. Regardless of the CID’s efforts to tear down racist memorabilia, however, the removal raises questions about community mirroring my own on the contestation of an urban community. One vote, one decision, one racist statue captures an entire street’s tensions as numerous populations negotiate a fraught coexistence. Having foreshadowed this coexistence with the statue’s removal, I spend the rest of my article exploring how MexicanAmericans, the CID, and Antique Row navigate their relationships to each other.

The California-Cherokee Intersection: “México Vive Aqui” and Hispanic Cherokee Visually, Cherokee Street exudes excess and hyperbole. Its messaging seldom communicates subtlety. When businesses market their Hispanic identity, they ensure that others know through over-the-top celebrations of Latine culture. Tea shops and record stores scream laid back, chill, relaxation. Conservative antique sellers emphasize their views excessively (I will cover the tea shops, record stores, and antique sellers in another section). True to borderlands, Cherokee’s multiple populations exist in constant tension over perceived cultural difference, but they share an exuberance and enthusiasm for their sociocultural purpose.

For example, speaking with workers at a Honduran restaurant explained the décor outside. They scattered Honduran flags across their front window, along with Honduras’ national bird, and flowers endemic to Honduras. When asked about this, they said they anticipated that the owners wanted to emphasize Honduran-ness so others would know of their existence. Cherokee Street, the famous Hispanic cultural hub of St. Louis, largely consists of other art installations and restaurants celebrating distinctly Mexican identity. According to the restaurant’s workers, the restaurant makes Honduras’ presence known across the street, even next to the Mexican street corner.

Ironically, while the Honduran restaurant purposely emphasizes its cultural background amid Mexican restaurants’ dominance, Mexican-Americans proclaim Mexicanness amid a gentrifying hegemonic backdrop. A mural of the Gateway Arch against El Torito, Cherokee’s largest Mexican-American grocery store, colored in Mexican national colors (red, white, and green) ties Mexican nationalism to Cherokee’s St. Louis context. Taquería El Bronco’s awning uses Mexican national colors for similar purposes, as do Mexican flags outside storefronts across the street.

But Mexican-American nationalism is most noticeable outside the Don Carlos grocery store. A mural across the wall proclaims “¡México Vive Aquí!” or “Mexico lives here!” It surrounds an ATM machine and goes across the building, with smaller

¿México Vive Aquí? | 75 illustrations next to it, commanding attention from surroundings. By being on one of Cherokee Street’s most iconic Mexican grocery stores’ walls and directly on the corner of California and Cherokee, it occupies space to declare Mexican pride. Against a backdrop of La Vallesana’s (a Mexican restaurant) Mariachi Plaza-esque patio, Lilly’s Panaderia (a bakery), and often mariachi music playing inside Don Carlos, the mural reflects Mexican identity in defiance of the gentrifying forces actively displacing it.

El Torito itself occupies nearly an entire block. Its owner, like the Honduran restaurant and the Mexican-American business community, portrayed the CID as the force some Mexican restaurants resist, claiming that while the CID reaches out, its meetings remain relatively inaccessible to Hispanic-Americans. His comments reflect the store’s astronomical size compared to other stores and its representation of Cherokee Street itself. On the same side as the mural with the Mexican flagcolored Gateway Arch, another mural by local artist Gonz Jove depicts the entire street, showcasing famed Mexican-American landmarks like La Vallesana’s patio. El Torito (and the entire corner of California and Cherokee) ties Mexican-American pride to St. Louis. In a largely non-Mexican city, businesses around California proclaim Mexicanness proudly and boldly, even amid a context of rampant gentrification.

Farther west, each street corner fits a different mold. Ohio Avenue, according to the CID director, marks where Hispanic businesses begin fading away. A few businesses, namely Novedades Latinos Beauty—a so-called beauty supply store that really sells numerous miscellaneous objects—El Chico Bakery, and Dulcería Medina outwardly project their Mexican heritage. One restaurant, the Taco and Ice Cream Joint, stands out, almost serving to transition the street away from the Mexican corner. Although it serves Mexican ice creams, popsicles, and tacos, it leans away from the aesthetic of other Mexican establishments. Its tall ceilings, spacious layout, and reggaeton music differentiate it from the papel picado (Mexican decorative paper that is usually cut into intricate designs), murals, and mariachi décor of places like La Vallesana. Someone from the Novedades Latinos Beauty store described La Vallesana’s expansion from a small ice cream shack to a sprawling business with enormous success. Crucially, though, he described La Vallesana as expanding for the gringos rather than Mexicans. I juxtapose La Vallesana with the Taco and Ice Cream Joint because they both serve tacos and savory dishes alongside ice cream, and both market themselves to largely affluent white customers not necessarily knowledgeable about Mexican cultures, yet they create vastly different aesthetics.

One Mexican-American manager called La Vallesana “legit,” but, while she asked me to omit her exact words on the Taco and Ice Cream joint, she had less savory opinions on it.

Regardless of which establishment they came from, Hispanics on Cherokee Street, while telling Cherokee’s histories, often emphasized their lack of belonging.

All spatial observations around California, meanwhile, from décor to physical structures, exhibit salient Hispanic identity. Indeed, the CID director told me that Latinx-owned businesses anchor the community and hold down Cherokee Street’s cultural environment.

76 | Slideshow Cherokee’s website (which the CID runs) lists all businesses in the district in the directory on a page that begins with “From tacos to tailors, record stores to cat cafes, ballrooms to breweries, salons to studios, Cherokee Street has it all” (Cherokee Street, n.d.). While the CID uses tacos as a problematic generalization for all Hispanics, it speaks to a) the CID’s inclusive mission (which I will dissect in the next section), but more importantly for discussing California, b) the power Hispanics (and more specifically Mexicans) have in Cherokee’s cultural politics that CID put “tacos” first in its directory. Articles from local magazines like Explore St. Louis or St. Louis magazine recognize Cherokee’s large Hispanic population as fundamental to the street (Explore St. Louis, n.d.; Russell 2011). I began frequenting Cherokee Street because it reminded me of Chicago’s Mexican neighborhoods. True to the mural across the street from La Vallesana, “México Vive Aquí.” Mexico indeed lives on Cherokee Street.

The Jefferson-Cherokee Intersection: The CID and the “Cherokee Street Ethos” Cherokeestreet.com, the CID’s website, communicates the Cherokee Street it wants to construct. Its logo alternates between calling the street “Cherokee Street” and “Calle Cherokee,” and describes its space as “one street, many states” (Cherokee Street, n.d.). “Cherokee Street,” it reads, “is a creative center of commerce and culture in St. Louis, with galleries and antiques, music and good eats, and the best festivals and events STL has to offer” (Cherokee Street, n.d.). Put differently, the CID believes in Cherokee Street as not only fun, exciting, and vibrant but also inclusive and all-encompassing. Echoing the “Cherokee Street has it all” quote from the previous section, the CID seeks to foster an imagination of creativity, freedom, and inclusion surrounding Cherokee Street.

Located at the intersection of Jefferson and Cherokee, the CID’s influence most heavily shapes that specific space. One banner across the street from Teatopia, a tea shop next to the CID, welcomes visitors to Cherokee Street by emphasizing descriptors like “diversity,” “originality,” “grit,” “soul,” and “self-expression.”

Originality and diversity particularly underly the CID’s vision of Cherokee Street.

The CID director tied the “Cherokee Street Ethos” to exploration, and “nutty little ideas,” referencing Fire-Cracker Press (a niche poster shop), or past ideas for companies that make space lasers or buttons. People, she suggests, bring their full selves to Cherokee Street businesses. Owners greet patrons at their business’s front doors and otherwise engage in deeply personal transactions, according to her.

One member of the CID—the activist—spoke on how the CID addresses Cherokee Street’s incongruence and inclusion of different interests: We used to have public meetings as a business association, and we literally straddle four neighborhoods, so, that building that says Zubi Beauty Supplies is in Benton Park, this building is in Benton Park West, this building

¿México Vive Aquí? | 77 is in Gravois Park, and that building with the mural on it [across the street on Jefferson Avenue] is in Marine Villa. This is literally the intersection of four major neighborhoods. […] There is no representative body that captures Cherokee Street as a commercial corridor, but Cherokee Street is the intersection or borderland of all these different neighborhoods, and so we were like, ‘We don’t want our CID to lose the public element of it.’ We used to meet publicly as a business association, and if people weren’t eligible to make decisions, they could at least come and talk in here and share opinions and give us their perspectives. […] we are the only CID in the entire state of Missouri that has a public meeting.

Acknowledging its need to represent many interests, the CID’s public meetings (all of which have transcripts online) reflect the CID’s efforts to reach different community members. Speaking on Cherokee Street’s businesses’ survival across the pandemic, the same CID member saw it as emblematic of Cherokee Street’s resilience and adaptability. At the same time, he also highlighted most new businesses during the pandemic as Black-owned, similarly pointing toward the CID’s inclusive mission, and said that here, “you’ve always got new ideas coming, you’ve always got people trying something,” irrespective of someone’s degree or financial status. Both CID members to whom I spoke emphasized how Cherokee Street, relative to other St. Louis neighborhoods, exists outside the realm of capitalism and profit. It is more “authentic,” according to the CID director, an expression capturing the CID’s image of Cherokee.

At the same time, the WU professor paints a more complex portrait of the CID: It’s hard to say if it’s commensurate with what the community actually wants or if it’s an elite imposing their agenda. I think sometimes it feels more organic and other times it doesn’t. Certainly, there was some pushback against forming the CID, and originally it was a special taxing district, so it was just an extra $100 on everyone’s license to be part of it, so the move to collecting sales tax revenues has made that organization richer and more powerful, because there’s way more money coming in […] as somebody who’s had a business license on Cherokee, before the CID in the days of the business district, but it’s the same people and the same entity, basically.

CID activities merit careful inspection, regardless of how noble they are. Of course, its inclusive, community-facing mission deserves commendation, but as a quasi-governmental organization, it participates in neighborhood politics. Asking the professor and others about the CID, I learned about some inaccessibility in some CID initiatives and efforts from the CID to gain legitimacy as a relatively new organization. Some initiatives serve multiple purposes. For example, seconds after the previous statement from the WU professor, he delved into CID decisions to fund

78 | Slideshow a Save a Lot grocery store or newly planted trees. On one hand, Save a Lot offers affordable groceries for low-income residents of surrounding neighborhoods, and trees mean beauty and urban green patches. But on the other hand, both also carry political benefits for the CID. Save a Lot means new sales tax revenue, and the new trees construct an imagination of sustainability and modernity, similarly, according to the professor, to ways that the Antique Row community organization planted its now grand, mature trees decades ago.

Both examples point toward CID efforts to, beyond its mission, also establish itself as the street’s primary authority. The CID director points toward the CID’s occasional role in conflict mitigation in an example of Yaqui’s—a bar on the intersection of Cherokee Street and Iowa Avenue—playing live curbside music outside during the pandemic and shutting down the intersection for a night to allow for social distancing. Other arguments west of Jefferson concern topics like the expansion of a smoke shop and issues of public safety and policing. The CID’s role, she informed me, is to maintain a positive relationship with the community. Just like the professor’s point toward the grocery store and new trees, the CID’s friendliness reinforces the image of Cherokee Street it wants to foster—that of collaboration and inclusion—while simultaneously serving the political purpose of establishing the new CID as the arbiter.

However, the CID’s active role in conflicts means that it successfully reaches community members. The experiences of some Hispanic community members reflect different levels of accessibility for different populations. Some did not even know what the CID is—the cashier at the beauty supply store, the waitress at the Sueño Latino beauty supply store, and others in more casual conversations reacted blankly when I asked about the CID—which makes sense, as only the most high-ranking members of the businesses likely interact with it. Nonetheless, that knowledge of the CID does not seep down to other members of the businesses outside ownership raises problems of how the CID claims inclusion, as that population most associated with the street outside the area remains ignorant of CID activities.

Speaking with the owner of El Torito and a manager at Don Carlos reveals Hispanic business leadership’s relationship with the CID. El Torito’s owner, when commenting on the statue, questioned the organization’s intent and asked why community members did not know about its removal before it happened.

Interestingly, the professor informed me that El Torito’s owner had served on the CID board on and off for a few years, which El Torito’s owner did not tell me when I spoke with him—perhaps also indicating his tumultuous relationship with members of the CID. Even the CID director acknowledges that many of Cherokee’s Latine businesses have difficulty accessing meetings because of language barriers and timing issues that stop many from fully participating.

At the same time, it is difficult to ascertain whether Mexican-Americans do not participate in CID activities because the CID does not reach out, or if the CID does not reach out because Mexican-Americans do not participate. One interviewee from the CID explained that some of the business owners (validly) prioritize their business over the community—they want the “gringo dollars,” they want to “make

¿México Vive Aquí? | 79 their bucks,” so according to the activist from the CID, “they’re sort of like, ‘I’m out here to do my thing, I don’t want to shake hands, I don’t really want to collaborate’ […] and I will say one defining characteristic over the course of my time on Cherokee has been a certain lack of interaction with the big community presences in the Latinx community.” He also recognized that the Mexican-American businesses are some of the busiest businesses on the street and that their owners may never have the time to attend CID meetings, no matter when they take place.

Another Mexican grocery store manager contradicts the opinion of El Torito’s owner. “The CID helps,” she said. “The money is properly invested in various things.

We’re better off with the CID than not […] because moneys [sic] are managed more transparently, and we see it in events happening through the year, among other things.” Maybe many business owners do not engage with the CID because they simply cannot, as she suggests that Mexican businesses have reason to appreciate the CID. Certainly, however, relationships between the Mexican businesses and the CID seem more distant than the CID’s relationships with other businesses along the street, contrasting with the CID’s emphasis on diversity and self-discovery.

Other complications also arise. “We don’t want to tokenize anyone,” said the same activist CID board member. Simultaneously, however, re-emphasizing the street’s distinctly Mexican character completely diverges from the CID’s project to establish the street as more diverse and inclusive. The website directory’s line then makes more sense: “From tacos to tailors, record stores to cat cafes, ballrooms to breweries, salons to studios, Cherokee Street has it all.” Tacos, in the CID’s view, form just one small part of what Cherokee Street offers. Just like Cherokee Street is not just tacos, the CID cannot just be Mexican-Americans.

The Indiana-Cherokee Intersection: Antique Row and Preservation Politics Crossing Indiana Avenue, the end of the CID’s domain, means entering a completely different area, with different definitions of Cherokee Street’s identity.

Taller buildings, larger trees, ornate décor, and even music playing inside shops differentiate Antique Row and Cherokee Lemp from the CID’s territory. But beyond grandeur and affluence, signs throughout Cherokee Street west of Indiana point toward a politics of preservation; an ideology of fear against an external threat imposing new ideas of what Cherokee Street means. Although not overtly clashing with the CID, the activist explains tensions on the Antique Row end: [It is] affluence, class, and [to] a certain large degree, race. It’s a lot of affluent White folks [and] older generations. St. Louis City, even if we’re White and Black and Mexican and whatever, [is] hella racist. I think a lot of people assume that these metropolitan urban centers are naturally left-leaning,… [but] we’re younger, arts[y], progressive, and left-leaning, whereas that’s just White affluence that has rooted itself in the city in this very particular type of perspective.

80 | Slideshow To put it bluntly, “It’s the rare pocket of city conservativism.”5 Antique shop owners and buildings throughout Antique Row proclaim their conservatism proudly. One shop’s front door’s political messaging overtly proclaims its conservativism with a “FIGHT SOCIALISM” sign. A sign supporting right-wing senatorial candidate Eric Greitens, a petition to end the Chinese Communist Party for creating the coronavirus, and a sign advertising that the owners do not discriminate based on any factor, including vaccination status, also litter their front door.

While this shop specifically has the most extreme versions of political conservativism, other shops similarly use big signs and loud messaging to let others know their political beliefs. One shop, for example, has large signs celebrating gun rights, Blue Lives Matter, and similar right-wing beliefs. Political conservativism exemplifies how Antique Row’s tensions manifest politically, but more importantly, it captures the end’s imagination of an ideal past.

Signs throughout the street likewise tell intimate histories of buildings dating back decades, and capture the families, businesses, and communities that once existed there. For example, the sign outside 2215 Cherokee—an otherwise ordinary residential building—reads: August Hoffman built this handsome, two and a half story town-house in 1893. The 45-year-old German immigrant was a bookbinder by profession.

He was one of the many immigrant tradesmen who took great care to build well-design and crafted homes in South St. Louis. The estimating cost of construction of this home was $3,000.

Another about life in the 1950s reads: Due to the housing shortage that had developed during the depression and World War II, the Antique Row neighborhood was a crowded and busy community during the 1950s — when Larry Akley grew up here […] As the commercial hub of the neighborhood, Cherokee Street was a focal point of community life. Akley fondly recalls a highlight of the school year at nearby Shepard School. The children began school picnic day with a parade down Cherokee Street. Through high school, Ackley walked down Cherokee to his job at Berlinger Dairy at 2025 Cherokee Street.

Both signs form part of the group of dozens of similar histories physically printed throughout the street. All tell about European immigrants and Cherokee Street as a community of hard workers and as the commercial center of nearby neighborhoods. Their existence emphasizes residents’ obsession with reliving the past. Antique selling itself reflects their efforts at historical preservation. Cherokee Street, in their messaging, was once identified strongly with European migrants, the 5 Here, the activist refers to political conservativism characterizing the U.S. political right. When I write about antique sellers’ political beliefs, I refer to this definition of conservativism.

¿México Vive Aquí? | 81 American dream, and sustained success emanating from hard work and sacrifice. With the CID (since the 2010s) and Mexican-Americans (since the 1990s) associating new cultural, ethnic, social, and political identities with Cherokee Street, Antique Row clings onto its idealized past, broadcasting not only political conservativism but cultural conservatism.

I do not mean to demonize them. Even the activist I spoke to acknowledges their validity: “I’m not trying to say they’re colonizers, per se, because they’ve been there a long time too; I’m not going to take that away from them.” However, physical manifestations of preservationist ideology are omnipresent throughout their end of the street and run against the CID’s mission. The WU professor explained how Antique Row “still has leaders that are very antagonistic, saying [that] the people west on Cherokee are commies and anarchists and weirdos and anti-police.” Cherokee Lemp feels its legitimacy disappearing, and signs commemorating the past or right-wing politics point toward its efforts to take it back.

Other physical manifestations of Antique Row’s efforts to reassert its vision of the street include the grand trees and brick buildings meant to evoke grandiosity and calmness. Also occupying space on Antique Row, however, structural representations of the “Cherokee” name likewise emphasize the age and memory of the street’s organizations. An antique shop with a U.S. flag and a Second Amendment poster also posts the Cherokee Nation flag in front. Stone engravings of Native American faces litter the buildings, and the WU professor spoke of a clock that similarly uses Native American imagery.

Antique Row, however, while generally recalling the past, imagining a white, affluent Cherokee Street, and reacting against the CID’s new ideas, also represents the complexity of urban neighborhoods. Even as antique shop owners express these politics of preservation of Cherokee Street’s eastern end, some small shop owners imagine a different future, because even in its insistence on the past, Antique Row, like the rest of Cherokee Street, is constantly changing. The WU professor explains how “even within that group, you have businesses like the vinyl house…whose owners are pretty progressive and left-wing even, and there’s tension” on Antique Row. Similarly, the activist tells me, “I think that side of the street is starting to come along a little bit.”

Put differently, even amid the dominant preservationist ideology of Cherokee east of Indiana, Antique Row exists as a space in which multiple actors exert sociocultural influence differently. As it clashes with the CID, Mexican-Americans, and itself, Antique Row’s excessive cultural, historical, and political preservation captures how dominant cultures react to perceived threats from the nondominant, from the new, and from within.

82 | Slideshow

Constructing Borders Around the Urban Frontier: Photographs and Gentrification Built space more than exists; it communicates, argues, contemplates, questions, includes, and excludes. It reflects the ideology, culture, and identity of those who made it. To think a mural “exists” or “is” in a place ignores its sociocultural, political, and temporal context. Materials in walls, the dirt underneath a tree, the cracks in the road, even the windows, sidewalk, and traffic lights are not just “in” a place; they make the place. Sometimes, they come from poverty or insufficient resources, sometimes communities do what they have to and not what they want to, and sometimes they do not even choose the built environment around them. Still, space communicates to whom urban communities belong and who belongs there.

On Cherokee Street, I have covered just three distinct populations contesting a small four-city-block-long space, but have barely covered enough. New Black-owned businesses, small artist communities, anarchist activists, neighborhood associations, and even the Buddhist temple curiously sitting at Cherokee’s intersection with Oregon Avenue also shape and contest the street. I have ignored them only because my familiarity and access to Mexican-Americans, the CID, and Antique Row allow deeper exploration, but all would lead to similar conclusions: that urban spaces like Cherokee more than divide and separate like borders and more than displace and hierarchize like frontiers but do both. Occupying space means asserting agency and belonging. Until now, I have discussed each intersection’s version of this phenomenon as separate, but now I will put them side by side to illustrate their tense interactions in four cases.

Case 1: Murals and artwork. Art’s location, artist, and content communicate ideology, and murals around California communicate different belonging than those close to the CID.

Murals outside Yaqui’s7 Mural outside El Torito6

Sculpture of Osage Nation8

Three pieces of artwork, located just blocks from each other, communicate different definitions of who belongs. Outside el Torito, the painter—a Hispanic6 7 8

Photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

Photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

Photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

¿México Vive Aquí? | 83 American named Gonz Jove—depicts Baile Folklorico dancers, a traditional Mexican and Central American dance, dancing on the street, with MexicanAmerican landmarks like La Vallesana surrounding them. Murals featuring minoritized Americans—a Black American, Muslim-American, and Latinx American—with the U.S. flag’s colors and patterns dot walls near Yaqui’s, a pizza restaurant. It creates an image of inclusion, that anyone can prosper on Cherokee Street, regardless of racial, ethnic, or religious identity. Blocks away, a sculpture labeled “Osage Nation” reflects Antique Row’s tendency to appropriate Native Americans, also present in another antique shop pictured under case 4 placing a Cherokee Nation flag next to U.S. and Second Amendment flags.

Case 2: Signs and language. Written language throughout the street explicitly describes what characteristics each population internalizes about Cherokee Street.

“Mexico Vive Aqui”9

Cherokee Street descriptor sign10

“Fight Socialism” outside antique shop11

One block away from the CID, a white banner in bold, red letters defines Cherokee Street by its “grit,” “originality,” “self-expression,” and “soul.” It defines Cherokee Street not as a hub for Mexican-Americans but for everyone. Under the CID, Cherokee Street identifies with characteristics defining the community rather than its ethnic composition. Seemingly defiant Mexican-Americans posted “¡México Vive Aquí!” above another mural with someone enjoying money raining from above and an ATM. Here, Cherokee Street means prosperity strictly for Mexican-Americans. “¡México Vive Aquí!” proclaims Cherokee Street as Mexican against St. Louis’s largely non-Mexican backdrop. In Antique Row, “Fight Socialism,” “End the Chinese Communist Party,” and other right-wing messaging clarify Antique Row as distinctly White. Both Antique Row and the California intersection declare Cherokee Street as exclusive—either for Mexican-Americans or White people—whereas the CID portrays Cherokee Street as diverse and inclusive, disrupting both sides’ image of their community.

9 10 11

Photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

Photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

Photo by author, November 11, 2021.

84 | Slideshow Case 3: Trees and green space. Plants and parks communicate traits Antique Row and the CID emphasize about themselves.

Love Bank Park and smaller trees in CID domain12

Large trees in Antique Row13

Constructions of nature have meaning, depending on their condition, size, and placement. Love Bank Park, on Cherokee CID’s western edge, hosts CID-organized activities, fairs, and block parties. It helps the CID look fresh, communal, and friendly, especially in its name—Love Bank Park. Near it, the CID’s newly planted trees, though small, dot its end of Cherokee. Newness, modernity, and energy characterize the CID’s image of Cherokee Street, differing from Antique Row’s old, tall trees looming over all stores and sidewalks. Those trees capture Antique Row as the established, powerful entity, with legitimacy over its domain. Their power and grandiosity stamp Cherokee Lemp as its street end’s legitimate cultural authority.

Case 4: Building materials and aesthetics. Lighting, windows, even bricks communicate who each space serves and attracts.

Exterior of Mexican-American businesses14

12 Photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

13 Middle photo by author, November 11, 2021. Right photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

14 Left photo and middle photo by author, November 11, 2021. Right photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

¿México Vive Aquí? | 85

Exterior of buildings nearer to the CID15

Exterior of buildings in Antique Row16 Outside each building, different textures of brick and window characterize each building’s exterior. Shops closer to the CID have newly refurbished, shiny windows, with bright lights and heaters in the winter, reminding visitors that Cherokee Street is new, clean, and modern. Eastward, the Antique Row buildings’ bright orange bricks separate it from the worn bricks of Cherokee CID, and its vintage, cast-iron signs again appeal to Cherokee Lemp’s age, wisdom, and tradition. Outside the Mexican businesses, meanwhile, though perhaps unintentional, bright white LED lights distinguish their end from more hip bars down the street. Taqueria el Bronco’s Mexican flag awning and La Vallesana’s Spanish-style roof distinguish them from ordinary buildings, again establishing Cherokee as distinctly Mexican.

Together, these images complement Cherokee Street’s spatial consolidation, contestation, and cultural incoherence. When gentrification rears its ugly head, new people contest new spaces to introduce new cultural politics and spatial organizations, leaving their footprint firmly on their figurative domain. Cherokee Street is one messy configuration of urban power relations, but not the only one.

Nonetheless, it represents a new urban frontier-borderland; a new urban frontera.

Borders shift. They move while their populations remain. There, multiple agents contest power, tensely coexisting while negotiating and renegotiating social strata; but, while Cherokee certainly has invisible borders that, over time, bend and break and divide different populations, interviewees’ references to settler colonialism 15 Both photos by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022 16 Left photo and middle photo by author, November 11, 2021. Right photo by Hechen Liu, March 27, 2022.

86 | Slideshow signal new ways of understanding. Neil Smith’s urban frontier—a metaphor tying gentrification to settlers moving to displace local inhabitants—aptly, and eerily, applies to Cherokee Street, but not quite. New populations indeed displace the old dominant cultures, but the theory does not account for what happens to power relations during and after gentrification. It also assumes unidirectional dynamics of power, when, on Cherokee Street, gentrification displaces multiple actors, leaving both Mexican-Americans and old, white business owners feeling threatened. Neither describes Cherokee Street on its own, but together, they inform the complex space that displaces, threatens, redefines, and re-emphasizes what it means to live there.

The CID, Mexican-Americans, and Antique Row all, to varying degrees, participate in and feel threatened by the community’s ongoing changes.

Mexicans claim that “¡México Vive Aquí!”; the CID believes Cherokee Street should welcome everyone; Cherokee Lemp antique sellers cling to their imagined White past. So, do any truly dictate the space? ¿Verdaderamente, México sí vive ahí?

(Truthfully, does Mexico actually live there)? Perhaps it did, perhaps it still does, and perhaps it still will; regardless, the answer to that question lies in whether their contestation will persist in the urban frontera.

¿México Vive Aquí? | 87

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Abu-Lughod, Janet L. From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York’s Lower East Side. Wiley-Blackwell, 1994.

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88 | Slideshow Munoz, Brian, and Eric Schmid. “La región de St. Louis ya es casa para muchos latinos y más se están mudando aquí.” St. Louis Public Radio. Last modified November 16, 2021. https://news.stlpublicradio.org/culturehistory/2021-11-16/espanol-la-poblacion-latina-en-st-louis-sigue-creciendo.

McDowell, Meghan G., and Nancy A. Wonders. “Keeping Migrants in Their Place: Technologies of Control and Racialized Public Space in Arizona.” Social Justice 36, no. 2 (2009).

Pérez, Gina M. “The Other ‘Real World’: Gentrification and the Social Construction of Place in Chicago.” Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development 31, no. 1 (2002): 37–68. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/40553556.

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Wilson, Thomas, and Hastings Donnan. Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

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Editor’s Note Over the past two years, the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Cohort of 2023 have explored research on vastly ranging topics, from the Tudor Myth to musicians Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat. We came into this research off the cuffs of the pandemic, a time when interdisciplinary studies in the humanities seemed more expansive than ever before. With the guidance of our mentors and professors, the seven fellows in this cohort have explored research in more depth than many of us ever have. These projects have been all over the world with us – we have done research in Amsterdam, Shanghai, Berlin, London, and more, all of which have embraced us as ambassadors of the Washington University Center for the Humanities. In the Kling seminar, we have workshopped our writing, constantly – everything from research proposals two years ago to final articles in the last week of college. We are all coming out of this fellowship with skilled knowledge of what it is to engage with others’ work and ask questions about it. Between workshops, we have had the honor and privilege of speaking to and receiving advice from Center for the Humanities Fellows and professors from every Humanities field we can think of. The support we have received from the Kling Fellowship has been invaluable in enhancing our college careers, both academically and socially. I will deeply miss the community established through this fellowship – we have become something of a makeshift academic family that has been crucial in my development as a student and academic citizen.

Many of our projects have changed drastically over the years, and we appreciate that our professors and mentors have welcomed those changes with open arms. In the collection of articles before you, we navigate a rapidly changing, politically fraught world. Aaliyah examines performances of Black womanhood through representational politics in the music industry. Matthew considers the making of George Orwell’s anti-totalitarian beliefs during the Spanish Civil War. Hechen studies how women textile workers impacted the trajectory of propaganda in socialist China. Ranen explores how racism is experienced in dating and sexual relationships by college-aged queer men of color. Jordan shows how TikTok uniquely enables the acceleration of cultural appropriation which impacts Black content creators. Chloe demonstrates how the English Tudor Myth developed and maintained popularity throughout centuries. I uncover and examine a queer German scandal that has been largely buried by history though it hardened German masculinities during World War I. While extraordinarily diverse, these projects all have in common a grappling with how institutions and exclusionary politics have shaped our world. This is a task we all must encounter in our current political climate, and a task I believe my Kling peers have done exceedingly well.

I want to thank, on behalf of the 2023 Kling Fellows, those who made this research possible: Wendy Love Anderson, Jean Allman, and Stephanie Kirk, our advisors and other mentors, and our teachers who encouraged this research along the way. Thank you as well to the Center for the Humanities for housing this

90 | Slideshow fellowship. Last but not least, I thank the 2022 Kling Fellows, who inspired us and taught us what humanities research looks like in action: Lauren Bush, Malcolm Douglass, Kiara Mallory, and Christian Monzón. As some of us pursue graduate education, some begin working jobs, and some travel, I hope all of us keep a passion for in-depth inquiry and interdisciplinary studies close to our hearts. I wish all future Kling Fellows an experience as rewarding as ours.

Warmly, Jack H Grimes Student Editor of Slideshow 2023 Kling Fellow

Femcees and Identity | 91

Femcees and Identity: Representation, Racial Authenticity and Genre Categorization for Black Women in Contemporary Hip-Hop Aaliyah Allen Black feminist scholars and cultural theorists have defined hegemonic stereotypes assigned to Black women and shown the value of studying Black female artists to illuminate truths about white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Today social media has allowed Black women artists greater agency and visibility, which has changed the way they engage with hegemonic stereotypes. This project explores these changes by examining what I call “Queen Niggerati (QN),” a collection of Black female artists who produce Black and American culture through their representations of Black womanhood by leveraging their access to social media and its centrality to the music industry. Using Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat as case studies, I conduct textual and visual analyses of their social media and media reception to demonstrate how Megan and Doja negotiate performances of Black womanhood through their representational politics.

In early May of 2020, amid the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, history was about to be made on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. For the first time in the chart’s history, four Black women were poised to debut in the top two spots. The question was which two Black women would take No. 1: Megan Thee Stallion and Beyoncé on “Savage (Remix)” or Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj on “Say So (Remix).” While Beyoncé and Nicki are established artists and chart veterans, Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat represent a new era of female rap superstars. Both women self-identify as rappers and have garnered massive hits by releasing remixes with living Black music legends.

They can both thank social media virality for catapulting their careers, have large followings, and have songs that regularly trend on social media.1 For two women who both were made household names through rap music that trended on TikTok and then ascended to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with help from other Black female artists, it is surprising that they end up on opposite sides of a genre spectrum between rappers and pop stars and relatedly, are assigned differing proximity to Blackness.

When Megan Thee Stallion tries to dabble in pop motifs, she receives lashings from critical reviewers who accuse her of straying too far into pop territory, arguing that she is not quite a pop star. Furthermore, Megan has been lauded as a symbol for Black women and is praised for how she continues the legacy of Southern Black female hip-hop culture. Conversely, when Doja Cat tries to assert her rapper identity, she is met with contention and debate from critics about whether someone with so much versatility 1 “Year on TikTok: Music 2020.” TikTok Newsroom. TikTok, August 16, 2020. https://newsroom. tiktok.com/en-us/year-on-tiktok-music-2020.

92 | Slideshow can be just a rapper—even though she raps on nearly every song she has. They remind her that she is “more” than a rapper; she’s a pop star. Additionally, Doja is ide ntified as an internet troll turned unlikely superstar and is praised for how she blazes her own path as a woman who cannot be contained by labels. A comparative analysis of their careers is useful because of how the nuances of their careers’ similarities and divulgences can impart fresh perspectives about the mechanisms and the consequences of Black women’s representation in popular culture.

In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hills Collins argues that Black women are subject to “controlling images” in the media through TV, film, literature, etc.2 These controlling images work to justify racist and sexist oppression by obscuring it behind the depictions of the lives and interiority of Black women.3 She argues that these images provide “social scripts for how people are expected to view and treat Black women” and that, more importantly, Black women are expected to internalize these scripts.4 Yet with the introduction of social media, formal channels (e.g., radio, television broadcast) no longer monopolize Black women’s representation, and individual Black women themselves can craft and respond to these images by engaging with these platforms. Megan’s and Doja’s active presence on Instagram and Twitter points to this phenomenon.5 With today’s technology, contemporary Black women artists can confront a “tradition of Black feminist surrogation” with new tools at their disposal.6 Exploring these new negotiations for Black women artists adds to a rich Black feminist tradition that has examined how Black women’s bodies, especially in music and entertainment, signal racial and gendered spectacles in popular culture.7 Using Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat as case studies of what I call the Queen Niggerati (QN), I will examine how they construct representations of Black womanhood. I draw on terms from Treva B. Lindsey and Mako Fitts Ward to inform my definition of the QN. In “If You Look in My Life: Love, Hip-Hop Soul, and Contemporary African American Womanhood,” Lindsey identifies “hip-hop soul women” who act as “musical interpreters of African American womanhood.”8 In “Queen Bey and the New Niggerati: Ethics of Individualism in the Appropriation of Black Radicalism,” Ward identifies the “New Niggerati” as artists of the “hip-hop generation” whose success is defined by “the corporatization of urban music and the mainstreaming of Black popular culture.”9 In this case I define the “Queen Niggerati” 2 Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002), 72.

3 Ibid.

4 “The Representation of African-American Women: An Interview with Patricia Hill Collins.” 2017a.

Global Dialogue. February 17, 2017. https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/the-representation-ofafrican-american-women-an-interview-with-patricia-hill-collins/.

5 “Year on TikTok: Music 2020.”

6 Treva B. Lindsey, “If You Look in My Life: Love, Hip-Hop Soul, and Contemporary African American Womanhood,” African American Review 46, no. 1 (2013): 87–99. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/23783603 7 Collins, Black Feminist Thought.

8 Ibid.

9 Mako Fitts Ward, “Queen Bey and the New Niggerati: Ethics of Individualism in the Appropriation of Black Radicalism,” Black Camera, no. 1: 146 (2017), https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera.9.1.09.

Femcees and Identity | 93 as Black women artists who produce Black and American culture through their representations of Black womanhood, largely by leveraging increased democratized access to tools of representation, especially social media.

The QN can craft counter representations of Black women using social media in the face of controlling images. I call this practice “representational resistance.” I have identified two types of representational resistance to describe Megan and Doja’s performances of Black womanhood, Traditional and Kaleidoscopic. Comparative analysis of Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat, specifically, is productive because of the different ways in which they align with representational resistance, respectively.

I define Traditional Representational Resistance (TRR) as a performance of self and identity by Black women which adds a positive affect to controlling images and positively embraces historically legible representations of Black womanhood, emphasizing humanity through strategic essentialism. I define Kaleidoscopic Representational Resistance (KRR) as a performance of self and identity by Black women which constructs Black womanhood as more fluid and nebulous and avoids historically legible representations, emphasizing humanity through anti-essentialist and individualistic lenses. I identify how Megan’s and Doja’s representations manifest on their social media profiles in line with their modes of resistance and how digital music media publications then receive both artists. My analysis reveals a complex landscape in which the Queen Niggerati construct nuanced and varied representations of Black womanhood.

Being Black Online Social media can prime audiences to implicitly question whether racial and gender performances align with physical embodiments. Since social media creates distance between identity performance and the performer’s physical body, it allows the sociocultural performance elements of embodied characteristics like race to become more salient. This is what makes subjects such as Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat so valuable as case studies of representational resistance because of their specific positionality in relation to social media, stardom, genre, race, and gender. They sit squarely within the intersection of all these concepts, revealing the opportunities and limitations of the agency social media affords to Black female artists.

In the following section I will outline how their digital bodies align with the traditional or kaleidoscopic mode of representational resistance. I borrow Rachel E. Dubrofsky and Megan M. Wood’s description of the term “digital bodies” to mean “the way we write ourselves into being” and construct race and gender online.10 Using my framework of representational resistance, I analyze their Instagram accounts and 2022 Super Bowl ad campaigns. I argue that their digital bodies are impacted by and contribute to the ways in which they navigate race, gender, and superstardom, which influences how corporations utilize their celebrity—all of which impacts their 10 Rachel E. Dubrofsky and Megan M. Wood, “Gender, Race, and Authenticity: Celebrity Women Tweeting for the Gaze,” in Feminist Surveillance Studies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015), 93–106. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1198x2b.10.

94 | Slideshow celebrity selves’ proximity to Blackness. I use the phrase “celebrity self ” to describe the social identities and personality traits assigned to a celebrity’s stage persona. The celebrity self is informed by the celebrity’s career, branding choices, their digital body, and the perceptions of general audiences and critics. Like any other social identity, the identity of the celebrity self is formed in the space between a person’s choices and society’s perception of those choices.

I will be looking at their Instagram accounts and focusing on the relationship between their personal posts and professional posts. I define their personal posts as posts that are not explicitly sponsorships or partnerships and do not ostensibly endorse a product or brand other than Megan’s or Doja’s celebrity self. Their professional posts are the posts that use their celebrity self/likeness to explicitly sponsor, partner, or endorse products and brands. I argue that their digital bodies perform race and gender in accordance with their mode of representational resistance. I will highlight how the level of consistency between their personal and professional posts informs their proximity to Black womanhood and thus the expectations and commercial uses of their celebrity selves.

“The Real H-Town Hottie” Megan’s digital body is composed of a cohesive relationship between her personal and professional posts. A quick glance of her Instagram account does not immediately give away what is a professional post versus a personal one. (See Figure 1.

Megan Thee Stallion’s Instagram Homepage.)11

Figure 1. Megan Thee Stallion’s Instagram Homepage The consistency of the personal and professional posts that constitute her digital body suggests a high level of consistency between who she is on and off the stage, so that when she calls herself a “real H-Town Hottie,” you know she can back it up.

A quick glance at her feed reveals it to be filled with references to different parts of her identity, e.g., freestyles, cowboy hats, twerking, her breasts and butt, hot sauce, Hennessy, acrylic nails, weave, and fried chicken. This imagery is central to Megan’s mode of representational resistance. Taken out of context, these images could all be read as a part of stereotypical controlling images and caricatures of Southern urban Black women, but in Megan’s case they amount to a pleasant calling card describing who she is and where she comes from.

11 Megan Thee Stallion. “Megan Thee Stallion (@Theestallion)” Instagram profile. Accessed December 1, 2022. https://www.instagram.com/theestallion/.

Femcees and Identity | 95 This imagery is not only useful for her celebrity status, but also provides value to the brands that partner with her in ways that complicate her mode of resistance.

As Richard Schur asserts, corporations often look to profit from hip-hop authenticity by using “Black cool.”12 Black cool consists of cultural behaviors extant in the Black community that are perceived to denote that someone is authentically “hip” or with it.13 Hip-hop has been a particularly strong arena for Black cool to flourish because of its explicit commitment to personal, cultural, and racial authenticity. To define hip-hop authenticity, I draw on Murray Foreman’s definition from The Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop: In most cases [the real] stands as an ill-defined expression referring to combined aspects of racial essentialism, spatial location, and a basic adherence to the principles of hip-hop culture …. Yet the boundaries between real or authentic cultural identities and those deemed inauthentic are carefully policed from within hip-hop culture, and the delineations that define the real are taken with deadly seriousness by those who ascribe to hip-hop’s cultural influences.14 Put simply, what is considered “real” or authentic in hip-hop is deeply tied to notions about what hip-hop audiences believe it means to be Black and to be where you are from, and how closely one follows hip-hop culture. Additionally, the interest in constructing and policing who or what is “real” is usually of paramount concern within the hip-hop community.

In mainstream hip-hop, Black authenticity has often manifested as a performance of hypermasculine, hypersexual, and materialistic tropes from experiences in an urbanized ghetto.15 In the tradition of “Sistas with Attitude,” Megan accesses Black cool by using motifs established by men and then subverts patriarchal supremacy by adding a positive affect to these ideas about sexual promiscuity and femineity. “Sistas with Attitude” is a female rap personality identified by hip-hop scholar Cheryl Keyes that uses “the strategy of “giving the attitude for empowerment.” 16 Important characteristics of this style include the use of similar symbolic speech and behaviors to those of male rappers, vulgarity, sexual escapades, and the positive use of derogatory terms such as “bitch.” Megan accesses the style and content of male rap and adds a female perspective. She raps about getting out of “the hood,” tricking men, and receiving oral sex from men; uses vulgar language; focuses on nails, makeup, and hair; raps about twerking; and twerks. She is all at once the subject a male rapper would rap about and the rapper herself. Then her social media reinforces this perspective 12 Richard Schur, “Authentic Black Cool? Branding and Trademarks in Contemporary African American Culture,” in Are You Entertained?: Black Popular Culture in the Twenty-First Century, ed, Simone C. Drake and Dwan K. Henderson (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020), 175–90, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1131bwx.14.

13 Ibid.

14 Murray Forman, The’ hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002).

15 bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (New York: Routledge, 2004).

16 Cheryl L. Keyes, “Empowering Self, Making Choices, Creating Spaces: Black Female Identity via Rap Music Performance,” Journal of American Folklore 113, no. 449 (2000), 255–269.

96 | Slideshow as the sum of who she is with its racialized motifs, which reinforces the imagery as authentic and provides her the cultural cachet necessary for corporations to mine Black cool from her.

Corporations can mine Megan’s manifestation of Black cool by incorporating the racialized narrative and motifs from her music and Instagram into their marketing with her. Megan’s collaboration with Nike emphasizes her experience growing up in Houston as a “stallion”—a Black Southern slang term for tall, attractive, particularly curvy women—and how she found her authentic persona through dance and rap performance. In an ad for the MLB World Series, she appears representing the Houston Astros baseball team as a nod to her hometown. In her collaboration for the “Hottie Sauce” with Popeyes, the company borrows her “hot girl” persona and nickname for her fans—“Hotties”—to name the “Hottie Sauce.” The campaign also incorporates one of her rapper alter egos, “Tina Snow,” from her first EP. The alter ego is based on real-life male rapper Pimp C, who pioneered the Houston rap sound.

Including this reference further grounds Megan’s knowledge and connection to hip-hop culture and reemphasizes her Houston roots. The ad also includes her real-life pet, 4oe (pronounced foe), and incorporates the anime animation style she uses in her product merch because of her personal interest in anime. These inclusions of personal pets and interests are illustrative of the ways in which truth to personal narrative can also be a hip-hop authenticity cachet.17 (See Figure 2. Megan Thee Stallion’s Popeyes “Hottie Sauce” Commercial and Nike Ad below.) 18

Figure 2. Megan Thee Stallion’s Popeyes “Hottie Sauce” Commercial and Nike Ad Megan’s use of traditional representational resistance produces a consistent and perceivably authentic performance of traditionally legible Black female Southern hip-hop motifs that allows corporations to easily access Black cool through her. This unfortunately exposes Black Southern female hip-hop aesthetics to appropriation from nonblack audiences. It also reifies essentialist notions of Black womanhood by endorsing the stereotypes that characterize Megan’s celebrity self, and may even allow companies to peddle this racist imagery in a way that is more socially acceptable and therefore does not really challenge mainstream representations of Black women.

Finally, for Megan, she is pressured to remain stagnant and easily locatable within these motifs. Later, I will explore how this limits her artistic exploration and saddles her with an undue burden.

17 Margaret Hunter and Alhelí Cuenca, “Nicki Minaj and the Changing Politics of Hip-Hop: Real Blackness, Real Bodies, Real Feminism?” Feminist Formations 29, no. 2 (2017), 26–46.

18 Popeyes. “Megan Thee Stallion x Popeyes Hottie Sauce.” YouTube, October 15, 2021. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=VSAOADvjq-k.

Femcees and Identity | 97

My Real Friends Call Me Amala Doja Cat, on the other hand, has a much less consistent professional and personal presentation. A quick glance at Doja’s Instagram account is a study in jarring, stark contrast, with glossy ads haphazardly dispersed amidst fuzzy or edited selfies and photos. (See Figure 3. Doja Cat’s Instagram Homepage.)19

Figure 3. Doja Cat’s Instagram Homepage The disjunction between Doja’s on and off-stage personas affords her the space to be perceived as only authentically herself when performing her private self, Amala (her given birth name). Her celebrity self, Doja Cat, is left to be reinvented.

This schism between the private and celebrity selves facilitates Doja’s kaleidoscopic representational resistance. By refusing to adhere to a salient and coherent digital body, Doja does not access the same types of hip-hop authenticity as Megan—which distances her digital body and celebrity self from Black womanhood.

Since Doja Cat is not seen as having a Black woman’s digital body, she is also not expected to perform as an entryway to Black cool for corporations. Analysis of her professional posts depicts an absence of the racialized motifs, personal narrative, and celebrity self-references that are present in Megan’s professional posts. Doja’s posts are more traditionally stylized, with glossy airbrushed images and model-esque posing. (See Figure 4. Doja Cat’s Pretty Little Thing Collaboration and Pepsi Ad.)20

Figure 4. Doja Cat’s Pretty Little Thing Collaboration and Pepsi Ad Her clothing lines and makeup endorsements don’t include Doja’s offline narrative. In her ad with Pepsi, her celebrity self is reimagined as a modernized Sandy from Grease. Doja performs a cover of “You’re the One That I Want” about a can of Pepsi and at the end of the commercial adds a punk rock edge to “Bad Sandy,” an 19 Doja Cat. “Doja Cat Is on Instagram (@dojacat).” Instagram profile. https://www.instagram.com/ dojacat/.

20 Doja Cat. “Pretty Little Thing Ad Spot,” Instagram photo, April 13, 2021, https://www.instagram. com/dojacat/; “Pepsi Ad Spot,” Instagram photo, October 18, 2021, https://www.instagram.com/dojacat/.

98 | Slideshow iconic version of the character. All of this is to illustrate the ways in which businesses see Doja’s celebrity self as a fluid canvas—more capable of being adapted to different artistic visions, as opposed to incorporating salience from her career and personal life.

This is a direct consequence of the fluidity of Doja’s digital body.

This complicates Doja’s kaleidoscopic representational resistance, because companies reify essentialist boundaries of Black womanhood by setting Doja outside those boundaries, thus endorsing what Black womanhood isn’t. Doja’s distance from Black womanhood also suggests that she is an unsatisfactory representation of Black women in mainstream media, if she’s read as Black at all—still thereby limiting Black women’s representation in mainstream media. It also limits Doja’s ability to access or claim more Black hip-hop motifs, since they are seen as stagnant categories and she is seen as more dynamic and fluid. I will explore later how this impacts her identity as a rapper and limits the sociopolitical utility of her mainstream success.

The Super Bowl Song The digital world wouldn’t matter if its effect weren’t felt offline. Although all the ads previously mentioned were primarily social media posts or ad spots, the dynamics embedded in them traverse beyond the social media sphere. Super Bowl advertisements are the Super Bowl of the marketing world. The choices companies make and the brand deals celebrities take set the tone for what audiences they hope to engage and where they believe there’s money to be made for their enterprises. Of the many individual commercials and social media posts they both participated in as a part of the larger ad campaigns, both artists’ Super Bowl ads culminated in releasing a song. For this section, I will be focusing specifically on the songs they released. Understanding these songs as a spectacle of identity performance to reach specific audiences allows for the racial and gendered ramifications of Megan Thee Stallion’s and Doja Cat’s digital bodies to be traced outside of the digital sphere.

Megan’s and Doja’s Super Bowl songs are manifestations of their celebrity selves’ proximity to Black womanhood that has been meditated by their digital bodies’ racialization, which is constructed through traditional representational resistance or kaleidoscopic representational resistance, respectively.

“All That and a Bag of Flamin’ Hot Chips” Megan’s Super Bowl Song and ad campaign with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos is a hyperpotent example of how the consequences of her mode of representational resistance and digital body manifest for her offline celebrity self. Prior to working with Megan specifically, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos had already tried to mine Black cool by dropping a “Flamin’ Hot Diss Track” in 2019, which features Chester Cheetah wearing dark sunglasses and sneakers and rapping as he sits on a throne.21 It was unsurprising, then, that Hot Cheetos would choose to work with Megan Thee Stallion 21 Corey Williams, “Chester Cheetah Dropped a Diss Track Aimed at Doritos | MyRecipes,” Blog, My Recipes, February 11, 2019, https://www.myrecipes.com/news/chester-cheetah-cheetos-diss-trackdoritos.

Femcees and Identity | 99 to further access Black cool. This is evidenced even by Megan’s announcement of her partnership, since the caption includes that’s she’s been “eating Cheetos [her] whole life.”22 This reinforces the compatibility between her celebrity and private selves, which supports the very hip-hop and racial authenticity Hot Cheetos wants from her.

The Super Bowl song takes this dynamic a step further than the posts. The song “Flamin’ Hottie” was dropped as limited release, available only on streaming platforms and for purchase for two weeks. Hot Cheetos’ decision to release a rap song with Megan capitalizes on her hip-hop authenticity and reinforces the brand’s authenticity by proxy. The song’s interpolation of “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa—an iconic Black female rap duo from the ’80s—acts as a form of cultural capital made authentically accessible to Hot Cheetos via its connection to Megan. Additionally, the lyrics make multiple references that connect Megan’s celebrity self explicitly with the brand of Hot Cheetos. She connects Cheetos to the sexually explicit characteristics of her “Sistas with Attitude” rap style with lines such as “just like Cheetos on your fingers wanna suck me” or “This cat (slang for vagina) talk back like Chester.”23 This is an attempt at authenticity through strategic essentialism. Megan is a viable conduit for authenticity through essentialism because her use of traditional representational resistance and her digital body—and thus her celebrity self—conform to traditional race and gender performance via stereotypical imagery/motifs and staticism.

“Oh, Make Me Over” Taco Bell, like Pepsi, also opted to use Doja to perform an updated cover of a familiar song, this time a pop-punk reimagining of “Celebrity Skin” by Hole. The choice to “make over” (a lyric from the cover) Doja as a pop-punk artist is similar to the choice to reimagine her as Sandy in Grease, both of which are possible characters for her celebrity self because of the distance between her private and celebrity selves and the fluidity of her celebrity self. Furthermore, opting to have a Black woman rapper cover a pop-punk song—a genre that is largely understood as an offspring of rock, which is racialized as white—is a telling choice about Doja’s celebrity self ’s proximity to Blackness. In the video we can see how Doja’s individuality aligns her more closely with pop-punk authenticity. In it Doja breaks out of a monotonous, homogenous clown school called “Clownus Conformus” in a Mad Max–style getaway car. Later, as she drives, her and her companions’ clothes, hairstyles, and makeup from the clown school dissipate and reveal unique pop-punk styling, such as brightly dyed hair and black leather clothing with studs and chains. While this can be read as another example of the pursuit of authenticity in advertising, it is not an authenticity located in racial or gender essentialism, but rather an authenticity related to rebellion and individuality. Doja is a viable conduit for authenticity through individuality because her use of kaleidoscopic representational resistance in her digital body, and thus her celebrity self, obscures traditional race and gender performance via uniqueness and fluidity.

22 Megan Thee Stallion, Flamin’ Hottie, Spotify, OG Parker, n.d., https://open.spotify.com/track/3ZJmjmUTRCBA3UjNbFU5Ui?si=baaNPNokRkqjMdXboEYJ-g.

23 Ibid.

100 | Slideshow Megan’s and Doja’s viral moments and perceived online communities set certain racial and gendered parameters. Their digital bodies’ and celebrity selves’ proximity to Black womanhood are evidenced by the way in which corporations access Megan’s and Doja’s authenticity to reach consumers, which impacts the way their celebrity selves are located in relation to Blackness, reproducing these race and gender identity processes. The reproduction of these processes then impacts the way in which their work can be situated in proximity to Blackness, in comparison to the proximity of the celebrity selves.

Pop Star vs. Rap Star Analysis of both artists’ representation in the media can illuminate how their respective manifestations of representational resistance are received and the consequences of this reception. Critics more comfortably read Doja Cat as a pop star.

They shy away from assigning strict labels to her as a person or as a musician, and rarely if ever position her as a valid symbol of Black womanhood in America. This often manifests by emphasizing Doja’s individuality and fluidity. Her characterization as a pop star allows Doja to explore more comfortably as an artist, but unfairly sets her outside of the rap canon and legacy, limiting the contributions she can make to Black popular culture. Critics more comfortably read Megan as a rap star, not a pop star, and they are generally less forgiving of her pop motifs. They embrace essentializing her experience as representative of the experience of Black women. This affords Megan the space to act as a political representative of Black women’s issues because of her status as a rap star. However, this portrayal, like Doja’s, perpetuates a dishonest boundary between Blackness and rap and pop stardom. Such a boundary infringes on Megan’s agency as an individual artist in a way that it does not infringe on Doja’s. Both limited readings are both influenced by and reify the racial boundaries between pop and rap.

“Doja Cat Will Do Whatever She Wants” In this section, I will demonstrate how the language used to describe Doja Cat and her music and the nature of the critiques raised against her indicate that she embodies kaleidoscopic representational resistance in the media’s eye as a reaction to her social media self-presentation. Critical reviews and narrativization of Doja respond to the parameters of kaleidoscopic representational resistance by highlighting Doja’s fluidity and individuality and separating her from racialized genres and Blackness. I argue that while this affords Doja individual freedom, it dampens the sociopolitical utility of her representations.

When it comes to music and personal brand, Doja has made unyielding individualism and insatiable aesthetic curiosity her personal brand. Doja’s fluidity is a defining characteristic of her career and evidences her status as a pop star. When writing about her and her projects, music publications emphasize how varied and fresh her sound is. When reviewing her sophomore album Hot Pink, Pitchfork writer

Femcees and Identity | 101 Lakin Starling wrote that Doja’s “real gift is her versatility” and emphasized that both musically and personally Doja “can’t be boxed in.”24 For her third album, Planet Her, Safy-Hallan Farah’s review builds on this assessment and calls the project a “kaleidoscope of pop versatility,” praising Doja for her “chameleonic, limitless flows and intonation.”25 On a granular level, the language of pop and fluidity obscures just how much rap is actually present on these projects. This implies that pop has access to fluidity that rap doesn’t, so even though rap is present on these works, the presence of other forms as well sets her albums outside of rap canon. It also, untruthfully, downplays the extent to which rap as a form has formally ascended into the pop canon, creating a misleading genre boundary.

On their own, these descriptions simply suggest that she has tactfully tapped into and capitalized on her artistic creativity, but when this is put into conversation with discourse about her identity as a rapper, things become more complicated. Doja has actively asserted her rapper identity in interviews and social media posts, and yet media outlets still find themselves really grappling with what it means to be a “real rapper” today.26 Alphonse Pierre, writer for Pitchfork, has an entire article delving into this aspect of Doja’s identity. While the article ends by arguing, in her defense, that how “closely [she] follows or doesn’t follow tradition” doesn’t make her rapper identity invalid, it still clearly identifies Doja as an artist who does depart from the rap canon.27 This is attributable to the very same fluidity she is praised for! Opening herself up to pop motifs and embracing variety leads to Doja incorrectly being set outside of the rap canon, which in truth is quite fluid.

These ideas connect to her as a representation of Blackness because the traditional rap canon is racialized and gendered in particular ways that make it legible to audiences. Today, rap is still heavily associated with Blackness and particularly Black men, even as it rises in popularity.28 On the other hand, pop stardom and pop music are associated with whiteness and particularly white femineity.29 Setting Doja outside of rap doesn’t just set her outside of the form, it suggests ideas about her racialization. This is not to suggest that she’s seen as totally not Black, but rather that she’s been characterized as somehow beyond traditional Blackness. However, questioning her Blackness at all reaffirms that audiences do believe it is present in some 24 Lakin Starling, “Doja Cat: Hot Pink Album Review,” Pitchfork, November 14, 2019, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/doja-cat-hot-pink/.

25 Safy-Hallan Farah, “Doja Cat: Planet Her Album Review,” Pitchfork, June 25, 2021, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/doja-cat-planet-her/.

26 Aleia Woods, “Doja Cat Fires Back at People Who Say She’s Not a Rapper,.” XXL Mag, accessed December 18, 2021, https://www.xxlmag.com/doja-cat-response-not-rapper/.

27 Alphonse Pierre, “Tyler, the Creator, Doja Cat, and What It Means to Be a ‘Real’ Rapper in 2021,” Pitchfork, July 2, 2021, https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/tyler-the-creator-doja-cat-and-what-it-means-tobe-a-real-rapper-in-2021/.

28 Regina N. Bradley, “Barbz and Kings: Explorations of Gender and Sexuality in Hip-Hop,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 181–91, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1017/cco9781139775298.016.

29 Briana Younger, “From Prince to Whitney to Nicki: The Plight of the Black Pop Star,” VICE, accessed December 14, 2021, https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqe93/from-prince-to-whitney-to-nickithe-plight-of-the-black-pop-star.

102 | Slideshow way, just not in ways they are used to or expect. Publications may still acknowledge her “anchor in R&B and soul,” but they’re more interested in the ways she “creates space to stack and reveal her layers” from this anchor.30 They extend her beyond these racialized genre motifs of R&B, soul, and rap. In many ways her positionality in pop affords her the freedom to not be read as a reliable political representative. She is not read as a traditional representation of Black womanhood; therefore, she is not called on to be a political representative for Black women. She maintains a distance through individuality and fluidity that allows her to mediate non-normative representations.

The conundrum of Doja Cat’s status as a rapper or pop star articulates a central tension of Black representation that arises from kaleidoscopic representational resistance. Doja’s predicament suggests that Blackness cannot manifest individually without its legibility being compromised. If Blackness outside of historical legible representations isn’t perceived as Blackness precisely because of the individuality and fluidity afforded to an individual, it suggests a grim ending for the hope of free Black artists. It appears one can be a free artist or a Black artist. Doja assumedly cannot be the liberated Black pop star we desire, since a part of setting her free is not even reading her or her work as representative of Blackness.

“The Once and Future Houston Rap Classic” In this section, I will demonstrate how the language used to describe Megan Thee Stallion and her music—and the nature of the critiques raised against her— indicates that she embodies traditional representational resistance in the media’s eye as a reaction to her social media self-presentation. Critical reviews and narrativization of Megan respond to the parameters of traditional representational resistance by highlighting the traditions they see Megan as a part of and by positioning her as symbolic of Black women’s experience in America. I argue that while this helps to make Megan a legible subject of Black womanhood, it also places an undue burden on her to remain within what’s considered a part of the Black genre canon.

The making of Megan’s career experience into a symbol of what it means to experience Black womanhood is glaringly obvious—so obvious, in fact, that it’s in the titles of multiple major music publications’ articles about her. For example, an 2020 article by Rawiya Kameir for Pitchfork is titled “The Year Megan Thee Stallion Became a Symbol.” Kameir weaves a tale that connects Megan’s pre-fame experiences, career, and the author’s own life as a Black woman with debates about how Black women and their bodies are policed. She argues that Megan’s experiences can stand in for “urgent ideas bigger than herself,” such as “gendered and racialized encounters with violence, creative expression, and autonomy.”31 The article continues, placing Megan’s career within the context of academic scholars’ work, e.g., Angela Davis’s Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. This article perfectly encapsulates how critics identify Megan as representative of Black women’s real-life experiences. Furthermore, Jasmine Espy, in an article for FADER magazine, draws a direct throughline between 30 Safy-Hallan Farah, “Doja Cat: Planet Her Album Review.”

31 Rawiya Kameir, “The Year Megan Thee Stallion Became a Symbol,” Pitchfork, December 9, 2020, https://pitchfork.com/features/article/the-year-megan-thee-stallion-became-a-symbol/.

Femcees and Identity | 103 Megan’s life and the historical articulation of the experiences of Black women. In the article she states that Megan’s tragic shooting “shows the least protected woman in America is still the Black woman.”32 This directly contextualizes Megan’s experiences within the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement, and with the current Black Lives Matter movement.33 It is significant to note the way in which Megan’s life experiences pre- and post-fame are fair game separately from her music—unlike Doja, whose articles skew more toward using her music to talk about her as an artist versus her specific life experiences. The relevancy here is the way that Megan’s actual life and music are seen as a part of singular salient experience, able to be discussed in stand-alone articles, which implies a heavy amount of essentialism.

Conversely, Doja’s perceived nebulousness affords her space between her music and her identity.

While Kameir’s and Espy’s articles pay a smaller amount of attention to Megan Thee Stallion’s music, we can see a similar pattern of thought in other reviews of her actual projects as well. In Taylor Crumpton’s review for Pitchfork of Megan’s EP Fever, she calls it a “once and future Houston rap classic.”34 Throughout the piece Crumpton weaves a tale of Megan’s strong connection to Black Southern female hip-hop, calling the project an “intersection of two beautiful rap legacies: the women rap tradition … and the southern rap dynasty.”35 The article continues, noting the influence of Houston neighborhood SouthPark and the presence of the “spirit” of Houston’s pimp tradition, and calls one track a “highlight reel of Houston’s champ.”36 Over and over and over, Megan is strongly identified as Black, Southern, femme, and hip-hop through and through. This again reinforces how Megan embodies traditional representational resistance.

This reading bodes well for reviews of Fever, a slightly less mainstream project, but it handicapped reviews for Megan Thee Stallion’s first album, Good News. In Mankaprr Conteh’s review of Good News for Pitchfork, she too locates Megan firmly within hip-hop and Black women’s history with delight. She notes that Megan’s “hip-hop traditionalism remains undeniable” on the album.37 She also situates the album’s narrative of triumph and celebration within the context of a poem by Lucille Clifton that reads: come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed38 This adds on to Megan’s connection with Black women’s history and her status 32 Jasmine IVANNA Espy, “Megan Thee Stallion’s Shooting Shows the Least Protected Woman in America Is Still the Black Woman,” The FADER, July 21, 2020, https://www.thefader.com/2020/07/21/ megan-thee-stallion-tory-lanez-op-ed-twitter-memes.

33 Ibid.

34 Taylor Crumpton, “Megan Thee Stallion: Fever Album Review,” Pitchfork, May 23, 2019, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/megan-thee-stallion-fever/.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Mankaprr Conteh, “Megan Thee Stallion: Good News Album Review,” Pitchfork, November 24, 2020, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/megan-thee-stallion-good-news/.

38 Ibid.

104 | Slideshow as a symbol for Black women’s shared experiences. Conteh is pleased by these elements, yet turned off by Megan’s mainstream experimentation. She particularly focuses on Megan’s track “Don’t Rock Me to Sleep.” She frames its sound as analogous to the ’80s-inspired sounds that have invaded the mainstream, and even name-drops other pop stars who have contributed to this, like Dua Lipa and the Weeknd. Yet she is unimpressed with it from Megan and calls it “ill-fitting” in the same sentence where she acknowledges that it’s the “kind of song of any pop artist could make.”39 This critique draws a line between Megan and pop, but that line is rather superfluous.

Megan is one of the biggest stars today. She and Doja battled for dominance on the same pop chart with rap songs.40 By implying that pop songs are ill fitting for Megan while heavily praising her more racialized music in the same article, critics are reinforcing a binary between rap and pop, and leaving Megan shuttered out of the pop world. Their racialization of her, then, is subtly racializing pop music as white.

This is reinforced in Conteh’s review of another song on the album, “Outside.” She calls it “poppy” but suggests that because it is “tougher” it makes a “better fit for Megan.”41 Emphasizing the value of “toughness” in a Black woman’s music while denying her the ability to be firmly pop is again infringing on Megan’s artistic exploration, reinforcing racialized ideas about genre, and boxing her into Black genres, stereotypes, and motifs. Herein lies the double-edged sword of turning Megan into a symbol of Black womanhood. Megan, like anyone, is a dynamic, multidimensional person, but symbols are objects, and objects are static. Critics are flattening her and contributing to the reification of genre racialization by heavily racializing the music Megan makes and making her a symbol of an entire community’s experience.

This is the reality for hypervisible Black artists who are strictly racialized like Megan Thee Stallion. Critics’ reading of Megan suggests that Black mainstream rappers who can be situated within historical representations of Blackness are read as such reliable measures of the Black experience that they themselves are flattened into a caricature of Blackness and rap. Critics contribute to the objectification of that individual Black person by trying to use an actual Black person as a metaphorical weapon or tool for the advancement of Black people and the discussion of Black humanity and struggle. They also reify strict racial boundaries in music and naturalize the genre racialization that segregation and white supremacy caused. Even as a legible symbol of Blackness, Megan is unable to manifest its liberation, precisely because to read her Blackness, it must be always situated as outside of whiteness—thus limiting and oppressing Black artists.

39 Ibid.

40 Mira B, 2020, “Megan Thee Stallion & Doja Cat Both Chart on Billboard Hot 100s Following Popular Remixes,” The Source, May 7, 2020, https://thesource.com/2020/05/07/meg-thee-stallion-dojacat-both-chart-on-billboard-hot-100s-following-popular-remixes/.

41 Conteh, “Megan Thee Stallion: Good News Album Review.”

Femcees and Identity | 105

Conclusion When thinking about Black popular culture, Stuart Hall encourages us to ask, “What sort of moment is this in which to pose the question of Black popular culture?”42 He states that moments are defined by the questions we ask of them and by “the combination of what is similar and what is different.43 Hall notes that Black people have found the “deep structure” of Black popular culture in music, illustrating the relevance of investigating Black music specifically when considering representation and identity.44 If Hall has established what the language of Black popular culture is, then Amiri Baraka translates it. In Baraka’s Black Music, he describes the “blues impulse” of Black music as “containing a race and its expression.”45 He argues that though this impulse has had some changes, “it has remained an exact replication of The Black Man in the West.”46 Baraka’s work argues that the Blackness of music, no matter how its form changes, radiates from a central core of the Black experience, which he identifies as the “changing same” of Black music. What radiates from the core of Black music’s replication of “The Black Man in the West” is Black people’s attempt to redeem Blackness’s humanity, and thus Black music’s perpetuity is produced by Blackness’s permanent status as Other.

Black music is still a canvas upon which Black people are devising representations of themselves in response to dehumanization. The proliferation of social media has provided more opportunities for these representations to be renegotiated in conversation with Black music. Megan and Doja allow for us to understand the ways Blackness can be performed online and how it is informed by and informs Blackness in the physical world. Additionally, their dynamic as foils of one another demonstrates the limited utilities of overly deterministic essentialist representations, even when positive, and fluid anti-essentialist representations. Their experience begs for a third way of meaning-making for Blackness which retains Blackness’s meaning as a social category without ignoring the societal structures which make it a reality.

42 Stuart Hall, “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” Social Justice 20, no. 1/2 (51-–52) (1993), 104–114, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29766735.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 LeRoi Jones, Black Music (New York: Akashic Books, 2010).

46 Ibid.

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Bibliography B, Mira. 2020. “Megan Thee Stallion & Doja Cat Both Chart on Billboard Hot 100s Following Popular Remixes.” The Source. https://www.facebook.com/ TheSourceMagazine/. May 7, 2020. https://thesource.com/2020/05/07/meg-theestallion-doja-cat-both-chart-on-billboard-hot-100s-following-popular-remixes/.

Bradley, Regina N. 2015. “Barbz and Kings: Explorations of Gender and Sexuality in Hip-Hop.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop, 181–91.

Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cco9781139775298.016.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2002. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge.

Conteh, Mankaprr. 2020. “Megan Thee Stallion: Good News Album Review.”

Pitchfork. November 24, 2020. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/megan-theestallion-good-news/.

Crumpton, Taylor. 2019. “Megan Thee Stallion: Fever Album Review.”

Pitchfork. May 23, 2019. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/megan-theestallion-fever/.

Doja Cat. 2021. “Pretty Little Thing Ad Spot.” Instagram photo April 13, 2021. https://www.instagram.com/dojacat/; “Pepsi Ad Spot.” Instagram photo October 18, 2021. https://www.instagram.com/dojacat/.

Doja Cat. “Doja Cat Is on Instagram • 122 Posts on Their Profile.” Doja Cat’s Instagram Profile Page. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/dojacat/.

Dubrofsky, Rachel E. and Megan M. Wood. “Gender, Race, and Authenticity: Celebrity Women Tweeting for the Gaze.” In Feminist Surveillance Studies, 93–106.

Duke University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1198x2b.10.

Espy, Jasmine IVANNA. 2020. “Megan Thee Stallion’s Shooting Shows the Least Protected Woman in America Is Still the Black Woman | The FADER.” The FADER. The FADER. July 21, 2020. https://www.thefader.com/2020/07/21/ megan-thee-stallion-tory-lanez-op-ed-twitter-memes.

Farah, Safy-Hallan. 2021. “Doja Cat: Planet Her Album Review.” Pitchfork.

June 25, 2021. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/doja-cat-planet-her/.

Forman, Murray. The’ hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop. Wesleyan University Press, 2002 “The Representation of African-American Women: An Interview with Patricia Hill Collins.” 2017a. Global Dialogue. February 17, 2017. https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/the-representation-of-africanamerican-women-an-interview-with-patricia-hill-collins/.

Hall, Stuart. “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” Social Justice 20, no. 1/2 (51–52) (1993): 104–114. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29766735. hooks, bell, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Hunter, Margaret, and Alhelí Cuenca. “Nicki Minaj and the changing politics of hip-hop: Real blackness, real bodies, real feminism?.” Feminist Formations 29, no. 2 (2017): 26–46.

Jones, LeRoi. Black Music. New York: Akashic Books, 2010.

Femcees and Identity | 107 Kameir, Rawiya. 2020. “The Year Megan Thee Stallion Became a Symbol.”

Pitchfork. December 9, 2020. https://pitchfork.com/features/article/the-yearmegan-thee-stallion-became-a-symbol/.

Keyes, Cheryl L. “Empowering self, making choices, creating spaces: Black female identity via rap music performance.” Journal of American Folklore 113, no. 449 (2000): 255–269.

Lindsey, Treva B. “If You Look in My Life: Love, Hip-Hop Soul, and Contemporary African American Womanhood.” African American Review 46, no. 1 (2013): 87–99. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23783603 Megan Thee Stallion. “Megan Thee Stallion (@Theestallion) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Megan Thee Stallion Instagram Profile. Accessed December 1, 2022. https://www.instagram.com/theestallion/.

Megan Thee Stallion. Flamin’ Hottie. Spotify. OG Parker, n.d. https://open. spotify.com/track/3ZJmjmUTRCBA3UjNbFU5Ui?si=baaNPNokRkqjMdXboEYJ-g.

Pierre, Alphonse. 2021. “Tyler, the Creator, Doja Cat, and What It Means to Be a ‘Real’ Rapper in 2021.” Pitchfork. July 2, 2021. https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/ tyler-the-creator-doja-cat-and-what-it-means-to-be-a-real-rapper-in-2021/.

Popeyes. “Megan Thee Stallion x Popeyes Hottie Sauce.” YouTube. October 15, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSAOADvjq-k.

Schur, Richard. “Authentic Black Cool?: Branding and Trademarks in Contemporary African American Culture.” In Are You Entertained?: Black Popular Culture in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Simone C. Drake and Dwan K. Henderson, 175–90. Duke University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1131bwx.14.

Starling, Lakin. 2019. “Doja Cat: Hot Pink Album Review.” Pitchfork.

November 14, 2019. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/doja-cat-hot-pink/.

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Ward, Mako Fitts. 2017. “Queen Bey and the New Niggerati: Ethics of Individualism in the Appropriation of Black Radicalism.” Black Camera, no. 1: 146. https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera.9.1.09.

Corey Williams, “Chester Cheetah Dropped a Diss Track Aimed at Doritos | MyRecipes,” Blog, My Recipes, February 11, 2019, https://www.myrecipes.com/ news/chester-cheetah-cheetos-diss-track-doritos.

Woods, Aleia. n.d. “Doja Cat Fires Back at People Who Say She’s Not a Rapper—XXL.” XXL Mag. Accessed December 18, 2021. https://www.xxlmag.com/ doja-cat-response-not-rapper/.

Younger, Briana. n.d. “From Prince to Whitney to Nicki: The Plight of the Black Pop Star.” VICE—VICE Is the Definitive Guide to Enlightening Information.

5700553057239040. Accessed December 14, 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/ article/jgqe93/from-prince-to-whitney-to-nicki-the-plight-of-the-black-pop-star.

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| 109

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party”: Transforming German Masculinity from Pacifist to Fascist in the Great War JH Grimes In 1906, the Eulenburg Scandal and its subsequent court trials—in which many German aristocrats and officials were outed as homosexuals—shocked an international audience.

During the trials, the German government was labeled a “homosexual peace party,” a group of incompetent, feminine pacifists. Going into World War I, Germans had incentive to change the image of the German man perpetuated by the scandal. This project, emerging from a history of scholarly blackout on the domestic effects of Eulenburg, argues that the masculinity of German WWI soldiers was shaped by a rebellion against homosexuality.

Crucially, the bellicose, nationalistic masculinity taken up by protofascist soldier Ernst Jünger in his war memoir Storm of Steel was made possible by the domestic response to the scandal. This project tells a story of a shift in the German masculine ideal from the aristocratic Prussian officer to the aggressive fascist.

Keywords: Eulenburg • Ernst Jünger • masculinity • homosexuality • World War I

History is merely gossip.

But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

—Oscar Wilde

I. The German Vice: Background and Intervention In 1906, popular yet controversial German publicist Maximilian Harden published an article in the periodical Die Zukunft (“The Future”) which accused Prince Philipp of Eulenburg, close confidant of Kaiser Wilhelm II, “of heading a homosexual clique within the imperial government.”1 This effectively outed many aristocrats and military officials, including Eulenburg and Lieutenant General Kuno von Moltke, adjutant to the Kaiser. Eulenburg turned himself in to his district attorney after being accused of violating Paragraph 175 of German law, which criminalized homosexual relations between men, but was cleared of that charge, while Moltke sued Harden for libel.2 This resulted in an international scandal and multiple court trials from 1907 to 1909, as well as Germany’s first national discussion 1 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 738.

2 Many scholars describe the scandal succinctly, but I credit the specific structure of this introduction to the scandal to the description in Patricia McDonnell, “‘Essentially Masculine’: Marsden Hartley, Gay Identity, and the Wilhelmine German Military,” Art Journal 56, no. 2 (1997): 62–68, at 66.

110 | Slideshow of homosexuality.3 The scandal’s five civil trials regarding accusations of homosexual conduct and libel uprooted the private lives of German elites. Many members of Eulenburg’s inner circle of aristocrats (known as “the Liebenberg circle” or “the Liebenbergers”) were also suspected of violating Paragraph 175, and those who knew of homosexual behavior within this circle of elites were called upon to testify against them.4 The first Moltke-Harden trial set a precedent of evaluating the Liebenbergers’ sexualities based on behavior, character, clothing choices, and other similar factors.

Moltke’s ex-wife testified that she hit him during their marriage, but he did not assault her for this.5 The revelation that Moltke did not fight back against his wife further confirmed Moltke’s homosexuality to the court—a “real man” would have beaten his wife for her misbehavior. He was further outed when his ex-wife testified that they had only had sex twice within their marriage.6 She “explained his refusal to sleep with her with the statement that ‘his friend Count Eulenburg wished it so.’”7 This began the testimonies of famous sexologist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, who studied the mannerisms of the elites on trial and testified as to whether or not he believed they were homosexual. Crucially, Hirschfeld described to the court what he thought the differences were between male friendship and homosexuality.8 Hirschfeld testified that Moltke’s behavior and “feminine side” could “‘objectively’ be labeled ‘homosexual,’ even if he had never violated Paragraph 175.”9 Eulenburg’s main trial, for which forty-one witnesses were lined up to testify on instances of his homosexual behavior, was postponed indefinitely because Eulenburg was too mentally ill to stand trial.10 The other three trials involved other elites being suspected of homosexuality and ongoing conflicts between Moltke and Harden. The trial explicitly revealed many instances of elite officers engaging with homosexuality, pulling witnesses from their circles. In court: 3 This project does not aim to give a full description of the scandal’s events. Rather, it aims to describe the international and national reception to the scandal and to highlight three overarching effects of the scandal’s ideologies on sociopolitically accepted masculinity. That is, I argue that there are three effects of the anti-homosexual sentiment surrounding the scandal that provided the space in which the wartime masculine ideal could flourish. For more detailed information on the scandal itself, see Robert Beachy, “The German Invention of Homosexuality,” The Journal of Modern History 82, no. 4 (2010): 801–38; Robert Beachy, Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity, Reprint edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015); Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 737–59; Norman Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair: A Cultural History of Politics in the German Empire (Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2015).

4 For specifics on the “Liebenberg Round Table,” see John C. G. Röhl, Roy Bridge, and Sheila de Bellaigue, eds., “Prince Eulenburg’s Downfall: The Campaign against the Liebenberg ‘Camarilla,’” in Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 545–80.

5 Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 103–106.

6 McDonnell, “‘Essentially Masculine,’” 66.

7 Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 107.

8 Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 107–108.

9 James D. Steakley, “Iconography of a Scandal: Political Cartoons and the Eulenburg Affair,” Studies in Visual Communication 9, no. 2 (April 1983): 20–51, at 30.

10 Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 201; Steakley, “Iconography of a Scandal,” 34.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 111 [An enlisted soldier named] Bollhardt asserted that sexual relations between officers and the troops were not only commonplace but also common knowledge. He described parties he had attended that were hosted by Johannes Count von Lynar, a former major in the Garde-du-Corps whose homosexuality had been exposed earlier in the year. Moltke, he assured, also came to von Lynar’s parties. Bollhardt talked about the sexual appeal of the cuirassier’s uniform, with its skintight white breeches and high black boots. He said that soldiers who wore the uniform on public streets made themselves vulnerable to homosexual solicitations.11 The trials drew vast international attention and effectively reframed the German masculine ideal at the time. The elites outed in the trial were Prussian military officers, “traditionally the central image of German masculinity.”12 Before the early 1900s, Prussian officers were strongly associated with the ideal masculinity; they were considered respectable men to which all men should aspire. The trials uprooted the already-dissolving Prussian officer ideal, as the Liebenbergers were solidified in the public eye as feminine, weak, mentally ill homosexuals—not real men. Further, the trials proved these aristocrats unable to make sane political decisions. National and international press surrounding the scandal was widespread and severe—the nation was the punchline of a joke. Historian Robert Beachy describes the press: The Berliner Tageblatt alone—just one of the nearly forty Berlin dailies— published more than 150 articles about the Eulenburg Scandal in the two-year period before May 1909. The Ministry of Justice collected and preserved more than 900 German press clippings devoted to the trials. Press coverage outside Germany was no less extravagant: more than fifty journalists from France, Sweden, Russia, England, and the Netherlands were present when the Eulenburg perjury trial opened in spring 1908.13 This widespread press solidified a stereotype of Germans as homosexuals.

Before the Eulenburg Scandal, other scandals within the Prussian officer corps and Berlin’s homosexual subculture had caused international rumblings of this stereotype.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the “German vice” referred to homosexuality.

Novelist Armand Dubarry wrote in 1896: “The vice affects all Germans, likewise married men …. In France [married men] are likely to have mistresses, but in Germany, male lovers.”14 Stephan Likosky notes, “In the early 1900s, this question (‘Do you 11 McDonnell, “‘Essentially Masculine,’” 66.

12 Jason Crouthamel, An Intimate History of the Front: Masculinity, Sexuality, and German Soldiers in the First World War, 2014 edition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 17. Prussian officers were specific symbols of masculinity in that they touted the efficient state bureaucracy and military power emblematic of Prussia.

The Eulenburg Scandal emasculated some of the highest military officials in Prussia, including Moltke, which in effect emasculated the image of the masculine officer. See also Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare” and Cristina Burack, “German Efficiency: The Roots of a Stereotype,” DW, March 28, 2021, https://www. dw.com/en/german-efficiency-the-roots-of-a-stereotype/a-56976234.

13 Beachy, “The German Invention of Homosexuality,” 833.

14 Quoted in Beachy, “The German Invention of Homosexuality,” 830.

112 | Slideshow speak German?’) could be heard in certain pissoirs and cruising spots around Paris, a coded way to ask if someone was gay.”15 This was the sociopolitical environment in which Eulenburg occurred. Beachy writes: “[T]he public accusation of a ‘homosexual’ orientation—its politicization, in effect—created a powerful method to discredit officials or to agitate against Paragraph 175. Now both political operatives and homosexual rights activists in Germany began to ‘out’ public figures to promote their own objectives. The Eulenburg Scandal represented the confluence of both trends.”16 That is, Eulenburg rose on the back of other rumblings of German homosexuality but quickly gained more traction and infamy. Eulenburg forced the German vice to the main stage, making homosexual behavior among elites no longer only word-ofmouth rumor.

Political officials and the German public received the scandal as a blow to Germany’s power, equating homosexuality with femininity and thus weak leadership.

During the trials, Harden revealed that the government had had an opportunity to go to war against France over control of Morocco years prior. He framed the decision not to go to war as the fault of the homosexuals within the military.17 Harden used this revelation as a way to blame decades of decline in the nation’s foreign policy on incompetent homosexual leadership, which situated the government as a “homosexual peace party”—feminine, weak, and pacifist.18 Historian Norman Domeier notes that this public reception led to “the feminization of the Wilhelmine aristocracy.”19 Though this scandal is of international importance and began the first national discussion of homosexuality in Germany, it has been buried for years by German historians wary of its negative connotations for the nation. Historian James D. Steakley writes: “The entire Eulenburg Affair has been discreetly hushed up in all but the most recent historiography. Bound by disciplinary restraints, diplomatic historians have given due attention to the international controversy but imposed what amounts to a scholarly blackout on its domestic counterpiece ….”20 This project attempts to see through this blackout by examining the influence of the Eulenburg trials on masculinity among German soldiers in the First World War. I argue that the Eulenburg Scandal caused such a national rejection of homosexuality that it reshaped the masculine ideal, or the ideal masculine figure, as a specifically anti-homosexual man. Any action or behavior that resembled homosexuality was condemned, even if actual homosexual activity was absent in the act. The characteristics that once represented the epitome of masculinity, the Prussian officer to be obeyed, were then characteristics associated with repugnant homosexuality.

15 Stephan Likosky, “Picturing ‘The German Vice,’” The Gay & Lesbian Review, November 1, 2017, https://glreview.org/article/picturing-the-german-vice/.

16 Beachy, “The German Invention of Homosexuality,” 830.

17 “As it happened, Harden did not need the testimony of top military officers to demonstrate the harmful activities of the Liebenberg peace party to the public. Instead of summoning them to the courtroom, he disclosed … that Germany and France had been close to war during the Morocco Crisis of 1905–6.” Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 208.

18 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 745.

19 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 740.

20 Steakley, “Iconography of a Scandal,” 20.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 113 Prince Philipp of Eulenburg, once seen as an elite man, a confidante of Kaiser Wilhelm II, was primarily seen as a homosexual. His political ideologies, social behaviors, clothing, and interests were equated with homosexuality and weakness.21 I frame the scandal as essential to creating a masculine ideal that fundamentally rejects homosexuality—a masculinity that is inherently, in a way not yet seen before at this point in German history, anti-homosexual. That is, aristocrats were villainized as homosexuals. One entry in the Berliner Tageblatt read: “We need neither regulations nor cabinet orders, but men, different men, real men!”22 While “the Pan-Germans failed to define explicitly their conception of the ‘real masculine’ type of politician,” they did through their behavior during the trials outline what was not the real masculine: the Eulenburger aristocrat.23 While many scholars write of the change in accepted masculinity through the damnation of the Prussian officer, few write of the scandal’s effects on masculinity during the war. On the eve of World War I, Germans were on edge, looking for a chance to prove that Germany was actually masculine, powerful, aggressive, heterosexual, manly. This project argues that the scandal’s ideology should be connected to the masculine ideal that arose during the war—the stoic, aggressive, nationalistic soldier. While the presence of homosexuality in the German military was long established, as the Eulenburg Scandal obviously further exposed rather than created it, the scandal did catalyze a much more polarized tension between the masculine soldier and the homosexual deviant. After the scandals and outings before the war and the international attention Eulenburg received, it is necessary to consider the actions of the German soldier during World War I. He knew the world’s eyes were on his behavior—more crucially, his masculinity.

More specifically, this project argues that the masculinity represented by soldier and philosopher Ernst Jünger, “emblematic for the brutality of the First World War and the glorification of violence,”24 arose out of or was made possible by the sociopolitical atmosphere created by the Eulenburg Scandal. That is, Jünger’s masculinity, shown in his war diary, Storm of Steel, was a reactionary product of its environment.

This project acknowledges that environment as the anti-homosexual post-scandal Germany, which established itself as aggressive, nationalistic, and anti-feminine. I argue that Jünger is a symptom of a masculinity crisis born out of the ideologies voiced in the Eulenburg trials. To add the Eulenburg Scandal to the historical framing of Jünger as a war hero, as a figure that embodies the established wartime masculine ideal, is to insert queer history which might have been acknowledged as part of the picture if not buried and forgotten by historians.

I focus on the domestic reception of the scandal and its consequences. First, I examine aspects of German masculinity and the Prussian officer that were irreversibly tainted with homosexuality during the scandal. Using these aspects as a guide to 21 I give examples of these political ideologies, behaviors, etc., in section II. 22 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 751.

23 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 751.

24 Benjamin Ziemann, Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War: Killing, Dying, Surviving (London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), 56.

114 | Slideshow understand the changing landscape of German masculinity, I then connect the rhetoric in the scandal to the masculinity of German soldiers during World War I. Crucially, I argue that the Eulenburg Scandal created a sociopolitical environment in which Jünger could embody an aggressive, nationalistic, fascist masculinity, successfully filling the void left by the exposure of Prussian officers.

II. “Different Men”: The Masculine Ideal Tainted with Homosexuality According to the call for real men during the trials, I argue that three aspects essential to the German masculine ideal were throughout the scandal tainted with homosexuality and thus fundamentally changed in the eyes of the public: male friendship, aristocratic culture, and pacifist political ideologies. The accepted outlook on these aspects of German masculinity going into the war framed the new masculine ideal embodied by Jünger as a soldier.

II.1 Male friendship and camaraderie Close friendships between German men were scrutinized during the scandal, as close friendship could easily drift into homosexuality. Friendship was no longer to be automatically trusted as platonic. Throughout the trials, Harden revealed that “Moltke and Eulenburg called each other ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Old Badger’ while referring to [Kaiser] William II as ‘Sweetheart’ in their correspondence.”25 The boundaries of Moltke and Eulenburg’s friendship were the subject of a trial on their own: [T]he pressing question for the public became where the line between male friendship and love should be drawn …. For Hirschfeld, who had been selected

by Harden and his allies, the question of where to draw the boundary between friendship and sexuality went straight to the heart of sexology: “The clear differentiation between erotic and non-erotic feelings, between friendship and love, is one of the basic questions, indeed the crux of sexology itself. We cannot avoid seeking an answer, even though some are endeavoring, intentionally or unintentionally, to blur the boundaries.”26 The previously unnoticed friendships between men were, with the scandal, subject to suspicion. Before the scandal, it was typical for soldiers’ letters to one another to read almost as love letters, for comrades to express loving and doting sentiments to and about one another. That is, before the Liebenberg circle was outed, the nature of their public friendships with each other likely did not raise widespread attention based on the relationship alone. An early example of the intimacy of German male friendships is seen in a popular 1800s lament of the German army, “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” or “Der Gute Kamerad” (respectively “I had a comrade” 25 Norman Domeier, “The Power of Sexology in the Eulenburg Affair, 1906–1909,” European University Institute, n.d., 1.

26 Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 107–108.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 115 and “The Good Comrade”), by German poet Ludwig Uhland.27 The poem portrays the experience of a soldier losing his friend in battle, and it reads as intimate as a love poem laden with heartbreak: “He lies at my feet / As if he were a part of me / … I cannot hold your hand / Stay in eternal life / My good comrade!”28 Another translation: “In life eternal we’ll meet again / And walk once more as one.”29 With the scandal, this sort of language might be subject to suspicion, so it would follow that soldiers going into the war were perhaps unconsciously revising their conceptions of appropriate behavior toward other men so as to not be seen as homosexual.

During the trials, some journalists in support of the government went out of their way to portray Eulenburg and Moltke’s relationship as only close German friendship.30 A political cartoon in Munich’s Jugend magazine during the scandal depicts two men in aristocratic clothing standing close together, seemingly close friends (Figure 1). In the background, a stereotypically depicted Jewish man in dark clothes approaches the pair. The caption reads: “Panic in Weimar: Wolfgang, let’s let go of our hands! Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld is coming!”31 This refers to Hirschfeld’s role in the trials and reveals that the figures in the sketch are German literary giants Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, known for their close friendship. This cartoon documents the public concerns with male friendship that arose during the scandal—one could accidentally make friends with the wrong person (a homosexual, or a man who looks like one). Thus, it was better to not be involved in this type of intimate male friendship at all: “let’s let go of our hands.”32

Figure 1.33 27 This song, from the context of early 19th-century nationalism and the Napoleonic Wars, remained popular well into the 20th century.

28 Johann Ludwig Uhland, “Ich Hatt’ Einen Kameraden (I Had a Comrade),” https://allpoetry.com/ Ich-Hatt‘-Einen-Kameraden-(I-Had-A-Comrade), ll. 9–10; 13–15.

29 Uhland, “Ich Hatt’ Einen Kameraden,” ll. 14–15.

30 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 741.

31 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 742.

32 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 742.

33 Image from Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 742. For more information on iconography surrounding the scandal, see Steakley, “Iconography of a Scandal.”

116 | Slideshow I do not claim that male friendship and soldierly camaraderie disappeared by any means. Obviously, soldiers displayed camaraderie during the war. However, I argue that this camaraderie was tainted by the homophobia surrounding the scandal, which resulted in the centering of aggressive nationalism within male friendship that had not been so normalized before the scandal’s effect.34 The German public had a newfound suspicion of homosexuality which pervaded men’s interactions, so their relationships changed to cater to this suspicion. Soldiers became less focused on individual relationships and more focused on collectives: “Even before the First World War and the cult of male comradeship that flourished in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich, the Eulenburg Scandal strengthened the tendency to emphasize relationships among men as part of a collective rather than friendships between individuals.”35 Military officials and their soldiers could no longer act like the Liebenberg circle—they had to navigate new boundaries.

II.2 Aristocratic culture By the end of the nineteenth century, German aristocrats were already seeing their social downfall, in that “diplomacy had become genderless, with diplomats, military officials, and politicians understood neither as men nor as women, but as weak-willed traitors to the fatherland.”36 This was subverting the earlier, traditional image of the aristocrat as a masculine, sophisticated, demanding figure. Eulenburg represented the culmination of social downfall for the aristocracy, as he was now cowardly, weak-willed, and homosexual. That is, the German public could, with the scandal, attribute the negative qualities of the Liebenberg circle to an unchangeable “mental illness.” The brunt of the international attention surrounding Germany’s homosexuality fell on the aristocrats. Their behavior and their culture were things to be rejected in order to make the nation seem masculine and powerful once more.

Homosexuality was seen as primarily the pastime of these men, that “group of conservative nobles, many of them more attracted to men than to women, all of them more attracted to art than to ‘duty,’ talented, ambitious, and more than a little smug, who chose to interpret their [sexual] variance as cultural elitism.”37 Historian Jason Crouthamel writes, “In the wake of the 1907 Eulenburg scandal, … (and an incident in which the chief of the Prussian Military Cabinet was even alleged to have worn a ballet outfit to a private gathering), middle-class critics questioned whether or not the aristocracy had lost control of the officer corps as a 34 35 36 37

This centering of aggressive nationalism is explained further in section IV.2.

Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 125.

Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 738.

Quoted in McDonnell, “‘Essentially Masculine,’” 66.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 117 pillar of masculine virtue.”38 Crouthamel’s parenthetical aside here refers to the various homosexual scandals, the largest and most publicly known of which was Eulenburg, in the early 1900s, which revealed shocking inner workings of the Prussian Military Cabinet. The scandal, in corroboration with previous rumblings of homosexuality among the aristocracy, led to a rejection of the aristocracy and the demand for a revised masculinity: Right-wing critics, especially in the mostly middle-class German Navy League and Pan-German League, called for the old aristocratic leadership to be replaced by “real men” whose credentials were a “hardened masculinity” and middle-class values based on work ethic, merit, and productivity rather than court connections.39 Since “real men” and “hardened masculinity” were not explicitly defined in the trials as something other than “not aristocrats,” a void was left for a new masculine ideal to emerge based on the opinions voiced in the trials.

II.3 Pacifist political ideologies With the downfall of the aristocratic Prussian officer came the downfall of the political ideologies and behaviors associated with him, like diplomacy. Those involved with the scandal called for a strengthening of the German military and a rejection of the pacifism displayed by the “homosexual peace party.”40 Historian Harry Oosterhuis, in his writing about male bonding among Nazis during World War II, notes the association of the feminine with political ideologies in the Wilhelmine Period: Despite the revolutionary rhetoric in which the glorification of male bonding usually was worded—Nietzsche’s delineation of the Dionysian, the irrational and ecstatic element in Greek culture, was a thankworthy source of inspiration—in many ways this ideal reflected the prevailing social values in Wilhelminian Germany. These values were for a large part militaristic, and therefore masculine by implication, and they were closely connected to a hierarchical, authoritarian political structure, as well as to a rejection and repression of the feminine. Members of the German ruling elite as well as 38 Jason Crouthamel, “Male Sexuality and Psychological Trauma: Soldiers and Sexual Disorder in World War I and Weimar Germany,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 17, no. 1 (2008): 60–84, at 64.

Incidents like the ballet outfit mentioned in the parenthetical here are typically word-of-mouth stories which appear vaguely in some scholarly work on Eulenburg. The aristocracy had suffered rumors of homosexuality before. This behavior seems to have been in social rumblings for years before the scandal.

See Marcus Funck, “Ready for War? Conceptions of Military Manliness in the Prusso-German Officer Corps before the First World War,” in Home/Front: The Military, War and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany, ed. Karen Hagemann and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Oxford, UK; New York: Berg Publishers, 2002).

39 Crouthamel, An Intimate History of the Front, 17–18.

40 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 745.

118 | Slideshow intellectuals associated the feminine not only with women as such, but to political and social phenomena like democracy, socialism, revolution, and anarchy, and with other nations, like England and especially “decadent” France.41 With the scandal, it was made obvious to the German public that feminine behavior was an indicator of pacifist ideology. As noted by Oosterhuis, men who upheld political ideologies like democracy and socialism—largely the political ideologies that oppose fascism—were feminine and thus weak-minded and weakwilled. The scandal unearthed to the public a view of the homosexual aristocracy as pacifist, especially when Harden revealed in the trials that the government had recently neglected an opportunity to start a war with France for control of Morocco during the First Moroccan Crisis, mentioned in section I.42 Harden declared in court: “In Germany, our politics are too sweet and soft. If we, fully aware of our strength, rejected every advance on the international stage that was contrary to our interests; if we showed that in an emergency, the sword will be drawn as soon as the honor and the future of our nation requires it, then our position in the world would be much improved.” This might as well have been a war cry.

The only way to escape the “German vice” was to draw the sword, to establish a strong masculinity and power that would rid Germans of the homosexual label.

Domeier writes: Because the members of the Eulenburg camarilla were homosexual, they necessarily had to be pacifist, and because they were pacifist, they had to be homosexual—thus ran the argument about this correlation between politics and homosexuality. It achieved nothing less than the intentional exclusion of homosexual and aristocratic men from the increasingly bourgeois and decidedly heterosexual ideology of masculinity, which prevailed in the nation-building project of the Kaiserreich.43 This exclusion was certainly exercised during the war. Intimate male friendship, aristocratic culture, and any portrayal of pacifism were cast out of the accepted notions of masculinity. All of these traits, noted by scholars as part of the Prussian officer trope, were tainted by homosexuality. This left a gap in the masculine ideal going into the war. If soldiers could no longer aspire to be the Prussian officer, they must have looked to something else. The ways in which Harden weaponized the behavior of aristocrats point to the new masculine ideal likely arising as an opposition to the stereotypes surrounding the aristocratic Prussian officer. The new “real man” would have to be an outright rejection of the Prussian officer and would likely make a place for himself in the coming war.

41 Harry Oosterhuis, “Male Bonding and the Persecution of Homosexual Men in Nazi Germany,” Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift 17, no. 4 (February 1991): 27–45, at 34.

42 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 745.

43 Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 739.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 119

III. Toughness over Aesthetics: Connecting the Scandal to WWI While it seems that the changing landscape of accepted masculinity would influence the behavior of soldiers, the masculinity that emerged during World War I has not yet been thoroughly studied by scholars in connection to the scandal. Some historians have connected the scandal’s ideology to the war, describing the reaction to the scandal as militaristic. Military reform and masculine aggression were natural consequences of Harden’s demand in court. According to historian Isabel Hull, “German nationalists reacted [to international ridicule] by rejecting effeminate-seeming diplomacy and redoubling their identification with manly, bellicose militarism— many felt that only a war would redeem the nation’s tarnished honor.”44 A war would reestablish a respectable German masculinity, i.e., it would remove the limelight from the homosexual diplomat and place it onto the manly, nationalistic soldier.

Crouthamel notes the military reforms that occurred during the Prussian officer corps scandals in the early 1900s, of which Eulenburg was the most consequential: “Germany’s middle class asserted a carefully defined notion of the male sexual ideal. Under pressure in the wake of the Prussian officer corps scandals, the military underwent reforms that eroded the power of allegedly decadent aristocrats in favor of a more technocratic, industrialized military that emphasized ‘toughness’ over ‘aesthetics.’”45 These reforms created an environment in which homosexuality was the antithesis of manhood, which established the masculine landscape for soldiers to fall into during the war.

In “Cross-Dressing for the Fatherland,” Crouthamel furthers sociologist Klaus Theweleit’s analysis of the psychosexual universe of frontline soldiers. He argues that “Theweleit downplays the significance of environment, rather than innate psychological factors, in shaping male sexuality …. Rather than warfare serving as a reflection of deep-seated sexual instincts, men defined their gender and sexual identities in response to the distorted world of the front. The war enabled them to more openly express innate homosexual identities.”46 I go one step further than Theweleit and Crouthamel to argue that the specific environment of the post-Eulenburg sociopolitical sphere influenced the masculinity portrayed by German frontline soldiers. We can see the influences of Eulenburg especially in Jünger’s work.

One might argue here that this masculinity portrayed during the war was simply the masculinity taken up by any man who becomes a soldier, the attitude caused by the situation of war itself. However, the scandal’s effects can be seen in the acts of rebellion within the war, in soldiers practicing homosexuality and engaging 44 Isabel V. Hull, “Norman Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair: A Cultural History of Politics in the German Empire,” The Journal of Modern History 88, no. 4 (December 2016): 981–83, at 982.

45 Crouthamel, An Intimate History of the Front, 17–18.

46 Jason Crouthamel, “Cross-Dressing for the Fatherland: Sexual Humour, Masculinity and German Soldiers in the First World War,” First World War Studies 2, no. 2 (October 1, 2011): 195–215, at 197. See also Klaus Theweleit and Barbara Ehrenreich, Male Fantasies, Vol. 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History, trans.

Chris Turner, Stephen Conway, and Erica Carter, 1st Edition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

120 | Slideshow in practices akin to those of Berlin’s homosexual subculture.47 Crouthamel describes homosexuality and femininity in the trenches as the ways in which soldiers escaped “the pressures of being men.”48 Rebellion from the accepted masculinity, modeled for Germans by an international audience, manifested in the form of homosocial and homoerotic behavior. Crouthamel argues: Ordinary soldiers contested prevailing masculine expectations and coped with the stress of the trench experience through gender transgression that included a wide range of “deviant” behaviours, including heterosexual promiscuity, homosocial and homosexual bonds, and female mimesis. As civilian and military authorities obsessed over male sexual behaviour as a site that determined the nation’s survival, soldiers increasingly saw sex as an impersonal opportunity for entertainment and escape.49 These connections between the scandal and the war imply a shift in masculinity but do not examine it specifically as a shift in masculinity during the war as a result of the international and national reception of the scandal. This gap in the literature is likely a product of the scholarly blackout on domestic consequences, noted earlier.

Scholars have not yet directly examined ways in which the militarism catalyzed by the scandal manifested in the war, or how the Prussian officer ideal was discarded and replaced within the war. I argue that a clear manifestation of the scandal’s ideology and the public reaction to it can be seen in the wartime protofascist writing and behavior of soldier Ernst Jünger.

That is, it is in the sociopolitical atmosphere created by the international and national discussion of the scandal that Jünger could carve out a place to thrive as a bellicose, fascist soldier. To clarify, this project does not intend to name the scandal as the sole contributor to Jünger’s masculinity. Rather, I argue that Jünger was a figure symptomatic of the crisis in masculinity caused by the scandal. That historians have not yet made a distinct connection between the scandal and Jünger seems to ignore the weight of the scandal’s effect on the political landscape going into the war, especially its masculinities.

IV. “Practitioner of Killing”: Jünger as a Symptom of a Masculinity Crisis IV.1 The Distribution of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra Before discussing how Jünger took his place as an emblem of the anti-homosexual masculine ideal, it is noteworthy to discuss the reading given to German frontline soldiers as they entered the war, which I argue bolstered the aggressive, nationalistic masculinity Germany wanted to portray after the scandal.

47 48 49

For more on Berlin’s thriving homosexual subculture at the time, see Beachy, Gay Berlin.

Crouthamel, “Cross-Dressing for the Fatherland,” 197.

Crouthamel, “Cross-Dressing for the Fatherland,” 196.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 121 About 150,000 copies of a wartime edition of Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche were printed and distributed to troops.50 Zarathustra can be read, even outside of post-Eulenburg Germany, as a manifesto of aggressive masculinity. The character Zarathustra, who has come down from a mountain to cast judgment on the town below it, posits the Übermensch, a goal for humanity. The Übermensch is a superhuman being who wields superhuman strength in every capacity and sees regular humans as “a laughing stock or a painful embarrassment.”51 Throughout Zarathustra, the Übermensch can be read as a sort of masculine figure, an emblem of stoic, strong-willed masculinity.52 In a section of the work in which Zarathustra calls men to war, he says, “‘What is good?’ you ask. To be brave is good. Let the little girls say: ‘To be good is what is at the same time pretty and touching.’”53 The “little girls” could easily be connected in the frontline soldier’s mind to the Liebenbergers. Aesthetic composure and compassion must be rejected from the real man’s world. Zarathustra goes on: “Your highest thought, however, you should receive as a command from me—and it is: man is something that shall be overcome. Thus live your life of obedience and war. What matters long life? What warrior wants to be spared?”54 The hypermasculine, nationalist ideology touted by those involved in the scandal’s outings is pervasive throughout Zarathustra.55 Historian Cynthia Kaufman writes, “Nietzsche’s rhetoric of the need for a masculine and warlike knowledge that will lead us to greatness in culture and attract truth toward him grows out of his own need for an other to dominate. By creating a discourse of knowledge that keeps women as the other and as the object of desire, Nietzsche guarantees for himself a solid other.”56 Further, like those involved in the scandal, Zarathustra posits criticisms of the democratic nation-state and its deception of its citizens.

50 The origins of and motivation behind this printing are unknown, along with the exact number of copies sold or distributed. Unfortunately, the original publisher Kröner Verlag’s archive was destroyed during World War II and as such they have no records of the wartime edition. Kröner Verlag was contacted as part of this project. The 150,000 estimate here comes from Steven E. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany: 1890–1990, 1st Paperback edition (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1994), 135.

51 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for None and All, trans. Walter Kaufmann (Penguin Books, 1978), 12.

52 For a different view of the Übermensch’s masculinity, see Keith Ansell-Pearson, “Who Is the Übermensch? Time, Truth, and Woman in Nietzsche,” Journal of the History of Ideas 53, no. 2 (1992): 309–31, https://doi.org/10.2307/2709876.

53 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 47.

54 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 48.

55 To be clear, Nietzsche himself and his writing, when read by philosophers, is not nationalistic. Some of his writing can be read as nationalistic, rather than satire or critique of nationalism, by those who do not know Nietzsche’s personal beliefs or those who have not read works in which he seems to denounce these views. The idea that Nietzsche is a nationalist or a protofascist is a result of Nietzsche’s appropriation by Nazi Germany. See Stefan Sorgner, “Nietzsche & Germany,” Philosophy Now, https://philosophynow.org/ issues/29/Nietzsche_and_Germany.

56 Cynthia Kaufman, “Knowledge as Masculine Heroism or Embodied Perception: Knowledge, Will, and Desire in Nietzsche,” Hypatia 13, no. 4 (1998), 63.

122 | Slideshow Historian Steven E. Aschheim, in his book The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, describes the personalization of Zarathustra’s messaging during the war. A 1915 field letter from a German soldier shows the association of the Übermensch with power, masculinity, hierarchy. The soldier describes his “Superman commander”: “I don’t know much about Nietzsche, but I should think that he must have been just like [my commander, the Übermensch]. I don’t want to set myself up as a judge, but when I am with him it is quite plain to me that I am one of the weaklings.”57 Aschheim notes that “[i]f there was a superman most soldiers did not regard themselves as such; he was displaced onto more remote figures.”58 The Übermensch has been interpreted by many fascists as a sort of superior race. In World War II, the Nazis used Nietzsche’s writings, especially the concept of the Übermensch, to further their agenda, making those writings into nationalistic manifestos. The Übermensch was used by Hitler and the Nazis to describe their idea of the Aryan master race, and Nazi German universities taught Nietzsche as part of the new order.59 To clarify, reading Nietzsche’s works as manifestos of fascist masculinity distorts those works, which often satirize and criticize nationalism. Nietzsche was not merely a protofascist ideologue, but his work can be taken out of its context to be read as protofascist.60 I argue that, in the vein of the Nazis, the military branch that distributed Zarathustra during WWI might have had some intent of influencing the German soldier’s ideology. This is mere speculation, as the reasoning behind the distribution is unknown, but the post-scandal idea among right-wing critics that a war was needed to change the nation’s image seems to entail some sort of propaganda that might influence soldiers to be aggressive and nationalistic—to be manly. In this vein, Zarathustra declares: “‘Man must become better and more evil’—thus I teach.

The greatest evil is necessary for the overman’s best.”61 I argue that the distribution of Zarathustra worked to further the agenda of the German government post-scandal. Zarathustra’s proclamations call for war, bellicose masculinity, and nationalistic aggression at their surface level, and it is unlikely that soldiers were poised to read these proclamations as criticism or satire. Zarathustra was used as a manifesto of fascist masculinity. The sociopolitical environment in which German soldiers were reading this work was one certain to breed nationalistic aggression—the sort demanded by Harden during the Eulenburg trials. Zarathustra calls upon men to be more evil, to live lives of war, to focus solely on protecting their nation. This, combined with a glorification of the Übermensch and homophobic rhetoric surrounding the scandal, framed the good soldier as the nationalistic soldier against homosexuality, i.e., against pacifism and all that comes with it.

57 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 137.

58 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 137.

59 Hendricks, Scotty. “How the Nazis Hijacked Nietzsche, and How It Can Happen to Anybody.”

Big Think. https://bigthink.com/thinking/how-the-nazis-hijacked-nietzsche-and-how-it-can-happen-toanybody/.

60 See Hendricks, “How the Nazis Hijacked Nietzsche.”

61 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 288.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 123 IV.2 Jünger’s Masculinity It is in the post-scandal environment that Jünger thrived. This project argues that the displacement of the Übermensch described by Aschheim was undone with Jünger. That is, Jünger did take on the masculinity and superiority of the Übermensch, which are shown in his war diary Storm of Steel. Translator Michael Hofmann notes a “hyper-Nietzschean aphorism of Jünger’s”: “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger; and what kills me makes me incredibly strong.”62 Storm of Steel, “hailed as the definitive account of WWI combat,” provides a view of the soldier as a nationalistic, aggressive, stoic, made-for-war figure.63 That is, Jünger writes himself as the anti-aristocrat, the anti-pacifist, the man’s man.

Historians writing of Jünger certainly describe him as a hypermasculine figure, one popularized during and after the war as a violent, abrasive hero. Historian Benjamin Ziemann says, “If there is one German author who appears emblematic for the brutality of the First World War and the glorification of violence it is Ernst Jünger.”64 In his article “Changing Affective Economies of Masculine Machineries and Military Masculinities,” Ulf Mellström says, “[T]he self-mechanised ideal of the soldier body that the German writer Ernst Jünger came to formulate has been configurative for generations of military masculinities.”65 Bernd Weisbrod and Pamela Selwyn write, “Jünger created a new set of representations constructing a decidedly political identity in the literary expression of his war experience … his self-interpretation led him to a fateful interpretation of war as a political school for male fundamentalism.”66 Mellström’s discussion of “self-mechanised ideal of the soldier body … configurative for generations of military masculinities” is indicative of the particular type of masculinity propagated by German soldiers in the aftermath of the scandal.67 Soldiers were meant, specifically, to be masculine, which meant to be cold, unfazed by war, aggressive, nationalistic, and all the attitudes that come with these projections. Crucially, Theweleit in Male Fantasies interprets Storm of Steel as an example of the autobiographical construction of a specific personality type: that of the soldierly, proto-fascist men for whom the battlefields of the First World War presented an opportunity to prove themselves. Such soldiers created a body armour of manliness to protect themselves against the supposed danger of effeminacy emanating from the home front. As many other scholars, Theweleit essentially read Storm of Steel as a historical ego-document.68 62 Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel, trans. Michael Hofmann (Penguin Classics, 2004), xix.

63 “Storm of Steel (In Stahlgewittern),” Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (blog), https://www.carnegielibrary.org/staff-picks/storm-of-steel-in-stahlgewittern/.

64 Ziemann, Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War, 56.

65 Ulf Mellström, “Changing Affective Economies of Masculine Machineries and Military Masculinities?

From Ernst Jünger to Shannen Rossmiller,” Masculinities & Social Change 2, no. 1 (February 21, 2013): 1–19, at 3.

66 Bernd Weisbrod and Pamela E. Selwyn, “Military Violence and Male Fundamentalism: Ernst Jünger’s Contribution to the Conservative Revolution,” History Workshop Journal, no. 49 (2000): 68–94, at 70.

67 Mellström, “Changing Affective Economies,” 3.

68 Benjamin Ziemann, “Ernst Jünger: Practitioner of Killing in the First World War,” History Matters (blog), September 21, 2017, http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/ernst-Jünger-practitionerkilling-world-war/. Ziemann references Klaus Theweleit and Anson Rabinbach, Male Fantasies, Vol. 2: Male Bodies—Psychoanalyzing the White Terror, trans. Erica Carter and Chris Turner, first edition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989).

124 | Slideshow Theweleit’s notion is exactly the sentiment of this project. Jünger created a personality type which exuded an “armour of manliness” in order to reject “effeminacy.”69 This language has all the markings of the Eulenburg Scandal, yet the scholars writing of Jünger’s work do not directly or thoroughly discuss the environment which fostered the homosexual femininity Jünger’s masculinity rejected.

In scholarly work, the most direct mention of Jünger in connection to the scandal is in the conclusion of Domeier’s The Eulenburg Affair: A Cultural History of Politics in the German Empire, noting the long-lasting influence of the scandal: “As late as 1973 Ernst Jünger used the term ‘Eulenburger’ as a synonym for homosexual in his novel Die Zwille (The Slingshot).”70 The writings of Jünger’s effects on masculinity do not acknowledge the space Jünger was filling, i.e., the reason he could create his own version of warriorhood.

I argue that Jünger was in fact emblematic of the new type of masculine ideal which specifically arose as a result of the scandal’s ideologies and the rejection of homosexuality to an international audience. Soldiers could no longer look to the Prussian officer, so they turned to the real-world Übermensch—the protofascist, created-for-war Jünger. The German public traded out the “homosexual peace party” for the “practitioner of killing.”71 Jünger’s diaries portray a soldier taking up the anti-homosexual agenda demanded by the reception to the scandal. Storm of Steel can be read as the full rejection of the Prussian officer—the rise of a new sort of soldier who would never be at the center of a Eulenburg-esque scandal.72 In his writing, Jünger portrays sentiments that seem to be those of a soldier rebelling against the aristocratic culture, political ideologies, and friendships associated with Eulenburg and the Prussian officer ideal.

In other words, this project outlines the three aspects essential to the previous masculine ideal which were tainted with homosexuality (male friendship/camaraderie, aristocratic culture, and “pacifist” political ideologies) to reframe Jünger’s writing as a response to and fulfillment of the anti-homosexual rhetoric following the scandal.

Throughout Storm of Steel, Jünger presents himself as a man’s man, a workingclass German, not at all preoccupied with aristocratic life. He is stoic, calm, unfazed—unlike the weak, feminine homosexual. He writes: “The nights brought heavy bombardments like swift, devastating summer thunderstorms. I would lie on my bund on a mattress of fresh grass, and listen, with a … feeling of security.”73 This feeling of security resurfaces throughout his writing. In the face of artillery, 69 Ziemann, “Ernst Jünger: Practitioner of Killing in the First World War.” 70 Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair, 259.

71 “Homosexual peace party” from Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 745. “Practitioner of killing” used to describe Jünger in Ziemann, “Ernst Jünger: Practitioner of Killing in the First World War.” 72 Ziemann writes, “Jünger appears here [in his diaries] not as a protofascist ideologue of a male fundamentalism, but rather as a sober observer with a keen interest in chronicling in detail the mental and physical traumas wrought by violence.” While Jünger does not appear as an ideologue, there is plenty of material in his diaries that I argue does hint at the possibility of later protofascism and male fundamentalism. Ziemann, “Ernst Jünger: Practitioner of Killing in the First World War.” 73 Jünger, Storm of Steel, 260.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 125 amputations, and the deaths of friends, Jünger is grounded and largely unemotional, at least in his writing. Every act of violence seems only to make Jünger more militaristic, more enthused by the war. This is certainly the strong masculine hero Harden called for in the trials.

Jünger looks upon his fellow soldiers with something like admiration, but he balances this with enthusiasm for killing. In section II.1, I claimed that camaraderie did not disappear, but rather was tainted with a need to prove one’s own masculinity through a centering of aggressive nationalism. This is shown most clearly in a passage at the beginning of Storm of Steel: We [soldiers] had come from lecture halls, school desks and factory workbenches, and over the brief weeks of training, we had bonded together into one large and enthusiastic group. Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war. We had set out in a rain of flowers, in a drunken atmosphere of blood and roses. Surely the war had to supply us with what we wanted; the great, the overwhelming, the hallowed experience. We thought of it as manly, as action, a merry duelling party on flowered, blood-bedewed meadows. “No finer death in all the world than …”74 Here Jünger emphasizes that the bond between soldiers is based upon drawing blood, crucially avoiding mention of protecting one another. Killing the enemy makes them manly, such that they can bond together without fear of homosexuality.

In fact, Jünger’s diary does not directly mention homosexuality, a notable absence in the face of the recent scandal, international stereotype, and homosexual activity in the trenches.75 However, we do see the rejection of homosexuality which Crouthamel describes in “Cross-Dressing for the Fatherland.” Jünger describes frontline soldiers marching through villages that looked like “vast lunatic asylums.”76 In these villages, the men were “dashing about wearing … [women’s] dresses left behind by the inhabitants, with top hats on their heads.”77 Here, Jünger finds it important to note that men were wearing dresses when describing what looked like a lunatic asylum.

This shows Jünger’s own removal from the homosexual Prussian officer. He views feminine men as things which belong in asylums. This is of course not an unusual view in the military at the time, but in advancing this rhetoric in his diaries, Jünger positions himself not only as manly but as actively against those who are not.

Feminine men exist in another world entirely from Jünger, who barely gives their behavior a glance before discarding it as insanity.

74 75 76 77

Jünger, Storm of Steel, 5. Emphasis mine.

See Crouthamel, “Cross-Dressing for the Fatherland.”

Jünger, Storm of Steel, 127.

Jünger, Storm of Steel, 127.

126 | Slideshow Throughout the diary Jünger touts himself as aggressive and thrilled by war— quite different from other famous German accounts of the war, like Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which more emotionally describes the war’s toll on soldiers. Jünger writes: “I have experienced a great deal in this greatest of wars, but I’ve so far been denied the experience I’ve been aiming for: the charge and clash of the infantry. To zero in on the enemy, to face him man on man; that is quite different to this perpetual artillery war.”78 Here Jünger crafts an image of a man made for war, excited at the idea of clashing with the enemy. He is certainly not diplomatic in the vein of the Liebenbergers, who backed away from war; he seeks out the enemy and loves the thrill of violence. When he first experiences close-quarter combat, he writes: “It is without doubt the most exciting moment of war when you see the enemy right in front of you. In that instant, the soldier feels the fever, the passion of the hunter. But it is a passion that grips the soldier even more strongly than the hunter can ever experience.”79 In seeing the enemy as prey, Jünger detaches himself almost entirely from the humanity of his enemy. These are certainly not the words of a Eulenburger, but more closely resemble the language Harden used during the trials and the superiority of the Übermensch.

Jünger’s aesthetic as well is diametrically opposed to Eulenburg’s. In a photo published with the third edition of Storm of Steel, Jünger sits with a uniform and expression unlike those of the Prussian officer’s (see Figures 2 and 3). Of the photo, William Christman writes: Ultimately, it is not Jünger the man that is being portrayed, but Jünger the soldier …. The emphasis of Jünger’s role as a soldier portrayed in the photograph fits into larger themes of post-WWI Germany. War was seen as a school for manliness, and to be a soldier was to be a man. In this way, Jünger’s photograph is his assertion of masculinity. Germany’s defeat in the First World War surely emasculated soldiers such as Jünger to a degree, as the collapse of Germany military power and the demobilization of German soldiers was an affront to Jünger’s values of martial honor.80

Figure 2. Eulenburg81

Figure 3. Jünger82

78 Quoted in Ziemann, Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War, 71.

79 Quoted in Ziemann, Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War, 85.

80 William Christman, “Seeing the Soldier: Martial Masculinity and Portraiture,” Historically Speaking (blog), January 18, 2020, https://vugradhistory.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/seeing-thesoldier-martial-masculinity-and-portraiture/.

81 Photo on cover of Domeier, The Eulenburg Affair.

82 Photo in Christman, “Seeing the Soldier.”

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 127 Jünger wears a plain military uniform, while Eulenburg wears frills—a sash, floral design, and crisp white dress shirt. Eulenburg’s facial expression seems dismissive and elitist, while Jünger’s is proud and challenging. If “to be a soldier was to be a man” and the Prussian officer was no longer a man, Jünger as a soldier must not have been an imitation of the Prussian officer.83 Rather, the atmosphere in which Jünger became a proud soldier was one in which homosexuality was not only disregarded but fought against and hated. Homosexuality and the political ideology linked to it, pacifism, had caused the fall of the German elite.

We see Jünger, emblematic for his brutality, behaving in ways which are called for explicitly in the scandal’s trials.84 He turns friendship into mutual passion for drawing enemy blood, he rejects the diplomacy and aesthetics of aristocratic life, and he touts aggressive nationalism in his pro-war ideologies. Storm of Steel was compiled and published years after the war ended, after Germany lost, and Jünger crafted himself and his diaries in a way that embodied a masculinity born out of the scandal’s press. Directly before the war, the international stereotype of homosexuality for Germans pushed officials to change the way the nation presented itself to the world.

This push was on the backs of soldiers going into WWI, making Jünger an ideal product of his sociopolitical environment.

Jünger’s representation of masculinity was not solely a result of the scandal, but it seems evident that the scandal created a space for Jünger as a masculine figure, a warrior hero, to emerge. His specific sort of masculinity strictly opposes that of the Prussian officer; it fulfills the idea of Germany as a masculine powerhouse rather than a homosexual joke. Jünger’s position in the war and beyond is a necessarily nationalistic, fascist, aggressive position. His disposition and thus his masculinity were not primarily interpreted as weak, pacifist, or homosexual. That historians have not yet specifically connected the scandal’s reception to Jünger’s rise to fame is surprising—Jünger’s “self-mechanised ideal of the soldier body” seems in fact a symptom of the crisis in masculinity created by the international and national discussion of the scandal.85

83 84 85

Christman, “Seeing the Soldier.”

Ziemann, Violence and the German Soldier in the Great War, 56.

Mellström, “Changing Affective Economies,” 3.

128 | Slideshow

Conclusion: Toward the “Real Men” I have aimed to show a connection between the type of German masculinity perpetuated by soldiers—using Jünger as a figurehead—during World War I and the ideologies that emerged with the international attention on the Eulenburg Scandal in attempt to make clear the extreme significance of a scandal often buried by history. The foundations of German masculinity—aristocratic positions and values—were tainted by homosexuality and thus uprooted. With the scandal, the once-glorified Prussian officer ideal was made into a laughingstock by an international press. Eulenburg solidified the death of this ideal. In the literature surrounding the scandal and the soon-after world war, scholars have noted that the scandal’s effects caused military reforms and changes in accepted masculinity. However, no scholar yet has devoted time to studying the soldier that rose from those military reforms and changes in the masculine ideal—the tangible effects of the scandal during the war. The sociopolitical environment created by the scandal just before the war made a space for Jünger to embody a type of anti-homosexual masculinity and to rise to fame as the new ideal German man and soldier. This new ideal was, without coincidence, fascist, militaristic, and aggressive—just what Harden wanted when he called for a rejection of Germany’s “sweet and soft” politics.86 This analysis of the Eulenburg Scandal as an event connected inherently to wartime masculinity serves not only as a reframing of the scandal’s effects but also as an emphasis of the scandal’s importance in queer history. The rise of fascism in Germany can certainly be connected to the scandal, as the gap in the masculine ideal which Jünger eventually filled was a gap made for a fascist. That is, the masculine ideal during the war not only was aggressive but rejected pacifism and friendly diplomacy as homosexual, unmanly concepts. Journalists and critics during the scandal framed aggressive, militaristic nationalism as the only way to rid the nation of its international homosexual stereotype. In calling for wartime aggression during the trials, Harden and his contemporaries set forth a bellicose nationalism that paved the way for German masculinity to be shaped by anti-homosexual sentiment and protofascism.

86

Domeier, “The Homosexual Scare,” 745.

Out with the “Homosexual Peace Party” | 129

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Theweleit, Klaus, and Anson Rabinbach. 1989. Male Fantasies, Vol. 2: Male Bodies—Psychoanalyzing the White Terror. Translated by Erica Carter and Chris Turner. First edition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Treiblmayr, Christoph. 2004. “Militarism Revisited: Masculinity and Conscription in Germany.” Edited by Ute Frevert, Karen Hagemann, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, Barbara Hey, Cécile Huber, Karin M. Schmidlechner, Thomas Kühne, and Benjamin Ziemann. Journal of Contemporary History 39 (4): 649–56.

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Werneburg, Brigitte, and Christopher Phillips. 1992. “Ernst Jünger and the Transformed World.” The MIT Press 62: 43–64. https://doi:10.2307/778701.

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How Spain Made Orwell: The Development of a Literary Persona Matthew Layden In late 1936, a British author named Eric Arthur Blair traveled to Spain intending to take part in the fight against fascism, made possible by the beginning of the Spanish Civil War earlier that year. Joining the revolutionary leftist group the POUM, Blair was thrust into the middle of a fierce internal conflict among members of the antifascist coalition.

Following the Republic’s suppressive removal of revolutionary elements from power in May 1937, Blair was falsely deemed a traitor to the cause. This article demonstrates how Blair, through his memoir Homage to Catalonia, became deeply disillusioned with aspects of the antifascist cause. This disillusionment informed a hatred of what he termed totalitarianism and produced the literary persona for which he would later become famous. Blair’s Spanish Civil War-born anti-totalitarian beliefs were manifested in his later works Animal Farm and 1984, under the name by which he is better known: George Orwell.

Keywords: Spanish Civil War • George Orwell • socialism • totalitarianism

“The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.”

—George Orwell, 19461 Eric Arthur Blair, a British author at that time in his mid 30s, arrived in Spain in late 1936 to participate in the Spanish Civil War.2 Like so many others, he had come to participate in a war that he understood as a fight for democracy itself against the evils of fascism. However, the war he found in Spain was not quite the one he expected. That is, while there were nominally two sides in the conflict, the rebel 1 George Orwell, “Why I Write,” The Orwell Foundation, 1946. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/ the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write 2 The Spanish Civil War began when a coup d’etat orchestrated by elements of the military launched an attack on the Second Spanish Republic on July 18, 1936. The ‘rebel’ or ‘nationalist’ faction is usually described as fascist, due to self-description by eventual Dictator of Spain Francisco Franco and the enthusiastic support of Hitler and Mussolini, but the politics of the nationalists are slightly more complicated. Franco’s eventual regime, and much of the rebels’ immediate base of support, was built on his strong adhesion to traditionalist Catholicism (religion, of course, being shunned by the Nazis). This tenet helped garner the support of the monarchical restorationists. “Francoism” as an ideology is the marriage between fascism and more traditional Spanish authoritarianism.

134 | Slideshow Nationalists and the loyal Republicans, the latter faction faced bitter internal division.

An important component of the initial defense against the Nationalists was the ad hoc nature of the antifascist coalition, many of whom had no loyalty to the concept of the Second Spanish Republic. In addition to the legitimate Spanish government, the loyalist faction included a myriad of groups that exemplified the diversity of leftist political thought in Spain, including socialists, the powerful anarchist trade unions, and pro-Stalin communists. Most notably, an important bloc of the antifascist cause, led by the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT),3 had no desire to defeat the Nationalists simply to reinstall the Republic, but instead to use the conflict to launch a revolution of the proletariat.4 Therefore, the Republic, in addition to trying to win a war in which they were at a massive disadvantage in terms of arms and supplies,5 had to expend enormous time and energy trying to control their coalition of allies. For much of the first half of the war, the “revolutionary” faction could not be written off, as the anarchists had been instrumental in ensuring the initial failure of the military’s coup of the entire country. While the Republic was left paralyzed following the coup, which saw mass defections to the rebels especially in the military sector, the anarchists constituted a considerable portion of the Spanish citizenry that stepped into the vacuum, securing approximately half the country away from rebel control.

However, the CNT did not join the fight for the sake of the Republic. In Aragon and Catalonia, the northeastern strongholds of Spanish anarchism, the Confederación declared revolution, launching a quasi-separatist anarchist domain.

This “non-state” aimed to collectivize the region and abolish government, and partially succeeded in doing so for about ten months. The Republic took several 3 Anarcho-syndicalism is a political ideology that aspires to a stateless society in which each economic sector of society is controlled by worker-run unions. While Orwell was not a member of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, nor an anarchist, the CNT was by far the most important player in the loyalist faction behind the Republic. Blair’s party, the POUM, was much smaller in membership, but would come to play a crucial role in antifascist infighting.

4 It should be noted here that while conventional, “loyalist” as an umbrella term is problematic. While it (along with the Spanish bando republicano), conventionally refers to all antifascists, those involved in the Spanish Revolution had no loyalty to the concept of the Spanish Republic, and groups like the CNT were by creed against the continued existence of the Republic. A more accurate term would be “antifascist coalition,” but because “loyalist” is broadly used in Spanish Civil War historiography, I will continue to employ it along with “antifascist coalition.” “Republican faction” has the same fundamental issue.

5 The great irony of the Spanish Civil War is that the infighting of the loyalists was not even the deciding factor of the outcome of the war. While this project will make almost no reference to the actual military actions of either side, the war was won and lost on the basis of international aid, with the fascist powers of Europe providing enthusiastic aid to the rebels and the future Allied powers withholding support to the Republic, in an attempt to appease Hitler.

How Spain Made Orwell | 135 months to reorganize itself into a functional body, and would spend nearly a year regaining full control of anarchist Spain, finally succeeding in May 1937.6 As a member of the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (The Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, or the POUM), a small radical leftist party allied with the CNT, Blair found himself in the middle of those conducting the so-called “Spanish Revolution.”7 He joined the POUM not out of pointed interest in their doctrine, but because they were the party connected to his own British Independent Labour Party, unwittingly making an enormously important factional choice. By joining the POUM, he entered the sights of a counterrevolutionary faction that wanted nothing more than to get rid of the revolutionaries.

Internal discord reached a fever pitch in May 1937, when the Republic decisively wrested control of Barcelona (and therefore complete command of the antifascist cause) from the Confederación Nacional de Trabajo.8 These “May Days,” as they are usually called, are the central event in the memoir Blair would write upon his return to Britain, as he was present in Barcelona to witness them and the destruction of the Spanish Revolution. Nevertheless, his time in Spain was soon at a close, for in mid-May of 1937 he was shot in the neck by a sniper shortly after his return to the front. After his recovery he found that due to his party affiliation, he was now wanted as a traitor against the Republic and fled Spain with his wife in June.9 It is somewhat of a historical curiosity that Eric Blair, a Brit born in colonial India, was in wartime Spain at all. The Spanish Civil War is unusual as far as civil wars are concerned due to the magnitude and depth of international coverage it received.

Ostensibly an episode of political instability in a European backwater that had experienced more than a century of it, the conflict attracted enormous international attention. Almost 40,000 volunteers, nearly all leftists, flocked to Spain to fight for a cause that was not theirs.10 This disproportionate interest in the civil war in Spain was due to what it represented to the people of Europe and the world: in the wake of Hitler’s meteoric rise to power in Germany, feared by many to be a sign of general 6 Blair refers to this conflict as a “triangular struggle,” suggesting there were three separate sides of the war including the Nationalists. However, this framework ignores the complex interplay within the loyalist faction— both the CNT and the Republic understood, at least initially, that they could not win without the other, and a good deal of collaboration happened from the outset. This understanding prevented the CNT from declaring the full independence of Catalonia, and required the Republic to treat the anarchists as a potent political force, at least until the May Days.

7 The POUM was not an anarchist party, but as an anti-Stalinist Marxist party that also sought immediate revolution in Catalonia, it found considerable common ground with the CNT. They professed revolutionary views so radical that on several occasions the CNT themselves distanced themselves from POUM messaging.

8 The “May Days” marked a terminal decline in the political influence of the CNT. While the syndicate had effectively collectivized much of Catalonia and Aragon in the first half of the war, they never recovered from the Republic’s reassertion of power, and Catalonia and Aragon slowly returned to Republican (and counterrevolutionary) control.

9 John Rodden and John Rossi, The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 20-24.

10 Michael Jackson, Fallen Sparrows: The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1994), 1.

136 | Slideshow conflict brewing, the response to the fascist coup in Spain was seen as a chance to stymie the spread of a dangerous new ideology while the governments of Western Europe remained inert.

Even with respect to those who came to Spain to fight Franco’s coup, Blair remains somewhat of an exception. The vast majority of international participants joined the International Brigades. These approximately 33,000 men were overwhelmingly single and often displaced in some capacity— unemployed, political refugees, or exiles— and almost all were recruited by the Communist Party.11 Blair was well into his 30s, married, an author by profession, and not a communist. While he certainly shared common ground with International Brigadiers, it would be flawed to view him as a case study for international participation. Instead, the memoir he would write reflects just a small sliver of the conflict in Spain, and the author’s political journey as a result of it.

This memoir, Homage to Catalonia, was penned upon his return to England.

The first part of the work focuses on the revolutionary fervor of anarchist-controlled Catalonia and his uneventful time on the front in Aragon. The second portion centers the May Days of 1937, which represent the culmination of the Soviet-backed Republic’s efforts to oust the anarchists from power, and the immediate propaganda push to destroy his own party, the POUM, smeared as fascist spies.

In this article I argue that the Spanish Civil War and his experiences in Catalonia were instrumental in the creation of the literary persona by which Eric Arthur Blair is better known: George Orwell. I articulate the connection between the author’s lived experiences as described in Homage to Catalonia and the antitotalitarian messaging of the later literary works for which he is famous, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Homage to Catalonia, which I use not as a work of literature but as a historical primary source, charts Blair’s development from an anti-fascist to a broader anti-totalitarian, informed by his acquired cynicism about Soviet communist authoritarianism. This transformation, which set the course for his politics for the rest of his life, was essential in the creation of “George Orwell.”

While his experiences in Spain are often broadly mentioned as formative to his politics, that claim is rarely elaborated upon.12 The Cambridge Introduction to George 11 The International Brigades have received the majority of academic attention concerning international involvement in the Spanish Civil War. The most comprehensive review is Andreu Castells’ Las brigadas internacionales en la guerra de España (1974), which remains untranslated into English. Michael Jackson’s Fallen Sparrows: The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War (1994) is a valuable exploration of the motivations of International Brigadiers. For more reading on the Spanish Civil War in general, see Paul Preston’s extensive bibliographical essay in The Spanish Civil War: Reaction Revolution, and Revenge (2006), 349-50.

12 Orwell’s biographers generally make this claim at least in passing. John Rodden is possibly his foremost modern biographer, with his book Becoming George Orwell: Life and Letters, Legend and Legacy providing an excellent overview of his literary career. Robert Coll’s George Orwell: English Rebel accomplishes a similar task, but focuses more closely on his life. The most relevant piece of scholarship to this article is Ian Slater’s The Road to Airstrip One, which charts Orwell’s life in an attempt to explain the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

How Spain Made Orwell | 137 Orwell states simply “Orwell’s six months in Spain would complete his political education.”13 Orwell himself made the connection in writing between Spain and his hatred of totalitarianism several times, including in “Why I Write” (1946), quoted above. To adequately elaborate on this connection, I will conduct a close reading of Homage to Catalonia as a historical document, as well as other writings by Orwell, to assess the origins of his interest in Spain, how his politics developed over the course of the war, and how it influenced his later writings on totalitarianism.

Why Orwell Came to Spain In 1936, Orwell14 picked up his life in Britain, working as a novelist with socialist predilections, to go spend the next six months fighting for the defense of a homeland that was not his. The author was a rather unusual candidate for enlistment.

While the participation of a German Jewish or Italian communist exile, finding their lives greatly affected by the specter of fascism, is more self-explanatory, the author’s journey from upper-class Brit to one-time revolutionary requires more analysis. To understand the war’s role in shaping his politics, we must first analyze what drew him to participate in the conflict in the first place. In Homage to Catalonia, he notes that his initial interest in Spain was twofold: a still undeveloped interest in leftism, and an extremely developed hatred of fascism.

While some academic debate remains on whether Orwell came to Spain intending to participate in the fighting or simply to write a book about the conflict,15 he provides his own version of events in Homage to Catalonia. In the memoir’s first pages he writes, “I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do.”16 Regardless of initial motive, Orwell was quickly seized by what he found in Barcelona. Notably, he was not driven to participation by any particular leftist vision, but by the mixture of his existing hatred of fascism and the atmosphere he found in Barcelona. Later in the memoir, he writes, When I came to Spain, and for some time afterwards, I was not only uninterested in the political situation but unaware of it. I knew there was a war on, but I had no notion what kind of war. If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered “to fight against fascism,” and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: “common decency.” I had accepted the News Chronicle-New Statesman version of the war as the defence of civilization against a maniacal outbreak by an army of Colonel Blimps in the pay of Hitler.17 18 13 Rodden, The Cambridge Introduction, 57.

14 For the remainder of this article, I will refer to Blair as Orwell, as that is the name by which he is famous. During his time in Spain, he went by his given name.

15 Ian Slater, The Road to Airstrip One (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), 133.

16 Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 4.

17 Ibid., 40.

18 Colonel Blimp was a British satirical cartoon character drawn by David Low, who made jingoistic statements from a Turkish bath.

138 | Slideshow The author, like many of his international compatriots, understood the conflict as not just a civil war in an out-of-the-way corner of Europe, but a war that represented a larger fight between the major political ideologies of the 20th century. While he had little idea of the actual specifics of what the faction he had joined was fighting for, he certainly knew what they were fighting against.

The potential for continental war was well ingrained in the Western public conscience by 1936. Even before Adolf Hitler invaded Poland to start the Second World War, many people already understood the danger that Nazi Germany and fascism presented to the world. However, the future Allied powers, most importantly Britain and France, exercised a stringent policy of nonintervention in Spain to avoid provoking Hitler. At the same time, Germany and Mussolini’s Italy were more than happy to support the Nationalists, in the hope of gaining another fascist ally in Europe.

The frustration of many private citizens over Britain, France, and the United States’ commitment to appeasement and nonintervention may explain the volume of individuals who flocked to Spain. While no Western European planes, arms, or food came to the loyalists like they did the fascists, what came in droves were people.

The Spanish Civil War was the first locale where organized military resistance against fascism could be realized, and scores of antifascists arrived on the peninsula to intervene where their governments would not.

These participants were not a monolith, and different reasons pulled them toward the fight. For Orwell, this pull factor was his desire to witness, and then take part in, the fight against fascism.19 Spain presented an opportunity to act on his antifascist beliefs. He writes, “[W]hen the fighting broke out on 18 July it is probable that every antifascist in Europe felt a thrill of hope. For here at last, apparently, was democracy standing up to fascism.” He lists Japan, Germany, and Italy as examples of appeasement and antifascist inaction. “But when Franco tried to overthrow a mildly left-wing government the Spanish people, against all expectation, had risen against him. It seemed the turning of the tide.”20 In contrast to his mature hatred of fascism, equally important in understanding his account was his undeveloped understanding of Spanish leftism upon his arrival.

His socialist sympathies began before his arrival to Spain, but existed in a distinct, more primordial form in pre-war Britain. Broadly speaking, socialism can be defined as a theory of societal organization under which the people control or regulate economic production and distribution. Under this definition, Orwell was wellacquainted with the concept before 1936. His first book, The Road to Wigan Pier, is both a report on economic conditions in England’s north and an argument in favor 19 Another integral motivation for many leftists was the well-developed representation of leftist ideologies in the Spanish political field. Possibly explained by several centuries of economic decline, the country had a collection of unusually powerful leftist groups, most notably the trade unionists. Like Russia in 1918, Spain in 1936 was more or less an ideal candidate for revolution. While Orwell was not informed enough about the Spanish political field for this fact to contribute to his initial motivation, it should be acknowledged as important to the conflict itself.

20 Orwell, Catalonia, 48.

How Spain Made Orwell | 139 of the economic upheaval of the working class. For many 20th century socialists, association with socialism was primarily an acknowledgment of the flaws of the capitalist system and a broad framework for change, as opposed to a specific road map of how to fix them, a la communism. This looser definition would also fairly describe Orwell, for whom it would be accurate to say had developed a “class consciousness” by 1936. Perhaps he was channeling himself when commenting on the Spanish anarchists, writing “[T]hough their principles were rather vague, their hatred of privilege and injustice was perfectly genuine.”21 Neither was Orwell’s matriculation into the militias that of a person with a highly developed sense of the leftist landscape in Spain. He reports in Homage to Catalonia that his preference for the POUM was purely circumstantial, noting in a parenthetical statement that he “had only joined the POUM rather than any other because I had happened to arrive in Barcelona with ILP [British Independent Labour Party] papers,” and that he “did not realize there were serious differences between the political parties.”22 Despite his enrollment in a militia particularly notable for its radical position, it appears the author landed in the midst of the Spanish Revolution— a goal desired by only part of the antifascist coalition— essentially by accident. However, after witnessing the internal discord of the loyalist cause, he would develop strong views on the politics of Spain and thoroughly revise his nascent interest in socialism.

Initial Development of Political Identity Regardless of whatever conceptions of the war or politics Orwell brought with him to Spain, the revolutionary character of Barcelona immediately captivated the author upon his arrival. Barcelona, the Catalan capital, had been the epicenter of revolutionary action since long before the war broke out. For the anarchists, the beginning of the war and the effective collapse of Spanish government structures was a singular chance to make their vision a reality, and they wasted no time radically transforming the appearance of Catalan society. When he arrived in December, the city was under the control of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. He writes, “When one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or the red and black flag of the anarchists.”23 In his first days in Barcelona, he stepped into a version of society completely alien to him. He notes how everyone used the informal “you” of Spanish (tu),24 everyone dressed in workers’ clothes, and each business had a sign posted announcing 21 Ibid., 61.

22 Ibid., 47.

23 Ibid., 4.

24 While this would not be particularly abnormal today, the implication is that this usage of tu was a profound departure from the normal (i.e., classist) state of affairs. Orwell also did not speak Spanish or Catalan, the language spoken in Catalonia, which may have confounded his appraisal of this situation.

140 | Slideshow its collectivization. These first impressions in Barcelona were foundational to his political development over his six months in Spain. In revolutionary Barcelona, he found a version of society that appealed immensely to him. He writes, “[T]here was much in it that I did not understand, and in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.”25 However, his unformed understanding of the political situation among the loyalists was undeniably important to his enamorment with public manifestations of the Spanish Revolution. Almost immediately, the attractive curtain of a united, worker-run society was pulled back, revealing the intense factionalism that plagued the Republican cause. Orwell soon became acquainted with what he referred to as a “plague of initials,”26 referring to the myriad of abbreviations used by loyalist groups such as the CNT, POUM, UGT, PSUC,27 and a score of others. Also shortly apparent was the variety of political ideologies that these groups represented. When the PSUC was pointed out to him as both socialist and a distinct entity from his own militia, he asked, “Aren’t we socialists?”28 In fact, the PSUC represented the opposite side of the “revolution question” to Orwell’s own POUM, looking to restore the Republic and actively prevent a revolution.

This factionalist paradigm represents what Orwell and every other antifascist fighting for Spain would discover: regardless of how interested one was in participating, “everyone, however unwilling, took sides sooner rather than later.”29 The second step in this political journey was the realization that the Spanish Civil War was not the unified “socialist” revolution he thought he witnessed in Barcelona, but a multidimensional struggle for power and ideological influence. This realization evidently bothered the author, who was certainly in Spain to do something closer to the former than the latter. Despite his belief that it was “idiotic that people fighting for their lives should have separate political parties,”30 joining the radical POUM constituted a considerable political statement whether he understood the implications or not. Possibly part of this frustration, apart from the obvious problem that any infighting hampered fighting the war, was that the author’s socialism before Spain did not possess the level of specificity that the myriad parties in Spain did. In Britain socialism was an ideal; in Spain it was a reality, and a messy one at that.

Orwell kept his faith in this simpler conception of socialism through the first few months of his stay. In January, he was sent to the front, which only strengthened his belief in socialism as an abstract ideal. He was sent to the line near Zaragoza, in northeastern Spain, and spent 115 days at the front in Aragon. His time as a soldier was frustrating. He writes, “I had joined the militia to fight against fascism, and as 25 Orwell, Catalonia, 5.

26 Ibid., 57.

27 Respectively, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, the Partido Obrero Unificada Marxista, the Unión General de Trabajadores, a socialist union for the most part allied with the CNT, and the Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña, representing the Communist Party stance.

28 Orwell, Catalonia, 47.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

How Spain Made Orwell | 141 yet I had scarcely fought at all,” and that his time at the front was “one of the most futile of my whole life.”31 He did truthfully see very little action in his first stint on the front, and the front was cold and the POUM militia remained poorly equipped.

In Aragon there was one bright spot: on the front, he was enamored by culture that emerged out of the collective socialist ideals of his comrades. He notes that as a consequence of the militia system, which “had the effect of canalizing into one place all of the most revolutionary sentiment in the country,” he “had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites.”32 For a fleeting time Orwell found exactly what he had been looking for among his comrades in the POUM. He describes a microsociety in which many of the pillars of capitalist society, most notably class division, had “simply ceased to exist.” This mode of being was enormously appealing to him, and is closest to what he termed “true socialism,” in his own words “a classless society, or it means nothing at all.”33. This existence on the front, among leftist peers, was the high point of his belief in socialism as a concept during his time in Spain, and possibly at any point in his life. This front-line version of socialism was appealing in part because it left behind the messy politicking present in Barcelona, which the author would come to resent. Orwell’s regretful description of a brief, but genuine realization of his political beliefs comes into striking contrast with his own eventual disillusionment with the Spanish Civil War. His return from the front in May of 1937 marked the escalation of his distaste for the factionalism of Republican politics, and the events of May would exert profound influence on the later construction of what it meant to be “George Orwell.”

Orwell’s idealism about socialism lasted only as long as he was unaware of— or removed from— the political reality of the Spanish Civil War. Upon his return to Barcelona in May, he witnessed the culmination of the Republic’s efforts to subjugate the CNT under its own command. The Republican reconstitution of power was aided by the rising influence of the Soviet Union in the loyalist zone. The rise of the Soviets in the war would precipitate the most important ideological development in Orwell’s life, driven by two main currents: the brutal repression and persecution of the POUM in the wake of the May Days, falsely marked by the Soviet-backed Republic as traitors, and the massive propagandic undertaking of the Soviet Union to present its position as correct.

Before I discuss Orwell’s account of the May Days, a note must be made about Homage to Catalonia as a historical document, as the memoir has come under criticism by several historians of the Spanish Civil War. Paul Preston, a prominent scholar of the war, derided Homage to Catalonia in a 2017 Guardian article as “bad history,” writing that it provided a shamelessly partisan account and, despite its prominence in the English speaking world, should not be regarded as a decisive account of either the May Days in Barcelona or the wider context of the loyalist 31 32 33

Ibid., 103.

Ibid., 103-4.

Ibid., 104.

142 | Slideshow squabble.34 Preston’s criticisms are worth heeding from a historiographical standpoint, as Orwell does not demonstrate a complete understanding of the wider conflict.35 For that reason this article will attempt to pass no judgment on the historical accuracy or military necessity of Republican-Soviet actions of his account of the May Days, which remain a source of considerable debate in the field. However, even if Homage to Catalonia is correctly treated as only his own interpretation of events, what he reports is still of interest, because those subjective experiences were still decisive in the development of his politics. 36 To understand the May Days, the central event in Orwell’s account, we must first delve into the shifting politics of the Republican zone and the increasing Soviet domination of the loyalist cause. At the outset of the war, the Republic lost much of its military capacity to the Nationalists. In an effort to find allies and munitions, the Republic appealed to the other friendly powers of Europe. While heavyweights Britain and France adopted a policy of nonintervention, the Republic found an ally in the Soviet Union, which became the sole country to provide direct aid to the loyalist cause. However, this assistance— in the form of munitions, air support, and manpower, came at a cost. Over the course of the war, the Soviets, through Spanish communist organs,37 tightened their grip on the loyalist cause, attempting to push out more revolutionary elements such as the CNT and POUM. The main communist organ in Catalonia was the Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña (PSUC), the dominant Catalan arm of the Partido Comunista de España (PCE), which played a central role in Orwell’s developing hatred of the communists.

His frustration with the PSUC and the Republic was not immediate; he writes that in his early days in Spain he preferred their war-only party line, lauding “getting on with the war while we and the Anarchists were standing still.” He emphasizes competence and efficiency as characteristics the communists at least appeared to have, and that “they were the only people that looked capable of winning the war.”38 Upon his arrival back in Barcelona, he found that the anarchist-driven spirit of revolution had given way, with counterrevolutionary authority beginning to 34 Paul Preston, “George Orwell’s Spanish Civil War memoir is a classic, but is it bad history?”

The Guardian, 6 May 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/06/george-orwellhomage-to-catalonia-account-spanish-civil-war-wrong 35 An interesting illustration of Orwell’s relatively narrow field of view is the fact that he spoke neither Catalan or Spanish.

36 In defense of Orwell, Preston is notoriously critical of the anarchists. Homage to Catalonia, biases and all, is a crucial eyewitness account for the four most historiographically contentious days of the war.

While Preston is important to the field, this newspaper article uses Orwell’s account— and the author’s admiration for the revolutionary faction— as an excuse to participate in a bit of ax-grinding against the CNT. Nevertheless, Preston’s article is useful for framing my own constraints when discussing Orwell as a historical document.

37 While the specifics are out of scope of this article, this sentence obscures the extremely complicated and opaque interplay between the Republic and the Soviet Union in 1937. For a more complete exploration of the relationship between the two states and the USSR’s role in the Spanish Civil War, please consult Burnett Bolloten’s The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution (1991).

38 Orwell, Catalonia, 63.

How Spain Made Orwell | 143 reassert itself. He notes how the “revolutionary atmosphere had vanished.”39 Gone were the flags draping every building and workers’ clothes, replaced by markers of the bourgeoisie such as “fat, prosperous men, elegant women, and sleek cars.”

The Republic and the Generalitat40 had wrested both partial political and cultural control back from the anarchists, evidenced by new anti-militia propaganda. The final blow to this transformation came on May 3, when Republican forces stormed the CNT-controlled telephone exchange, following the anarchists cutting short a phone call between President of the Republic Miguel Azaña and Catalan President Lluis Companys the day before.41 Fighting erupted across the city and region and continued for several days, with Orwell present but mostly an observer. The episode ended on May 7, when the Republic marched some 5,000 troops into Barcelona to arrest and suppress anarchist and POUM forces en masse. After May 7, Catalonia was firmly back in the hands of the government.42 Participants and historians have argued over the necessity and moral righteousness of the Republic’s actions since, but all would agree that the Spanish Revolution was dead by May 8. Following the May Days, the Republic effectively forced the compliance of all loyalist faction parties until the war’s end in early 1939, and reduced the CNT’s political power to the point of irrelevance. This event was an atrocity against Orwell’s sensibilities, solidifying his valid interpretation of the Soviet Union as an anti-revolutionary entity in the process. After the May Days, he was convinced the Soviets were not fighting for leftism, but to “make sure [the revolution] never happened.”43 44 Instead, in his eyes, the Soviet Union represented the worst corruption of socialist thought— a once-revolutionary force swayed by authoritarianism, which did not fight for leftist principles but instead looked to preserve the status quo. This was to say “nothing against the rank-and-file communist,” but very specifically those in a position to be “directing party policy.”45 39 Ibid., 109.

40 That is, the Catalan semi-autonomous government. Catalonia, with a long historical independence streak, maintained a government that enjoyed an amount of independence from central Spanish authority.

However, their actual autonomy during the Spanish Civil War was limited, acting at the will of the Republic for the most part.

41 Thomas, Hugh, The Spanish Civil War (New York: Modern Library of New York, 1989). pg. 635-6 42 The May Days were in essence a showdown between CNT and Republican power, and the culmination of the successful attempt to force all loyalist faction members into line under Republican command. The Republic felt the anarchists were unruly and collectivized industry was not productive enough for the war effort. The anarchists may have proven the Republic right on this count, as a primary reason for the 4-day duration of fighting was a complete communication breakdown between the CNT and their anarchist constituency. Despite calls for peace by the CNT, large numbers of anarchists participated in direct conflict with Republican forces, turning the city into an effective warzone. To the credit of the anarchists, the initial provocation for the May Days was undertaken by the Republic, and a more generous interpretation would argue the anarchists were participating in what amounted to a general strike against the Republic and a CNT leadership they felt had abandoned their anarchist principles.

43 Orwell, Catalonia, 67.

44 This is not a stretch on Orwell’s part, and the USSR’s explicitly counterrevolutionary motives are historically defensible. Stalin’s goal through intervention in the war was not to foment Bolshevik-style revolution, but simply to maintain the existing balance of power in Europe.

45 Orwell, Catalonia, 67-8.

144 | Slideshow He comments: “The issue was clear enough. On one side the CNT, on the other side the police. I have no particular love for the idealized “worker” as he appears in the bourgeois communist’s mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policemen, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.”46 Orwell, like many revolutionaries, interpreted the May Days as an episode of class struggle. On the wronged side he sees the worker and the revolutionaries, and on the other side the Republic, inextricably tied to Soviet aims by this point, as a source of usurping, undue authoritarianism. Through this lens, the Soviet Union had come down on the side of the oppressor, despite their ostensible politics. The May Days cemented his distaste for the Soviet vision as a perversion of leftist thought, and marked a decisive turning point in his political outlook.

Following the May Days, Orwell found himself ripped from the idealism he experienced in revolutionary Barcelona and at the front, surrounded by a socialist vision he found massively appealing, be it genuine or otherwise. Specifically, what interested him about his experiences with Spanish leftism before May 1937 was that it appeared to be genuinely operated by the people. The Soviets then represented the ultimate perversion of socialism: a system just as hierarchical and oppressive as capitalism, and to him the appropriation of Barcelona for this authoritarian structure constituted betrayal. Following the May Days, he came to believe that his previous experience of Spanish socialism was either illusory or fleeting. Along with this reconsideration of Spanish leftism came the loss of faith in his initial impression of the Spanish Civil War as a noble struggle against fascism. He writes, “[I]t was difficult to think about this war in quite the same naively idealistic manner as before,” narrating his return to the front on May 10 or 11. Perhaps most importantly, the events of early May shattered his concept of the conflict as a “war for democracy” —“plain eye-wash,” he lamented.47 “No one in his senses supported that there was any hope of democracy... when the war was over. It would have to be a dictatorship, and it was clear that the chance of a working-class dictatorship had passed.”48 This passage, written almost like a eulogy for the war he wanted to be fighting, conveys a sense of a total extinguishment of belief in the grand cause for which he came to Spain to fight. Instead of united, selfless antifascist sacrifice, he found nominal socialists who behaved like authoritarians.

Orwell returned to the front despite this “depressing outlook” because “whatever faults the post-war [Republican] government might have, the Franco regime would certainly be worse.”49 The author would spend just ten days longer at the front, as he was shot in the neck by a sniper, and spent the next two months recovering in various military hospitals.50 This recovery represented another period of isolation from the politics of the war— and what he found when he recovered would drive his politics and writing for the rest of his life.

46 47 48 49 50

Ibid., 124.

Ibid., 180.

Ibid., 180-1.

Ibid., 181.

Ibid., 184

How Spain Made Orwell | 145

Orwell, Propaganda, and the Origins of Doublethink The May Days broke Orwell’s faith in the Spanish Civil War, but this event alone did not constitute the foundation of his later political writing. The defining aspect of the war for the course of his literary career was the campaign of propaganda and harsh repression undertaken by the counterrevolutionary faction following the May Days, in what appeared to him as a rewriting of reality itself. This process, to him even more sinister than traditional authoritarianism, would be instrumental in developing the anti-totalitarianism that his literary persona later came to embody, providing the thematic base for his most famous works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Following the seizure of Barcelona, the Republic launched two further efforts to finalize its control over the antifascist coalition. The first was the harsh repression of dissidents: the Republic arrested members of revolutionary parties en masse during the May Days, although surely the POUM fared the worst. The POUM was singled out by the counterrevolutionary faction as covert fascists,51 and they fell under the target of the Republic. The party was officially declared illegal in mid-June of 1937, and in a stark illustration of the brutality for which the Soviet Union would later become famous, POUM leader Andreu Nin was kidnapped by NKVD52 agents and tortured to death in prison.53 There is no evidence these charges were true, and the later show trials against POUM leaders largely fell through.54 By far most offensive to Orwell was the immediate propaganda campaign undertaken by the counterrevolutionary faction to cast the POUM as traitors. As soon as May 7 or 8, he began to take notice of anti-POUM propaganda in communist newspapers coupled with censorship of dissident papers. He notes that while the May Days were still raging, “La Batalla [a POUM newspaper] was still appearing, but it was censored until the front page was almost completely blank. The PSUC [communist] papers were uncensored and were publishing inflammatory articles demanding the suppression of the POUM ... Evidently the official version of the Barcelona fighting was already fixed upon: it was to be represented as a ‘fifth column’ Fascist rising engineered solely by the POUM.” Meanwhile, “the posts were working again, the foreign Communist papers were beginning to arrive, and their accounts of the fighting were not only violently partisan but, of course, wildly inaccurate as 51 Claims that the POUM were “fifth columnists” (i.e. traitors lying in wait) are baseless, outside of some Nationalist claims that they had a handful of agents in the Republican zone. The harsh persecution of the POUM specifically, compared to the less exacting treatment of the CNT, was likely due to size and military necessity. The CNT, although out of political power, still commanded an enormous constituency and control of many of Catalonia’s war industries, both of which the Republic needed to win the war.

The POUM, on the other hand, were relatively small and had no such leverage, and were therefore made convenient scapegoats.

52 Soviet Secret Police.

53 Paul Preston, The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge (London: Harper Perennial, 2006), 261 54 Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Revolution: The Left and the Struggle for Power during the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), 460-1.

146 | Slideshow to facts.”55 Orwell appraised that the uneven censorship was neither accident nor simple misreporting. What the Republic wrote off as wartime necessity, Orwell saw as not only the unfair detention of a group that did nothing wrong, but a deliberately engineered alternative version of events to push blame onto the POUM. To him, the goal of these efforts was to construct a distinct reality in which the communist takeover of the war effort was instead a valiant attempt to sabotage a fascist plot. The May Days were a display of authoritarian power, but the subsequent rewriting of history through propaganda was an altogether more sinister exercise of control over the populace.

Anyone familiar with Orwell’s later, more famous work can see the parallels between his interpretation of the May Days and the themes of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Called “Orwell’s twin masterpieces” by biographer John Rodden, these two novels explore not only the danger of oppressive government but what happens when governments possess absolute control over information and memory itself. Animal Farm (1945) depicts an English farm which ousts its human farmer in favor of rule by the animals, but the new “revolutionary” society is co-opted into dictatorship by the pig Napoleon. The novel, published shortly after the end of the Second World War, is a direct allegory for Stalinism. While the connections between Animal Farm and the Soviet Union are straightforward, essential to the allegorical characterization of the farm is the portrayal of propagandic alteration of information and history. Napoleon is no simple tyrant; instead, through subtle changes in messaging he obfuscates his own authoritarianism and rewrites the initial revolutionary principles out of the minds of the people. The novel accomplishes this task primarily through the use of Napoleon’s slogans, which are the book’s version of propaganda messaging. The initial revolutionary Seven Commandments of the Animal Farm, which culminate in “all animals are equal,” are altered to include “but some animals are more equal than others.” When Napoleon begins to walk on two legs like a human, the slogan “four legs good, two legs bad” is amended to “four legs good, two legs better,” and the original slogan is phased out and forgotten. The central criticism of Animal Farm is not just the simple strangling of the revolution, but what Orwell viewed as an authoritarian innovation, of which the Soviets were at the vanguard: extending control over not only the lives of their subjects, but the thoughts, beliefs, and realities of a person as well.

The word for this innovation, in Orwell’s mind, was totalitarianism. He did not coin the term, but was one of its earliest adopters.56 The author himself made the connection between his experiences in Spain and his anti-totalitarianism writing explicit on several occasions. In a 1947 preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, he wrote: 55 Orwell, Catalonia, 145.

56 Possibly the source of Orwell’s affinity for the term was Franz Borkenau, an Austrian communist.

Coincidentally or not vis-a-vis the term, Borkenau spent two months in Spain observing the war, and about his experiences wrote the memoir The Spanish Cockpit (1937). After World War II, he and Orwell became friends. For the foundational piece on the differences between authoritarianism and totalitarianism, see Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951).

How Spain Made Orwell | 147 [I]n the middle of 1937, when the Communists gained control (or partial control) of the Spanish Government and began to hunt down the Trotskyists, we both found ourselves amongst the victims. ... These man-hunts in Spain went on at the same time as the great purges in the USSR and were a sort of supplement to them. In Spain as well as in Russia the nature of the accusations (namely, conspiracy with the Fascists) was the same and as far as Spain was concerned I had every reason to believe that the accusations were false. To experience all this was a valuable object lesson: it taught me how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries.57 Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which is certainly Orwell’s most famous and culturally relevant book, brought “controlling the opinion of enlightened people” to what he saw as its logical endpoint. Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a “utopian” society in which earth has been carved up by three totalitarian empires, which are at constant war with the others. The protagonist, Winston Smith, lives in the superstate of Oceania in the province of Airstrip One (formerly Great Britain), which is headed by mysterious leader Big Brother. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, the sector of government which is in charge of changing the official history of Oceania. Over the course of the novel, Winston is introduced to the Brotherhood, a resistance group, and begins an illegal affair with a woman named Julia. Winston and Julia are arrested when the members of the resistance reveal themselves to be agents of the Thought Police, Oceania’s secret police. Winston is tortured and brainwashed, and released back into society, upon which he comes to the final realization that “he had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”58 Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a government that seeks absolute physical and mental control over its subjects, and displays this control by openly and hypocritically challenging the populace’s perceptions of reality. The populace is under constant surveillance, but that is only the most straightforward of its mechanisms; the government also employs a number of more devious thought control techniques.

For example, at one point in the novel, Oceania switches allies in its forever war, from Eurasia to Eastasia, and promptly declares to the public, “[W]e’d always been at war with Eurasia.”59 Similarly, the reviled opposition leader, Emmanuel Goldstein, is implied to be a form of controlled opposition, and the Winston’s Brotherhood contact is actually a Thought Police agent. These examples of thought-policing are what Nineteen Eighty-Four calls “doublethink,” where one must accept two incompatible things as true, even if they conflict with their own memories. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, these memorial incompatibilities are flaunted by the 57 George Orwell, “Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm,” The Orwell Foundation, 1947. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/books-by-orwell/animal-farm/ preface-to-the-ukrainian-edition-of-animal-farm-by-george-orwell/ 58 George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), 231. Oxford World Classics edition copyright 2021.

59 Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 121.

148 | Slideshow government of Big Brother, in a show of the totality of that government’s control.

While it may not have had a name, the origins of the concept of doublethink reach back to the Spanish Civil War. In his 1942 essay “Looking Back on the Spanish War,” Orwell wonders “[H]ow is a true history of the war to be written?”— arguing that both the fascists and Republicans engaged extensively in this kind of reality alteration. In the end, he argues, “some kind of history will be written, and after those who actually remember the war are dead, it will be universally accepted. So for all practical purposes the lie will have become truth.”60 Writing in 1942, he saw both the Nazis and the Soviets’ Red Terror of the past few years as escalations of this erosion of “the very concept of objective truth.” As for the logical end of this process, Orwell conceives of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’— well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five— well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs— and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.”61 What he argues here is what he would later term “doublethink”: a war on the concept of objective truth. In this essay, he draws the most overt link between his experience in Spain and the ultra-totalitarianism of Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, he imagines a world in which this war on truth he witnessed in Barcelona is complete. If the direct line between Spain and Nineteen Eighty-Four was not clear enough, the use of the specific example of “2+2=5” would later become a central example of the concept of doublethink in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and one that has entered popular usage following the commercial success of the novel.

In Orwell’s post-Spanish Civil War discussion of totalitarianism, the wider influence of the conflict on his political beliefs and literary persona becomes apparent. Following 1937, he was no longer driven by a hatred of only fascism— his initial reason for participating in the conflict— but also what he viewed as the authoritarian corruption of the leftist beliefs he held. A government on the right or left could therefore be totalitarian, and while Orwell would remain a self-described socialist for the rest of his life, his faith in existing leftist experiments was broken.

60 This assertion may have been, in retrospect, overly cynical, but it is easy to see how Orwell might have felt so in 1942. To his credit, the internecine struggle for power in the Republican zone remains a fixation and a controversy of Spanish Civil War historiography, although actual dispute over facts is less relevant than interpretation.

61 George Orwell, “Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War,” The Orwell Foundation, 1942. https:// www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/looking-back-on-thespanish-war/

How Spain Made Orwell | 149

Conclusion George Orwell, following the May Days, was in a curious position. Like his first stint at the front in which he was sequestered from the changes underway in Barcelona, he spent much of the two months following mid-May recovering from a gunshot wound to the neck— two months critical for the consolidation of Republican power— so that he was unaware of the extent of the danger he was in upon his return to Barcelona. Upon his medical discharge from the 29th Division, he returned to the Hotel Continental, unaware he was a wanted man, to meet his wife.

She then spirited him away from the hotel, and told him of the banning of the POUM, the seizure of the organization’s property, and the mass arrests of “everyone they could lay hands on.”62 The couple correctly assessed that it was time to flee Spain. After a chaotic handful of days, they secured passage across the Pyrenees as civilians. Documents later discovered showed that if captured, they would have been ordered shot.63 The Orwells’ flight from Spain represents the completion of the author’s political arc: after all he had witnessed, his time on the Iberian Peninsula ended because he was run out of the country by the very people for whom he initially came to fight. Orwell’s departure coincided with the terminal decline of Republican fortunes. The Nationalists declared victory in 1939, only months before Hitler would invade Poland and start the Second World War. Francisco Franco would rule Spain as dictator until his death in 1975, when he died of natural causes at the age of 82, outlasting the Third Reich by thirty years. For all of their effort, the defeat of the loyalist cause was crushing and absolute.

In just six months, Orwell made the decision to fight to defend a nation that was not his, landed in the epicenter of a leftist ideological war of which he was unaware, was shot through the neck, and was run out of Spain by the very people he originally believed were his allies. These six eventful months were integral to his political development and acted as the cornerstone of the literary persona of George Orwell. The author had come to Spain to fight against fascism, paired with a curiosity about socialism derived from his investigations in the north of England. Initially, he conceived of the war as much of the world outside of Spain did: as a battleground between democracy and fascism, representing to many right and wrong themselves.

When he arrived in Barcelona, this sense of righteousness was augmented by a unique revolutionary atmosphere. He found this spirit again at the front in Aragon, where for 115 days he existed in what amounted to a socialist society that conformed to his own conceptions. For a brief period, it seemed he had found what he was looking for by coming to Spain.

This worldview was shattered upon his return to Barcelona, where he found the revolutionaries’ power quickly waning. These escalating tensions within the antifascist coalition culminated in the May Days, when the Soviet-backed Republic 62 Orwell, Catalonia, 205.

63 John Rodden, Becoming George Orwell: Life and Letters, Legend and Legacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020), 39.

150 | Slideshow seized control of Barcelona and the war effort from the anarchists. This seizure was accompanied by brutal suppression of the POUM, falsely labeled covert fascists, and an immediate propaganda campaign to set the record straight to the Soviet party line. This suppression and media control constituted the defining event of Orwell’s political education, planting the seeds for his two most famous books, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both of these novels centered on the altering of reality to fit an authoritarian narrative, represented by the concept of doublethink in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In some ways, George Orwell had a limited view of the full scope of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell did not speak Spanish or Catalan, and experienced only a sliver of the complicated loyalist politics that unfolded over the thirty-three months of the war. A possible expansion of this project would explore the discrepancies between Orwell’s interpretation and that of Spanish Civil War historiography, and how those may have affected his experience. However, the accuracy of Homage to Catalonia does not concern this particular article, as Orwell’s experience was just that. Regardless of how well he understood the conflict, the Spanish Civil War had a singular effect on his politics and later work, which combined to produce the literary persona that looms so large in our society today.

Eric Arthur Blair died of tuberculosis in 1950, at the age of only 46.

Behind him he left George Orwell, who lives on in societal and literary memory more than seven decades after the death of the author. Nineteen Eighty-Four made Orwell a household name, with words like “Orwellian” and “doublethink” entering the popular vernacular. While the connection is often overlooked, much of this mark can be attributed to participating in one of the fiercest political struggles of the 20th century. The Spanish Civil War, in many ways the forgotten first act in the massive struggle against Adolf Hitler and fascism, forever altered the course of Blair’s life and therefore the English literary canon.

How Spain Made Orwell | 151

Bibliography Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. First edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973.

Bolloten, Burnett. The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution.

Third edition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

Bounds, Philip. Orwell and Marxism: The Political and Cultural Thinking of George Orwell. London: I.B. Taurus & Co, 2009.

Colls, Robert. George Orwell: English Rebel. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Graham, Helen. The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Jackson, Michael. Fallen Sparrows: The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1994.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Signet, 2004.

Orwell, George. “George Orwell’s Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm | The Orwell Foundation,” April 4, 2012. https://www. orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/books-by-orwell/animal-farm/ preface-to-the-ukrainian-edition-of-animal-farm-by-george-orwell/.

Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1952.

Orwell, George. “Looking Back on the Spanish War.” The Orwell Foundation.

August 24, 2016. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/ essays-and-other-works/looking-back-on-the-spanish-war/.

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949.

Orwell, George. “Why I Write.” The Orwell Foundation. June 3, 2011. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-otherworks/why-i-write/.

Preston, Paul. “George Orwell’s Spanish Civil War Memoir Is a Classic, but Is It Bad History?” The Observer, May 6, 2017, sec. Books. https://www.theguardian. com/books/2017/may/06/george-orwell-homage-to-catalonia-account-spanishcivil-war-wrong.

Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution & Revenge. London: Harper Perennial, 2006.

Rodden, John. Becoming George Orwell: Life and Letters, Legend and Legacy.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.

Rodden, John, and John Rossi. The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Slater, Ian. Orwell: The Road to Airstrip One. Second edition. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985.

Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Fourth edition. New York: Modern Library of New York, 1989.

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| 153

We Made the Films: Transformation of the Women Textile Worker Ideology During the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962)1 Hechen Henry Liu Socialist femininity has long been conceived as the product of propaganda and lacking western liberal modernity. However, little research has studied how women workers impacted the trajectory of propaganda in socialist China. Based on archival studies, this article shows how film production promoted and internalized socialist values among women textile workers during the Great Leap Forward (1958– 1962). By analyzing the production, circulation, and reception of artistic documentaries, this article explores how women workers contributed to the making of films.

Moreover, it investigates how propaganda through media production in socialist China is an interactive process between various stakeholders, eventually transforming the bodily experience and political ideology of women workers. It aims to further understand the agency of women textile workers and the socialist modernity they represented.

Keywords: socialism • modernity • women workers • propaganda • film • embodiment

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

—George Orwell, 19492 “Times have changed, men and women are equal, what male comrades can do, female comrades can also do.”

—Mao Zedong3

1 I want to take a moment here to express my gratitude for the guidance of Professor Zhao Ma, Bret Gustafson, Wendy Love Anderson, Stephanie Kirk, and Jean Allman. Your help, effort, and guidance are highly appreciated.

2 George Orwell, 1984 (München: Anaconda, 2022).

3 This is a famous quote from Mao Zedong, but its specific source is unknown.

154 | Slideshow

1. Introduction In 1958, director Xie Jin filmed an artistic documentary4 depicting the life and work of advanced workers at the Shanghai Cotton Mill No. 17, which is part of the textile industry that has always been an important industrial segment in modern China.

The film was named after the textile worker Huang Baomei, who played a leading role, and the film was adapted from her life story. Moreover, all of the actors in the film were workers from a specific cotton mill factory, Shanghai Cotton Mill No. 17.

Only six months after the filming, the artistic documentary was screened to public audiences and served as one of the ten movies made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the following year. Shortly after its private screening, the film was praised by party officials at the Cultural Bureau as having both high artistic standards and documentary-like characteristics.5 Huang Baomei, the protagonist herself and two-time awardee of the national worker medal, received a visit from Mao and Zhou. As one of the ten films to celebrate the establishment of the PRC, Huang Baomei was considered an excellent accomplishment of socialist China’s film industry and demonstrated prestige in making artistic documentaries.

Remarkably, the film starred mainly female performers. Rather than romanticizing the personalities and characteristics of these women workers, Xie Jin took a different path to narrate their lives in a realistic but artistic way by following the style of socialist realism.6 Although initially developed by Russian artists and writers, socialist realism was propagated and made an official art style of the USSR

by Joseph Stalin in 1932.7 Socialist realism is different from conventional European realism, in that it critically reflects on the ordinary lives, hardships, and struggles of lower-class people.8 From a didactic perspective, socialist realism supports the cause of moralization of socialism while mostly reflecting on the accomplishments of the proletariat masses for pedagogical purposes, including depicting the lives of the masses under socialism and portraying the “perfect person” (New Soviet Man).9 According to historian Michel Heller, the concept of the “perfect person” adheres to 4 This concept was initially proposed by Zhou Enlai but was misinterpreted in political discourse by various officials and filmmakers. According to Zhou, “[filmmakers] can create more documentaries, which can reflect our dynamic era, satisfying the audience and educating the creators at the same time.” Historian Ding Yaping argues that this is part of Zhou’s talk “at the symposium of the feature film directors held by the Ministry of Culture” on April 18, 1958. Ding gives a concise definition of artistic documentaries in his book. He wrote, “It is necessary to have both the record-like characteristics of real people and real-life, and the form of an artistic film.” For more detailed information, see Ding Yaping, “In Collective Sentiments: The True Mirror,” in General History of Chinese Film (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022), 93–134.

5 Ding Yaping, “In Collective Sentiments: The True Mirror,” in General History of Chinese Film (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022), 93–134.

6 Shanghai People’s Publisher, Profound Education and Pleasant Collaboration (Shanghai: People’s Publisher, 1958), 1–2.

7 Andrew Ellis, Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970, (Milan: Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012), 17.

8 Although there are various kinds of realism that reflect on, e.g., feudalism, bureaucratism, and modernity, socialist realism differs from them in its implementation of the concept of the “perfect person.”

9 Andrew Ellis, Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970, (Milan: Skira Editore S.p.A., 2012), 21.

We Made the Films | 155 Marxism-Leninism to create Soviet citizens who are selfless, industrious, enthusiastic, disciplined, and striving for the Communist revolution.10 The concept was later used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the propagation of a socialist ideal person throughout the Maoist system. Section 2.4 elaborates on the Model Worker System and how it was represented by Huang Baomei.

Xie did not initially intend to pursue socialist realism in filmmaking. The Shanghai Film Studio made a political choice to combine realistic and romantic portrayals of the lives of the proletariat masses, consisting mostly of farmers and workers. This was done in response to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s requirement to achieve the “Great Leap Forward (GLF)” not just in agriculture and industry, but also in the revolution of arts. In May 1958, the directors and scriptwriters of the Shanghai Film Studio were called to a meeting on the political ideology of filmmaking. The meeting heavily criticized the capitalist and revisionist characteristics of films made in 1957. During the meeting, Cai Ben, the vice manager of the Shanghai Film Studio, pointed out: In 1956, the average cost for each black and white film production was 15,000 yuan. The film Home had the highest cost, totaling 25,000 yuan. However, in 1957, the average cost for set decoration was expected to exceed 22,000 yuan per film. The film Night Flight was expected to cost more than 40,000 yuan, while Lin Chung was expected to cost up to 47,000 yuan.11 Moreover, Zhi Shiming, who served at the meeting, observed: Within the production team, the wastefulness caused by the bourgeois creative ideology and the behavior of acting without regard for the national and people’s interests, but only focusing on themselves, was a very serious issue.

He called for the revolutionary spirit to be used to put an end to such waste.12 By placing the rising production fees and “bourgeois creative ideology” in juxtaposition, participants at the meeting raised the conduct of filmmakers to the level of political ideology, rectifying any past conduct that might ideologically represent capitalist ways of film production.

The meeting left no space for academic debate over the function of socialist filmmaking, but declared “war” on capitalism and imperialism.13 The standardization of the ways films should be produced in the GLF and the strict rules that art workers had to follow further solidified the political ideology of socialist films to reflect on the real lives of workers but also to dramatize their stories in order to educate and revolutionize the masses. In particular, women-themed films add a gendered layer to this political consideration by emphasizing the good values of women workers as representative of femininity and worker identity.

10 Ibid.

11 Anonymous author. “The Shanghai Film Studio Creative Ideology Discussion Conference— Highlights” (1958).

12 Ibid.

13 Shanghai People’s Publisher, Profound Education and Pleasant Collaboration, 1–2.

156 | Slideshow In her book The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China’s Collective Past, historian Gail Hershatter argues: To become an agricultural labor model or a village leader, a man had to be good, even innovative, at what had always been man’s work. A woman labor model, in contrast, had to do something completely different from what women had conventionally been recognized as doing, even while continuing to do most of what she had done before.14 Although her studies focus on rural women, Hershatter points out how all women were expected to be presented and transformed in socialist China. By working no longer simply as domestic wives but as contributors to the socialist revolution in industrial and agricultural production, women workers started to engage in duties that had not been available to them in the pre-modern and pre-PRC era. In particular, model workers served to represent the proletariat masses and the ideal of socialist modernity. As Hershatter argued, model workers were perceived by Party leaders as “a bridge between the masses and the leaders, taking opinions and directions to the people and bringing suggestions and demands back to the leadership.”15 In the film Huang Baomei, Huang’s model worker background makes her an outstanding figure but also a leader within the worker group as they participate in production competitions. Importantly, the promotion of the model worker system does not emphasize individualism. Instead, it is about collective and strategic actions that raise the quality and quantity of textile production. Thus, socialist femininity as a representation of socialist modernity concerns the collective transformation of women’s identity and political ideology, while the leader in the work group carries the greatest share of the burden of this political mission.

In this article, I argue that the national initiative to propagate socialist films in the GLF is an interactive process of production, circulation, and reception that transformed the identities of multiple participants (filmmakers, workers, and filmgoers) and was shaped by individuals’ various interpretations of the political ideology of artistic documentaries. In particular, by situating the historicity of this complicated issue of worker identity and agency, I argue that the production of women worker–themed films such as Huang Baomei is part of the continuous efforts of the CCP to develop a Chinese socialism-oriented alternative imagination of modernity in response to the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union and Western modernity in the Cold War era. The desirable goal was to form a nation-centered narrative of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism. Moreover, I examine the creation of women worker identity through analyzing how the imagery of socialist feminine values was portrayed in films, and considering which propaganda, policies, and stakeholders made the formation and consolidation of socialist femininity possible.

14 Gail Hershatter, The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China’s Collective Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 210.

15 Hershatter, The Gender of Memory.

We Made the Films | 157 My article uses a variety of archives, ranging from government institutions to factory enterprises and individuals. When I visited the Shanghai Municipal Archive, I mainly collected material related to Huang Baomei and her colleagues. These included speeches by Huang Baomei herself, reports of factory director meetings, enterprise development and reform plans, and more. These archives, related to factory development and worker speeches, helped me establish the historical context of the film and its key figures.

When I visited the Harvard-Yenching Library and Fung Library, I mainly collected archives related to worker policies and film production during the GLF. These archives included film scripts, director interviews, official documents from the film bureau and women’s federations, and social news, among others. These historical archives helped me analyze the political, social, and cultural atmospheres of film production during the GLF. Furthermore, these archives allowed me to understand the production, circulation, and reception of revolutionary films during that time.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find the film archives of Huang Baomei. Through further research, I found that the CCP had centralized and banned over 100 artistic documentaries and news briefings during the GLF, and only a small amount of information is available for the public and scholars to view. I will explain the political reasons behind this in my article, but the main reason is that the CCP wants to monopolize the interpretation of revolutionary culture. Therefore, there is no public access, but only official celebration of the achievements of socialist revolution.

Fortunately, the inability to access Huang Baomei did not significantly affect my research, as clips from the film can be found online. Also, my article analyzes the process of the film’s creation and promotion, rather than focusing on its plot.

2. The Great Leap Forward, Socialist Modernity, and Feminine Values 2.1 The “Five Goods Policy” and Gender-Based Division of Labor The campaign to transform women reached its climax in 1956, when the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation Propaganda Department (SDWFPD) of the CCP launched the “Five Goods Policy.” By setting up socialist feminine values in the 1950s, the policy served as a behavioral and moral regulation for the increasing numbers of women participating in production and work since the early 1950s. Under the “Five Goods Policy,” SDWFPD officials expected and encouraged women to: 1. Unite the family and help neighbors; 2. Arrange and organize the domestic sphere; 3. Educate the offspring; 4. Encourage family members to produce, work, and study well; 5. Be active in studying and participating in social services.16

16 Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation Propaganda Department, Five Goods Policy (Shanghai: People’s Publisher, 1956), 2.

158 | Slideshow In the following paragraphs, I explain how these regulations shaped the ideal norm for socialist womanhood and how the policy consolidation prepared women to enter the workforce for industrial production.

On the “first good,” husbands and wives should love and respect each other to establish a family of well-being and happiness. If a husband finds that his wife has not corrected her feudal and inferior thoughts, he has the obligation to support and encourage her so that “she can stand up as an equal person.”17 Therefore, moral and behavioral norms that each person should follow were highly gender-based. On the “second good,” the wife is expected to manage the finances and consumption of the family to overcome economic hardship. Household consumption prioritized productivity and condemned unproductive economic activities, including entertainment and shopping. Whether a housewife could spend money skillfully for the family became an ethical evaluation of her socialist feminine values. On the third and fourth “goods,” housewives were expected to educate their children well and encourage family members to produce and work well. A wife was expected to support her husband—to take care of everything in his life and to conduct emotional labor to help him improve at work.

On the “fifth good,” housewives were required to be hardworking learners in the study group and active participators in social activities to improve their political consciousness, cultural knowledge level, and work ethic. Moreover, the “fifth good” emphasized the significance of improving the literacy of housewives through study groups. Aside from that, reading newspapers and books, attending lectures, visiting exhibits, and watching movies could be other ways of learning: Through the above activities, we can know what is going on in the world and our nation; we can learn much knowledge about science and sanitation; we are thus able to know how to deal with love, marriage, family and children. … Through these activities, we can expand our horizons, broaden our minds, and enrich our knowledge.18 Therefore, the spare time for entertainment was optimized to improve the political consciousness of housewives through media productions that functioned as part of the campaign for socialist womanhood.

The “Five Goods Policy” provides a comprehensive framework for family management to comply with industrial production. Women’s daily practices of socialist feminine values were a repetitive activity that reshaped and transformed their womanhood. Through practicing the “embodied norms,”19 the campaign imposed gender and class specificity onto the bodies of socialist workers. Therefore, practicing ritualized activities.20 generated the subjectivity of women workers. Moreover, the campaign to transform family management and shared labor can be considered as 17 Ibid., 3–11.

18 Ibid., 34.

19 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter on the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (London; New York: Routledge, 2015), 95.

20 Catherine M. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 16.

We Made the Films | 159 a preparation process for the Great Leap Forward movement, in which more and more women were trained professionally to become official or part-time employees of national factories.

In the case of Huang Baomei, her hours in the factory was much longer than her time at home, which made it almost impossible for her to take care of her child’s education and housework. Even when she returned home late at night from the factory, Huang would lie in bed and continue to think about how to make breakthroughs in production, while her husband and mother took on more household chores, allowing Huang to focus better on work. In Huang’s interview, she mentioned that her husband often accompanied her to discuss work until late at night, helping her clarify many work-related matters.21 In this process, her husband took on the emotional labor that was often completed by the wife. As Hershatter pointed out, socialist femininity has desexualized characteristics, and the meaning of womanly also includes more manly characteristics. Under Huang’s identity as a model worker, the dilemma of being unable to take care of household chores and children’s education has been transformed into a glorious narrative of personal sacrifice for production. In the following sections, I will explain the mission that the GLF managed to accomplish, how the model worker system was a significant factor in this process, and the production, circulation, and reception of Huang Baomei.

2.2 The Mission and Ideals of the Great Leap Forward As argued by historian James Farley, the GLF was proposed officially at the Second Session of the Eighth National Congress of the CCP in May 1958. In that session, the CCP proposed the four essential elements of the campaign. First, efforts should be made to mobilize unemployed labor power to “combat the lack of capital in both industry and culture.”22 Secondly, innovative approaches were strongly encouraged to achieve rapid progress in the economic sector.23 Thirdly, “both the new and traditional methods would be relied upon to enhance economic output.”24 This means that both small textile workshops and major industrial cotton mills would receive the same attention in terms of state funding. Finally, the policy of the GLF focused more on “more, faster, better and more economical results”25 to place quantity, efficiency, quality, and cost-saving at the core of production. Materially and strategically, the goal of the Great Leap Forward was set by Mao: to “Overtake Britain in Iron and Steel and Other Major Industrial Production in Fifteen or More Years.”26 21 Anonymous, Huang Baomei and Pu Yuzhen (Shanghai: People’s Publisher, 1956), 3–4.

22 James Farley, Model Workers in China, 1949–1965: Constructing a New Citizen (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), 48.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 Kenneth Lieberthal, “The Great Leap Forward and the Split in the Yenan Leadership,” in The Cambridge History of China, ed. Roderick MacFarquhar and John K. Fairbank, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 14:291–359, doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521243360.008.

26 Shanghai People’s Publisher, Profound Education and Great Revelation (Shanghai People’s Publisher, 1958), 12.

160 | Slideshow The GLF was supported by a foundation of political propaganda that had at its core socialist heroism and honor. The heroism and sense of honor originate from Maoist interpretations of Marxism, which is a “voluntaristic belief that human consciousness and the moral qualities of men are the decisive factors in determining the course of history.”27 With the foundational support of the ideological consciousness, the political campaigns were launched to the expansive population of the proletariat class.

After the establishment of the PRC, the overarching mindset behind the political campaigns launched by the CCP was centered on anti-capitalism, antiimperialism, and anti-colonialism. In the context of postwar development and the Cold War, a modernity represented by Maoist socialism was proposed against the Western modernity.28 To achieve the goal of developing and reviving, the party promoted the First and Second Five-Year Plans in the first decade of the PRC to make colossal progress in full-scale production, including agriculture, labor-intensive industry, and culture. Most of the time, these aspects were interrelated.

Agricultural and industrial production formed the basis of the Chinese economy. In contrast, cultural production was considered a spiritual pursuit to transform the ideological mindset of people in their everyday lives to learn and internalize socialist values and identity. In particular, cultural production was undertaken by the CCP as part of cultural and artistic propaganda to change the political ideology of proletarians.

Cultural campaigns during the GLF also sought to transform women’s roles and impose socialist feminine values onto womanhood through the cultural production of literature and films depicting women model workers like Huang Baomei. Thus, collecting the heroic stories of women workers in the 1950s and creating works of art based on their stories was a political trend that motivated thousands of scriptwriters to visit factories and interview the women workers.29 The campaign of cultural production revealed how the transformation of womanhood represented socialist modernity. In the pre-modern era, the gender division of labor often relegated women to the status of housewives in the domestic sphere. Their responsibility of domestic work included domestic and emotional labor, primarily cooking for the family, taking care of the children, and weaving textiles to support the family financially. Compared to men who labored intensively at the factories, women’s relationship with industrial technology was limited to the domestic sphere. Aiming to transform the status of women in socialist China, Mao considered the gender division of labor in pre-modern China to be poisonous to the core family system and economic development. Moreover, he believed that household wives were 27 March J. Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic. (New York: The Free Press, 1999), 201.

28 Lisa Rofel, Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism (Oakland: University of California Press, 2009), 37-41.

29 Shanghai People’s Publisher, Propaganda and Mobilization Work during the Great Leap Forward (Shanghai: People’s Publisher, 1958), 35–38.

We Made the Films | 161 often subjugated to their husbands in the pre-PRC era. By claiming that the female population was one of the essential factors in Chinese human resources,30 Mao aimed to revolutionize women to become contributors of social change.

Mao’s statements on women were often considered as objectifying women and prioritizing productivity and efficiency. But Mao and his party cohorts regarded liberating women from their domestic sphere as a way to counter the traditional family system and patriarchal oppression. During the political campaigns in the 1950s, the CCP promoted transforming womanhood as one of its priorities. As mentioned earlier, it launched the “Five Goods Policy” to advocate that domestic women should be prepared, like men, to participate in agricultural and industrial production.31 Mao’s discourse on gender equality and women’s liberation encouraged women to engage in paid employment, usually in farmlands and textile factories.32 On film screens and in newspapers, the increasing exposure of women workers and their industrious virtues became an identity of socialist women—who were as intelligent, hard-working, politically correct, and strong as men were.33 As a popular cultural icon in 1958, Huang Baomei challenged the traditional pre-Maoist women-technology relationship and brought the debate topic to another point of meaningful discourse: are workers dominated by machines, or do workers dominate the machines? This example of filmmaking in the early GLF not only revolutionized women workers to participate in production, but also mobilized them to study engineering and machine repair.

Many scholars have argued that women in socialist societies were heavily “desexualized”34 to compete with male workers. To comply with the demanding goals of agricultural and industrial production, the images of women workers were often masculinized in a distinct way to erase the cultural representation of women as sexually desirable. Therefore, the CCP’s propaganda managed to relegate women to the roles of housewives, mothers, and workers. Although the argument on the desexualization of women in socialist societies is mostly considered accurate, neoliberal societies’ rejection of socialist women workers’ agency is problematic.35 This trend of thought reached its climax in the Cold War era and the following post-Soviet period.36 30 Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation Propaganda Department, Five Goods Policy (Shanghai: People’s Publisher, 1956), 35.

31 Ibid., 35.

32 Yang Chen, From Model Community to Monumental Site: A Workers’ Village through History (Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2019), 15-27 33 Daisy Yan Du, “Socialist Modernity in the Wasteland: Changing Representations of the Female Tractor Driver in China, 1949–1964,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 29 (1) (2017): 55–94.

34 Rey Chow, Woman and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading between West and East (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003); Rofel, Other Modernities; Hershatter, The Gender of Memory; Kristen Ghodsee, Why Women Have Better Sex under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (New York: Bold Type Books, 2020).

35 Ghodsee, Kristen. Why Women Have Better Sex under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence. (New York: Bold Type Books, 2020), III-V. 36 Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 8.

162 | Slideshow Taking on a rather neoliberal perspective to understand the agency of socialist workers, sociologist Michael Burawoy argued that any type of industrial labor is essentially a form of exploitation.37 In socialist societies, the “exploitation is not hidden but transparent and the state its orchestrator” and the state “justifies this barefaced domination on the grounds of its omniscience.”38 Drawing from Konrad and Szelenyl, Burawoy held the idea that the socialist state claims its legitimacy by claiming that it fully knows the demands of the proletariat masses, and thus the state represents them and their needs.39 However, I argue that Burawoy’s idea essentializes the state-society relationship and ignores the various stakeholders that engage in production and propaganda. Under a structuralist understanding of socialist societies as such, the agency of workers would be completely covered by the generalization of social relations. Only by contextualizing the historical, geopolitical, and individual specificity and looking into how women workers navigated through the process of political campaigns can we better understand their roles and agency.

What is more, Marxist feminism has been criticized as subordinating sexual and gender differences to class differences.40 In fact, the agency of socialist women is a question of historical and political entanglements, since Maoist discourse on gender equality did in many ways improve women’s well-being and opportunities for paid employment.41 In other socialist countries in the Eastern Bloc, “the threat posed by Marxist ideologies forced Western governments to expand social safety nets to protect workers from the unpredictable but inevitable booms and busts of the capitalist economy.” 42 In post-socialist Bulgaria, women have less social welfare than in the socialist period, when their working-class identity would bring them authority and membership to a secured safety net.43 Our current misunderstanding and stigmatization impede our understanding of the condition of women workers in socialist societies, leading us to negate how complex the system is. However, the purpose of this article is neither to list the good deeds of socialism nor to support the political ideology of socialist societies, but to contextualize the process of socialist filmmaking and consider how artistic workers and women workers navigated through this process.

37 Michael Burawoy, “Ethnographic Fallacies: Reflections on Labour Studies in the Era of Market Fundamentalism,” Work, Employment and Society 27 (3) (2013), 526–536.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Du, “Socialist Modernity in the Wasteland.” 56.

41 Ibid.

42 Ghodsee, Kristen. Why Women Have Better Sex under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence. (New York: Bold Type Books, 2020), III. 43 Ghodsee, Kristen. Why Women Have Better Sex under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence. (New York: Bold Type Books, 2020), III-V.

We Made the Films | 163 2.3 Artistic Documentaries and Huang Baomei During the GLF, the CCP vigorously publicized and popularized its policies and achievements on raising the artistic standards and changing the conventions of the filmmaking that had heavily focused on revolution and war.44 This practical and political mission had to be accomplished in the first place to showcase the achievements of the GLF and to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the PRC. Amongst over 100 feature films that were produced in 1958, artistic documentaries held a remarkable place for their potential to not only raise the standards of art but also to diversify the “thematic concerns and subject matters” 45 of filmmaking. These documentaries were often advised by the high officials of the CCP and aimed to reflect the great achievements of the GLF. Many artistic documentaries and feature films produced during the GLF received high praise from the Party Central Committee, including On the Xin’an River (1958) and Women’s Basketball No. 5 (1958) along with Huang Baomei.

These films often use powerful footage, moving soundtracks, and vivid visuals to convey emotion and point of view. In general, artistic documentaries from the GLF are important historical documents that not only record the social and political conditions of the time, but also showcase various aspects of the lives of proletariat masses including farmers and workers. More importantly, the production of artistic documentaries is an interactive process that incorporated the participation of politicians, cultural intellectuals, and workers. In historian Ding Yaping’s “In collective sentiments: The true mirror (1957–1965),” he quotes from the article “A New Attempt: Random Thoughts on Screenwriting of Huang Baomei” by Chen Fu, the scriptwriter of Huang Baomei, that accurately pinpoints the CCP’s mission of forming a socialist femininity. Ding argues that a pure record of the lives of workers would not be satisfactory to the director and screenwriters, who were more interested in a “wonderful creation of woman textile workers” and a romantic narrative of a “real-life fairy maiden.”46 Thus, from a gender perspective, the cultural campaign of making women-themed artistic documentaries was an effortful attempt of the CCP and its artistic workers to reframe and standardize the discourse on the identity of women in the Maoist system. But in what ways socialist femininity should be created was still a lingering question at that time.

Through contextualizing the historical process of the GLF and significant artistic documentaries produced at that time, we can better understand this historical period and analyze how the CCP used film as a medium to create a socialist identity and promote the ethical values inherent in that identity. Therefore, understanding this state propaganda and the interaction among various stakeholders can help us understand the narrative of the GLF.

44 Ding, “In Collective Sentiments: The True Mirror.” 93-96.

45 Ibid.

46 Fu Chen, “A New Attempt: Random Thoughts on Screenwriting of Huang Baomei,” in Artistic Documentary (Beijing: China Film Press, 1959), 39.

164 | Slideshow During the GLF, filmmakers were required by the government to produce works that aligned with the Party’s political ideology and praised its policies. Such works included most documentaries and art films. Although there were some “artistic documentaries” and “documentary art films” during this period, their themes and content were still subject to political restrictions. For example, the documentary Red Mountain (1958), which was filmed during the GLF, tells the success story of the Party’s and government’s reforms in impoverished areas and was considered one of their propaganda films. While this film used artistic techniques, its primary purpose was to promote the government’s policies and praise the Party’s leadership.

During the initial propaganda campaign of the Great Leap Forward in film creation, themes such as love, friendship, family, marriage, labor, and production became popular subjects for artists to portray. At the same time, the question of whether a film was an “artistic documentary” or a “documentary art film” also became a point of contention for film creators. To address the problem of artists lacking real-life experiences and having outdated methods of creation, Premier Zhou Enlai proposed that literary and artistic workers make more “artistic documentary films” to help artists accumulate rich life experiences and provide more creative material for future films on realistic themes. Premier Zhou also provided his own thoughts on the specific methods of creating artistic documentary films. For example, he believed that artistic documentary films must be based on real life and could not be equivalent to ordinary fictional films; artistic documentary films allowed for artistic processing and retakes, and some scenes could even be rearranged, but they could not be too far from reality and could not have actors replacing real-life characters. However, among the group of literary and artistic workers, there were many who understood this definition as the core essence of “documentary art films,” and overly emphasized the artistic nature of the film while neglecting its authenticity and the purpose of promoting the achievements of labor. At the same time, many production units, in order to rapidly increase film production and meet “leap forward” targets, actually violated the principles of objectivity and authenticity that should guide documentary film creation.

Importantly, the ideological struggle behind the debate on creative concepts was actually a political struggle. The creation of this type of film often requires the mobilization of a large number of literary and artistic workers, party members, and working groups, who serve and work toward the same goal in a short period of time.

Therefore, the process of creating “artistic documentary films” itself is the practice of implementing political ideology in the individual, and the screening and promotion of the film is only one part of it. However, the process of implementing political ideology is not linear or direct. It does not simply involve the issuance of official government directives and the unilateral obedience, acceptance, and execution by workers. It is a collective political task that is completed through multi-party interaction. Both those in positions of power and those below them can change the final presentation of the artistic work, although literary and artistic workers and actors are required to create within certain political demands.

We Made the Films | 165 The filming of Huang Baomei demonstrates the interactive mode of production and showcases the subjectivity of workers in terms of their personal interpretation of socialist values and working-class identity. Following is a vivid description of the filming process: Xie Jin, a young man who was only in his early 30s at the time, had recently gained fame with “Women’s Basketball Team No. 5.” On this occasion, Chen followed the prime minister’s instructions and took the film crew to Shanghai Cotton Mill No. 17, where he spent time with the female cotton spinners and worked.

According to the artistic techniques promoted at the time, Chen Fu, then head of the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of Shanghai Cotton Mill No. 17, was assigned by the Party Committee of the factory to collaborate with playwright Ye Ming and over 20 other individuals to write the script. Upon learning that he would be writing about Huang Baomei, a role model worker in the factory, Chen became extremely enthusiastic.

Huang is widely recognized as a technical innovator in the Shanghai Cotton Textile System, and Chen could speak at length about her accomplishments without hesitation. Additionally, Chen is an experienced writer who finds it effortless to write about those and events he knows well.

As expected, the script was finished in a short period of time. It centered on a writer’s efforts to find Huang Baomei and depicted her diligent and innovative efforts as a model worker. Huang Baomei herself played the main character, which was a unique aspect of the film at the time. In filming, Director Xie Jin closely captures the dramatic tension of life itself and uses the camera to fully record the twists and turns of Huang Baomei’s promotion of the “Hao Jianxiu work method” among the cotton spinning workers, giving the film a distinct sense of life quality. After its release, the film received mostly positive reviews, but there were also some criticisms that argued that the film’s characters lacked depth and that it was mainly focused on relaying events rather than developing its characters.47 The making of Huang Baomei required a high level of collaboration between the director, Xie Jin, the screenwriter, Chen Fu, the playwright, Ye Ming, and the lead actors, Huang Baomei and her colleagues. In the film script “Visiting Huang Baomei,” written by Chen Fu and Ye Ming, Huang Baomei and her team of cotton mill workers embody the spirit of model workers.48 The film follows Huang’s efforts to increase productivity and meet production goals. In the script written by Chen Fu, Huang faces the challenge of producing top-quality cotton yarn, which requires her to eliminate defects such as wire ends and white dots that occur during the spinning process.

At the same time, Huang encounters a challenge from Yi Shixuan, a textile worker.

Yi argued that it was futile for workers to try to compete with machines and that they should instead adapt to the reality of aging machines by adjusting their own 47 Shanghai People’s Publisher, Profound Education and Pleasant Collaboration, 3–4.

48 Chen Fu, “Visiting Huang Baomei: An Artistic Documentary Script” (Anonymous Publisher, 1958), 61–64.

166 | Slideshow approach, rather than blindly pursuing targets. In contrast, Huang argued that workers should constantly push their own boundaries, learn new technologies, and modify the machines they worked with in order to achieve the desired output.

During the labor competition, both Yi Shixuan and a technician believed that Huang Baomei would not be able to learn how to eliminate white spots, as it was outside of Huang’s skill set as a spinning worker. However, through persistent questioning and learning, Huang was able to overcome this challenge and successfully eliminate the white spots. Additionally, she used her work experience to assist Yi in improving the aging machine. During the GLF, workers and technicians held prejudices against each other. The workers thought that technicians were knowledgeable only in theory and not practical application, while the technicians believed that the workers lacked knowledge. In the film, Huang Baomei’s practical and innovative approach bridged the divide between technicians and workers, and also aligned with the political propaganda of the GLF. During that time, the factory faced many challenges, such as machine aging and a shortage of technicians due to the social and economic context. Huang Baomei was a documentary film with an artistic flair that served as political propaganda. It showed the vast number of workers the limitations they faced in reality and acted as a catalyst to motivate them to learn how to maintain machines and find more innovative and efficient production methods on their own. When workers who have seen the film apply Huang Baomei’s work ethic in their real work environment, socialist values are also sculpted into the worker’s identity through repetitive ceremonial behaviors in this process.

While working on the documentary, director Xie Jin faced a number of challenges related to the artistic nature of the film. Despite upholding strict standards of objectivity and authenticity, Xie Jin wanted to showcase the heroic aspects of Huang Baomei. He commented that although he believed Huang’s work in production was impressive, it was depicted as mundane in the footage. During the initial stages of the film’s creation, Xie’s struggles often came from trying to convey the significance and value of these mundane tasks. At the same time, he didn’t want to overly emphasize individual heroism in the film, but rather wanted to complete the shooting in a true-to-life manner. After creating scene after scene of the movie, Xie found himself in a predicament, feeling that the footage he was capturing was too artificial and exaggerated. Facing challenges in finding the right balance between reality and artistic interpretation, Xie called a meeting with Huang and her team. During the meeting, they discussed the theme of “workers versus machines,”49 and ultimately, Xie chose to include the conversation in the film. This scene became a particularly important moment in the movie, reflecting the capacity of women workers in the process of artistic creation, and more importantly, showing how women workers incorporated the understanding of their worker identity and their relationship with machines into the film creation.

49

Shanghai People’s Publisher, Profound Education and Pleasant Collaboration, 3–4.

We Made the Films | 167 2.4 The Model Worker System Historically, the CCP often promoted socialist values through the model worker system. The model worker system is a non-material compensation model that rewards socialist workers with honor based on their contribution, efficiency, morality, and political ideology in the workplace. It is a political tool and network that mobilized and motivated the workers in the socialist period. The system was appropriated from Soviet Stakhanovism, which originated from the Second Five-Year Plan of the Soviet Union for workers to take pride in their ability to produce more and work harder to build the initial stage of a socialist state.50 After appropriating the system from Soviet Stakhanovism, the CCP experimented with the system in the late 1930s to promote agricultural productivity and military strength during the armed conflicts with Kuomintang.51 At that time, the CCP attempted to use the model worker system to eradicate three significant differences that had existed ever since China had become a semicolonial and semi-feudal country: “the difference between manual labor and mental labor, the difference between the city and the countryside, and the difference between factory work and farm work.”52 The model worker system became an essential contributor to the socialist construction in Maoist China. Four major national conferences on the model worker system were held in Beijing from the 1950s to the end of the Cultural Revolution. Each of them represented a turning point of propaganda for the socialist construction. The selection of model workers and the political propaganda supported and confirmed the official narrative.53 Through each campaign and national conference on the model worker system, the CCP purposefully aimed to “rectify” the public image of the officially favored model workers to create a new class of citizens who served not only production goals but also sociopolitical movements to eradicate corruptive behavior and bureaucratic practices.54 The formation and consolidation of working-class identity and honor significantly rely on the model worker system. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, campaigns and propaganda for the model worker system focused on iron production to produce weapons for national security and machines for agricultural production.

Flyers and stories about the heroic deeds of model workers, especially in heavy industries, were promoted by the CCP.55 However, the national conferences on the model worker system were interrupted by the Cultural Revolution and resumed in 1977, when the Party started propaganda for oil extraction in border regions in northeastern China.

Gradually in the 1980s, during the economic transformation, the model worker system was institutionalized. The conference was renamed “The National Conference 50 William B. Husband and Lewis H. Siegelbaum, “Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 1935–1941” Russian Review 48 (2) (1989), 204.

51 Yunxiang Yan, The Individualization of Chinese Society (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2010), 34-43.

52 Karl Gerth, Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China’s Communist Revolution (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

53 Farley, Model Workers in China. 48.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

168 | Slideshow for Appraising Model Workers and Advanced Producers,” covering both mental and manual labor from diverse sectors.56 In Farley’s historical research, he refers to the model worker system as the foundation for the arrival of the Cultural Revolution, and asserts that “the creation of ‘pure’ and ‘perfected’ model workers brewed the cult of personality for Mao.”57 However, Farley’s work has a limited focus on how the system has impacted the lives of socialist workers and how model workers navigated through the political mission of leading the worker groups from a gender perspective.

Moreover, he rarely discusses the specificity of women model workers and the propaganda on forming socialist womanhood.

The model worker identity of Huang Baomei serves as significant background information in Xie’s film. According to Huang, she started working in a cotton mill during the pre-PRC era, when both working and living conditions were very poor and inhumane. While working, she was beaten and insulted by the supervisor for no reason.58 For Huang, the CCP allowed her to live a more dignified life and find a higher sense of value in her work. The honor of being a model worker not only affirmed her work achievements but also recognized and encouraged her identity. Thus, Huang’s participation in film production can be seen as a continuous reinforcement of her socialist identity and the process of practicing socialist modernity through herself as a medium.

2.5 Transformation of Women Ideology and Film Production, Circulation, and Reception In the GLF, the film industry was often limited to local audiences in China.

There were various reasons for this limitation, which affected the political mission that the CCP managed to accomplish through cultural campaigns. Drawing on Nayoung Aimee Kwon’s argument for why postcolonial Korean films were limited to national audiences,59 I argue that the reasons are as follows: 1. Low budgets and low production values; 2. The propagandistic nationalism of the films; 3. Political ideology and the Cold War geo-political divide.

The effects caused by the limitation are: 1. repetition of old stories (dualities of good and evil; heroic deeds); 2. educational purposes; 3. visual absence of the colonial past; 4. characters (even though the films portray individuals, the goal is always about the collective).

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Anonymous, Huang Baomei and Pu Yuzhen, 3–4.

59 Nayoung Aimee Kwon, “Millennial Vengeance: Park Chan-Wook’s Agassi (The Handmaiden) and the Return of Postcolonial Japonisme,” in Theorizing Colonial Cinema: Reframing Production, Circulation, and Consumption of Film in Asia, ed. Nayoung Aimee Kwon, Takushi Odagiri, and Moonim Baek (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022), 242–71.

We Made the Films | 169 In 1958 and 1959, the Shanghai Film Bureau held several conferences to strive for “a greater harvest in film creation”60 as a political task. During these conferences, the emphasis on creating films with less funding and time as a core strategy for filmmakers was reiterated.61 With the overall artistic standards of the film industry improving, the ability to produce more films in a shorter amount of time made it possible for art films to be popularized among the masses, which were educated by the films. As argued by Tina Mai Chen, the CCP considered the technology of film and its capacity of exploring various themes to “deliver the vision of the new society to the masses.”62 Thus, socialist filmmaking has the fluidity and adaptability to cater to the changing propaganda as a way to broadcast the political message to the audience.

More importantly, the Shanghai Film Bureau emphasized “producing” artistic films rather than “creating” films as part of the task of the Great Leap Forward to raise the artistic standards and quantity of cultural production, with film production aimed at the audience of the proletarian masses rather than the Soviet or Western worlds.

“Production” of art films also meant standardization and patternization, which meant the popularization of film art and the improvement of artistic standards in the repetitive production process.

Moreover, “production” means creating social relationships and identities.

Director Xie Jin mentioned in his interview that shooting Huang Baomei not only brought him into the lives and work of textile workers, but also transformed his political consciousness as a cultural intellectual.63 In this process, he realized that in order to make a good artistic documentary, he had to put aside his imagination of the worker’s life as an art worker and avoid overheroizing and overromanticizing the achievements of Huang and her worker group. For Xie, the focus of this film was on how to make Huang Baomei’s ordinary and highly repetitive textile work extraordinary.

To achieve this, he spent a lot of time observing the workers’ production work, living with the workers, and inviting them to participate in the creation of the film script.

Huang did not disappoint Xie’s expectations, and she carefully provided her opinions on every section of the script, constantly promoting its modification.

The film Huang Baomei also incorporates a visual absence of the colonial past.

The No. 17 Cotton Mill Factory was founded by the Japanese enterprise Osaka Toyo Corporation, and the construction of the main building of the factory was mainly completed between 1922 and 1935, located within the international concession area of Shanghai at that time.64 After the establishment of the PRC, the factory and its machines were recapitalized and nationalized by the Shanghai government of the CCP. The workshops of the factory were designed by Japanese engineers, and most 60 Anonymous, “Strive for a greater harvest in film creation—The Shanghai Film Bureau held a creative conference to summarize experiences, determine a work plan, and emphasize the goal of creating more successful films” (Anonymous Publisher, 1959), 1.

61 Ibid.

62 Tina Mai Chen, “Internationalism and Cultural Experience: Soviet Films and Popular Chinese Understandings of the Future in the 1950s” Cultural Critique 58 (2004), 82–114.

63 Shanghai People’s Publisher, Profound Education and Pleasant Collaboration, 3–4.

64 Anonymous, Huang Baomei and Pu Yuzhen, 1-5.

170 | Slideshow of the machines were also made in Japan, Germany, and Britain.65 By the time the factory was nationalized, its technology may have been backward, but resources were scarce. The Shanghai government did not make many changes to the workshops of the factory, which still relied on a large number of outdated machines to carry out textile production.

Director Xie Jin did not explore this history, but investigated the living conditions and working environment of Chinese workers under Japanese management during the colonial period through the narratives of textile workers. In addition, Xie did not film a large number of exterior shots of the factory, but focused on the space inside the workshops and the interactions among workers and between workers and machines. This visual absence of the colonial past avoids the colonial identity of the factory and instead uses the colonial past as a political narrative to reflect the support and transformation of workers in socialist China.66 It is worth noting that after Khrushchev came to power, the Soviet regime began to adopt a more moderate attitude toward the Western world. However, the ideological differences between Khrushchev and Mao led to the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, which in turn affected the considerations of the CCP’s artistic creation group on themes and ideology.67 Khrushchev’s proposal for peaceful coexistence between communist and capitalist countries challenged the legitimacy of the CCP, led by Mao Zedong, because at that time, the ideological foundation of the CCP in terms of foreign policy, domestic production, and artistic creation was anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-capitalist.

In terms of artistic creation, in order to separate Chinese socialist realism works from Soviet artistic works ideologically, the re-examination of the semicolonial past and traditional culture by art workers became a prominent element of Chinese films.

Taking on the gender aspect, Wang Lingzhen argues that socialist feminism in China incorporates an indigenization of political and artistic ideology that requires an investigation of the revolutionary practices in various geopolitical locations and the legacies of traditional culture.68 For example, in the ending of Huang Baomei, Huang and her colleagues perform traditional Yue opera in a celebration performance. As a cloud of smoke covers the entire stage, Huang and others transform into the Seven Fairies of ancient Chinese mythology. This dramatic ending was inspired by Huang’s personal passion for Yue opera, and Huang and her work group were also later known as the “Weaving Fairies.”69

65 Yang, Chen. From Model Community to Monumental Site: A Workers’ Village through History.

(Shanghai: Tongji University Press, 2019), 35.

66 Tina Mai Chen, “Internationalism and Cultural Experience.”

67 Jeffrey C. Kinley. Corruption and Realism in Late Socialist China: The Return of the Political Novel.

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 12.

68 Lingzhen Wang, “Wang Ping and Women’s Cinema in Socialist China: Institutional Practice, Feminist Cultures, and Embedded Authorship.” Signs 40 (3) (2015): 589–622.

69 Anonymous, Huang Baomei and Pu Yuzhen, 7–8.

We Made the Films | 171 Under the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations impacted by Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policy, the CCP attempted to separate China’s socialist modernity from the modernity represented by the Soviet Union.70 In this process, how to handle and control the narration of the colonial past and the political re-analysis of traditional culture became a test for China’s socialist modernity. From the perspective of artistic creation with high political sensitivity, Huang Baomei’s image as a hardworking and intelligent woman textile worker fit this political consideration, and her personal passion for traditional art also provided inspiration for the film’s artistic standard.

3. Conclusion The female body is a battleground of old and new, tradition and modernity, weak and strong. The body itself is transformed, not only to support the shortage of intensive labor resources but also to counter feudalism, imperialism, and colonialism.

The transforming moment of the female body thus becomes the chronological mark that separates the new from the old, creating a dichotomization of “before and after” and portraying the cruelty of the colonizers and foreigners.

Media, including socialist films, served as a channel to communicate the distinct ethical virtues of women workers. The value system required self-sacrifice for collective interests and voluntary actions of women workers for industrial and economic development. While receiving the images of women model workers from media such as films, women workers contributed to the public debate and interpretation of the values of socialist womanhood. Cultural institutions such as party newspapers and media platforms for the working class would thus sort out individual opinions of the films that aligned with the expected interpretation of socialist feminine values. However, what was more important than making personal opinions public was the actions of women workers after they watched the films. The actions revealed to the public, especially the working class, that the determination of women workers should be appreciated and valued. Broadcasting these individuals’ determination to participate in industrial production thus became a promotion of ethical evaluation that required individuals to participate fully. The media production cycle and the formation of socialist values constructed the foundation of workingclass identity. Being a worker then means aligning with the imagination of socialist identity in every aspect of one’s life. Within this frame, watching socialist films and participating in public debates is no longer simply entertainment in one’s spare time, but actively immersing oneself into the collective absorption of socialist values.

While considering the working-class audience as the recipients of the images of socialist values, it is worth paying attention to the fact that women workers act in the films. Their performance in the films adds another layer to our interpretation of how socialist womanhood was created and promoted through media productions. The creation process would not be achieved simply through the top-down governmental 70 Jeffrey C. Kinley. Corruption and Realism in Late Socialist China: The Return of the Political Novel.

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 12.

172 | Slideshow structure, because it heavily demanded and involved the motivation and action of individual workers. Moreover, the process followed a nonlinear trajectory that incorporated the participation of various decision-makers at different hierarchical levels. We often think of these stakeholders as governmental institutions and political figures while neglecting the importance of game-changing figures such as the film directors and workers who performed in the films. The campaign was thus accomplished not simply through the party’s order but through the multifaceted interaction of individuals in their everyday lives. Therefore, interpretations of the propaganda also became personal, private, and distinct due to one’s condition and status at work.

We Made the Films | 173

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The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color: Racial Preference in the 21st-Century Bedroom Ranen Miao Extensive research has been done about the ways that queer people of color experience sexual racism, describing experiences with racialized exclusion, fetishization, and stereotyping. However, such research often focuses on people of color as passive victims of discrimination, or focuses on a singular racial group, preventing comparative analysis. By analyzing interviews with college-aged queer men of color, this article takes a holistic approach to explore how racism is experienced in both dating and sex. This research argues that even with a more diverse generation, similar patterns of racialized discrimination and fetishization persist. Additionally, it employs a comparative approach to understand unique ways that Asian, Latino, and Black men experience racism in their intimate lives, and different paths of resistance they engage in.

Keywords: sexual racism • dating racism • intimate racism • sexual discrimination

I. Introduction In America, to be queer is to be white. White, gay men have long been centered in cultural narratives of queer love, heralded as the standard of beauty, and uplifted in mainstream social and political movements for LGBTQIA+ equality. This preeminent practice of whitewashing gay social movements and cultural life has structurally excluded queer men of color from societal understandings of queerness, perpetuating a form of social erasure that has made men of color second-class citizens of the LGBTQIA+ community and often excluded them as potential sexual and romantic partners. Research on previous generations of gay men indicates a high level of racial discrimination against men of color, including explicit statements of exclusion or fetishization. With Generation Z being the most diverse generation, including almost a fifth identifying as LGBTQIA+ and over half being people of color, this article asks the question of how this younger generation of queer men of color experience exclusion, fetishization, and racism when seeking sex, love, romance, and emotional intimacy with other men. I categorize these forms of discrimination as intimate racism, which describes the diverse ways that queer men of color experience racism in their sexual and romantic lives.

This article leverages qualitative interviews with queer men of color to better understand their experiences in the sexual and romantic marketplaces. By centering the experiences of queer men of color with sexual and romantic racial discrimination, I hope to contribute to the academic and theoretical accounts of the racial positionality of men of color in the LGBTQIA+ community, and the ways queer men of color

178 | Slideshow resist racial subjugation, discrimination, and exclusion. Furthermore, I hope to better understand the ways racism undergirds the private lives of queer people of color and impacts not just their psychological well-being or sexual health, but how they understand themselves, other queer people of color, their race, and their queerness.

II. Literature Review Sexual Racism The issue of sexual racism, or preferences for sexual partners on the basis of race, is a well-documented phenomenon in the LGBTQ+ community since the late 20th century (Callander et al. 2015, Ruez 2016, Shield 2018a). Discrimination on the basis of race leads to inequitable romantic and sexual outcomes on the basis of race, and is derived from the same racist beliefs and practices that undergird public expressions of racial discrimination. For this reason, we have “moral reasons for enlarging the boundary of racial justice” and seek to act against these acts of discrimination (Bedi 2020). It is this conviction that motivates my project: my article seeks to explore the ways young queer men of color experience and resist sexual and romantic racial discrimination.

Research about social networks have identified that amongst white, Black, and Latino young men who have sex with men (YMSM), there is a high degree of racial homophily (the tendency for people to seek out or be attracted to people similar to themselves) (Mustanski et al. 2015). However, Black, Latino, and Asian gay men have higher rates of racial heterophily than their white counterparts (Rafalow et al. 2017). Furthermore, in a qualitative study amongst LGBTQ+ men of color, participants expressed that they believed the levels of racism and discrimination amongst the LGBTQ+ community were higher than in the heterosexual community (Plummer 2007). Earlier research seems to substantiate this view, indicating that gay men are more likely to mention race than straight men when searching for sexual partners online (Phua & Kaufman 2003). Existing literature shows that Black, Latino, and API (Asian Pacific Islander) men seeking men (MSM) all experience different forms of racial discrimination, including cultural insensitivity, racial fetishism, ethnosexual stereotyping, and racebased sexual rejection from other MSM, consistent with racial discrimination in mainstream society (Han & Choi 2018, Paul et al. 2010).

These difficulties manifest in diverse ways for different demographics of gay men, and mean that analyzing racial disparity requires nuanced categories to reflect different racialized experiences. Two recurring issues are with fetishization (making someone an object of sexual desire based on some aspect of their identity) and discrimination, when people are excluded as prospective sexual or romantic partners due to their race (Asare 2021). In contrast to men of color, as Han and Choi aptly point out in the title of their paper, “very few people say ‘no whites’” (Han & Choi 2018).

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 179 Qualitative research with both white men and men of color shows that Asian men experience a range of fetishization or rejection, including stereotypes that feminize gay Asian men, identify them as more passive or submissive, or otherize them as inherently foreign (Han 2006, Poon & Ho 2008, Ruez 2016, Chou & Taylor 2018). Such narratives are rooted in colonial images first used by Europeans against Asian men in an effort to contrast images of masculinity between themselves and the people they colonized, often framing Asian men as effeminate and sexually problematic (Atkins 2005, Ueno 1997). Such concepts have been further reified through racialized media about Asian Americans, such as gay pornography, which is criticized by Richard Fung for framing Asian men as submissive and solely centering the erotic desires of white gay men. He notes: “[A]s with the vast majority of North American tapes featuring Asians, the problem is not the representation of anal pleasure per se, but rather that the narratives privilege the penis while always assigning the Asian the role of bottom; Asian and anus are conflated” (Fung 2017:240).

Black men are often the targets of fetishization because of stereotypes of hypermasculinity and narratives of hypersexualization (Robinson & Frost 2018, Shield 2018a). Conversely, Black men also disproportionately experience discrimination because of a belief that Black men are more likely to have HIV/AIDS (Arscott et al.

2020). Historically, Black men were framed as “hypersexual, animalistic, and savage” and “a threat to White womanhood if not controlled” to reinforce white supremacy, constructing Black male sexuality as an inherently violent threat to whiteness (Ferber 2007:14–15). In response, scholars have repeatedly expressed concerns about how Black men have constantly been misrepresented in the media as “dangerous, cunning, and hypersexual deviants who need relentless public scrutiny” (Brooms & Perry 2016; Kumah-Abiwu 2020:72). Black men are also frequently associated with deviant sexuality, as public health researchers found that gay men wanting group sex were positively associated with a preference for Black partners (Hughto et al. 2014).

These social and sexual stereotypes inevitably shape the landscape of erotic desire for Black men in the gay community, often manifesting as fetishization (e.g., a desire for “big Black cock”) (Stacey & Forbes 2021) or repulsion and exclusion (Han & Choi 2018).

Latino men experience unique forms of race-based discrimination in the gay community, including a specific form of exoticized fetishization. Research about the experiences of men of color who have sex with men on dating apps has found that Latino respondents are often exoticized, and many report being asked to speak Spanish by white partners (Stacey & Forbes 2021). Researchers have also examined experiences with colorism, which represents racial preferences of lighter compared to darker skin (Ibanez et al. 2009). They find that Latino gay men with darker skin, more Indian features, more time in the United States, and low self-esteem reported the highest levels of racism in both general and gay contexts, offering specific risk factors that may contribute to the negative impacts of racism (Ibanez et al. 2009).

Additional research has found particular marginalization for Latino gay and bisexual men who identify as effeminate, in part due to expectations of masculinity rooted in the idea of machismo (Sandfort et al. 2007).

180 | Slideshow These stated racial preferences have led to empirical harms to nonwhite men who have sex with men. Notably, queer people of color often experience negative self-esteem, increased distress, and a diminished quality of life due to racial discrimination against them in the dating sphere (Silvestrini 2019, Thai 2019, Velez et al. 2019). Racial marginalization increases risk-taking, including riskier sexual behavior or a greater incidence of binge drinking (Diaz et al. 2004, Mizuno et al.

2012). Research has also indicated that men of color who have sex with men do more to alter their bodies to conform to westernized standards of beauty (Bhambhani et al. 2019). Sexual racism also inevitably leads to detrimental psychological outcomes for the victims who disproportionately experience such exclusion, leading to higher levels of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, self-injury, and alcohol use disorder (Hidalgo et al. 2019, Souleymanov et al. 2018, Choi et al. 2013).

These negative impacts extend beyond psychological ones. On structural and sociological levels, sexual racism is part of “a larger project of racial erasing that conflates gayness with whiteness and earns equality and acceptance for white men at the expense of queers of color” (Han 18, 2021). When gay men of color are erased as desirable sexual and romantic partners, they are treated as inherently devalued members of the LGBTQ+ community and denied equal consideration in the romantic sphere.

These harms are why Bedi emphasizes that sexual racism is a socialized trait that impedes the ability of people of color to access intimacy, and “intimacy, the opportunity to be part of a reciprocal romantic relationship, is a matter of justice” (Bedi 2015).

Further, sexual racism perpetuates inequalities in access to erotic capital, or value assigned through different sexual fields (Smith et al. 2018, Daroya 2018). The propagation of these symbolic inequalities reinforces the broader social devaluation of men of color in the gay dating sphere, and perpetuates stereotypes that are already rampant because of media portrayals, bias within educational systems, and racist socialization (Garcia 2009, Silvestrini 2019). The deprivation of erotic capital from men of color who have sex with men directly demeans and devalues their standing within the LGBTQ+ community. As researcher Peter Jackson writes: “[W]hen desirability is linked with race, and when certain races are ascribed greater erotic interest than others, then to be a member of an ‘unsexy’ ethnic group is to be equated with an inferior form of existence” (Jackson 2000).

Romantic Racism and Racial Preferences in Dating Census data shows that interracial relationships are significantly more common among the gay population compared to straight couples (Lundquist & Lin 2015).

White people in same-sex relationships are the least likely to be in an interracial partnership (21%), compared to 46% of Black people, 63% of Hispanic people, and 80% of Asian people (Kastanis & Wilson 2014). However, racial inequalities in erotic capital are paralleled in unequal access to romantic capital, or nonphysical qualities that make a person a desirable partner to another person (Regan 2021). Prior research has indicated that racial stereotypes have led to racialized perceptions of class, education, cultural values, and sexual practices. Consequently, the field of dating is a “key social

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 181 site where gender-based moral norms are policed, class divisions are constructed, and racial boundaries are maintained” (Flores 2019). These traits overlap with elements of social capital, including educational attainment, socioeconomic status, or employment (Regan 2021). In all of these areas, racial inequalities remain persistent, warranting further examination into how they intersect with legacies of racism, issues of sexual discrimination, and the less explored field of romantic racial discrimination (Rhodes & Warkentien 2017, McIntosh et al. 2020, Quillian et al. 2017).

Under a white supremacist racial structure, dating preferences replicate hierarchies of desirability on the basis of racialized social traits. Research on the dating preferences of Asian Americans is mixed: while some articles find that heterosexual women and gay men prefer to date Whites over nonwhites (Tsunokai et al. 2014), others conclude that there is no preference for white partners amongst gay Asian men (Nehl et al. 2014). Amongst limited research about the dating preferences of gay Hispanic men, Phua and Kaufman find that only 4% of gay Hispanic men preferred dating someone from their own race, compared to 19% of Black men, highlighting a “greater desirability of many gay Hispanic men to cross the color line in search of a potential partner” (Tarrence 2017). However, in his study, Tarrence finds that gay Hispanic men are less likely to state a racial preference for Hispanic, Black, or Asian partners compared to heterosexual Hispanic men, reflecting “prejudice and stereotypes” within the gay community against dating Black and Asian men (Tarrence 2017).

It is also notable that explicit statements of racial preference are becoming more socially unacceptable, even while discriminatory behaviors persist. Further research finds that overt expression of racial preferences in dating negatively impacts the desirability for partners in online dating applications: that is, partners who express explicit racial preferences are seen as less desirable (Lim & Anderson 2023). However, data about all users from OkTrends, the research arm of the dating website OkCupid, has found that while fewer users share a racial preference than in years past, they still acted in ways that reflected racial disparity in their prospective partners. The report concludes, “[W]hile users exercised greater discretion in their stated preference, in practice their actions remained the same” (Mangla 2015). For example, in a separate study, amongst all daters, stated racial preference is a strong predictor of behavioral preference for same-race partners, but even respondents who don’t state a preference for partners of the same race tend to exhibit a preference for same-race partners in practice (Anderson et al. 2014).

Three key factors shape interracial dating patterns. First is geographic background. Research on specific localities has also found racial preferences that challenge previously identified racial hierarchies: in Sydney and Los Angeles, research

by Chan, Cassidy, and Rosenberger amongst 1,168 users on a gay dating app found that Asian men were the most preferred partners by Asian and white users in both cities, while Black users were the most preferred partners by Black and Hispanic users (Chan et al. 2021). This shows that racial preferences for partners are specifically shaped by demographic context. Racial preferences are different across diverse racial

182 | Slideshow groups, and change in areas with more racially diverse populations. Additionally, it indicates that there may be additional social factors beyond sexual stereotypes which may shape hierarchies of desirability in dating.

A second factor that impacts interracial dating is structural diversity and interracial friendships. Research by Merlino, Steinhardt, and Wren-Lewis on interracial contact in childhood finds that “greater racial diversity in schools significantly impacts the prevalence of interracial adult relationships” (Merlino et al. 2019). The same connection is drawn on college campuses, where a higher level of structural diversity (defined as an institution’s racial and ethnic composition) is positively related to close interracial friendships and interracial relationships for White students (Bowman 2012). Furthermore, the likelihood of having one or two interethnic romantic relationships increases significantly if a person has a relatively ethnically diverse friendship network, is male, and supports interethnic dating. The likelihood of often being in interethnic romantic relationships increases significantly for people of color, and when the friends of a person’s parents are relatively ethnically diverse (Clark-Ibáñez & Felmlee 2008). Robinson furthers that because intimate preferences are not natural, they are “more plastic and susceptible to structural influences than we imagine” (Robinson 2008).

A third contributor to dating racism is parental preference. Field, Kimuna, and Straus found in a study of 1,173 American and Canadian college students that there was higher approval for Asian/white relationships than Black/white relationships, and that white students perceived their parents to have the least favorable attitudes toward Black/white marital and dating relationships (Field et al. 2013). Further research across different racial groups found that, while intercultural relationships were “evenly distributed across ethnic and immigrant generation groups,” Asian participants “perceived greater attitudinal discrepancies with their parents toward intercultural dating than did participants of Latino and European background and were more likely to report intercultural dating conflict with their parents than Latino participants” (Shenhav et al. 2016).

Lastly, Le and Kler find that amongst queer Asian American men, internalized racism is positively associated with a White dating preference and negatively associated with an Asian dating preference; conversely, resistance and empowerment were positively associated with having no racial dating preference and negatively associated with a White dating preference (Le & Kler 2022). Their research shows that internalized racism is a key contributor to a dating preference for white partners, and that empowerment and resistance offer meaningful paths toward a less discriminatory dating and romantic practice.

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 183 Resistance The issues of discrimination and racism within the LGBTQ+ community have led to acts of resistance from gay men of color, including discrimination against white sexual partners.

Older gay men of color have recognized social change amongst younger gay men of color in terms of sexual and romantic outcomes and behaviors, along with greater levels of media and social representations of gay men of color in healthy intraracial and interracial relationships (Han 52–54, 2021). These changes offer hope in terms of the younger generation’s shifting views on race in the sexual and romantic context.

C. Winter Han is a leading scholar in the field of sexual racism and its impacts on people of color. In connecting modern experiences of racial discrimination by whites with the historical exclusion of queer people of color from LGBTQ+ spaces, Han offers a comprehensive account of how racial discrimination in the private sphere is an extension of legacies of exclusion and discrimination by whites. By exploring how sexual preference is constructed through an interdisciplinary lens and studying how racial socialization impacts attraction, from online forums to gay bars, Han concludes that “if we examine sexual racism and the ways racial desire is constructed, maintained, and performed, we learn that racial preferences are not natural, innate, or unexplainable outcomes of internal lusts. Rather than personal preferences, racialized hierarchies of desire are actively constructed and maintained specifically for the benefit of gay white men” (Han 176). His research articulates racial preference as socially constructed, deconstructing the language of preference as neutral.

Han’s analysis of intimate racism as a byproduct of socialization is reinforced by additional research on implicit bias. For example, in Singapore, racial hierarchies preference Chinese men. Research found that Singaporean Grindr users try to present a Chinese or Chinese-mixed race identity and emphasize a global instead of a marginalized ethnic identity to conform to the mainstream sexual preference for Chinese men (Wei Ang et al. 2021). In an Asian society where Chinese and East Asian aesthetics are valued as the beauty standard, sexual preferences are drastically different when compared to the United States, clashing with a society which views Asian men as the least desirable sexual and romantic partners (Lim & Anderson 2021). These differential behaviors reinforce the theoretical perspective that racial preferences are a byproduct of the mainstream society’s set of beauty and aesthetic standards.

Challenging these inequalities is often difficult. As Damien Riggs writes in The Psychic Life of Racism in Gay Men’s Communities, collapsing gay men under the homogenous “ethnic identity” of being gay men excludes “those whose experiences lie outside the dominant racial group, whose experiences and values dominate the homogenized gay ‘ethnic identity’” (Riggs 2017, x). Erasing these experiences by centering a broader issue of homophobia “perpetuates a form of homo-innocence that positions gay and lesbian bodies outside of systems of coercive power and within the confines of a minority-status victimhood that ultimately forecloses any interrogations

184 | Slideshow into its ‘naturalization’” (Riggs 2017, x). Research by Choi has also concluded that men of color who have sex with men manage stigma to combat racism and homophobia through concealment of their homosexuality, disassociation from social settings associated with stigmatization, dismissal of stigmatization, mobilization of external support systems, and direct confrontation (Choi et al 2011). Due to different forms of marginalization, the men studied employed different strategies of stigma management for different contexts (Choi et al 2011).

My research is situated amongst this wealth of literature on the subject of sexual racial discrimination. It offers three unique contributions to the existing literature.

First, my project seeks to center the desires and perspectives of queer people of color.

I hope to understand how intimate racism is experienced, how men of color negotiate their own desirability in the sexual and dating marketplaces, and how they resist discrimination, objectification, and fetishization. Second, I will investigate if preferences in favor of white partners are different today than in decades past. Most existing research does not involve Generation Z and millennials, who are the most ethnically and racially diverse generations in the United States. Does the racialized sexual and social hierarchy in the gay community, with white people being seen as the most desirable partners, persist with this younger cohort of respondents? Lastly, I employ storytelling to craft a narrative which recognizes the ways that race continues to affect intimate interactions for queer men of color.

III. Methodology Between July 2022 and February 2023, I conducted 18 qualitative interviews over Zoom with men of color who identified as queer, lasting between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours. Of them, 10 were Asian (including one mixed-race Asian and white interviewee), 5 were Black, and 3 were Latino. Participants were recruited through personal social media accounts, posts in Facebook groups, and emails sent to LGBTQIA+ undergraduate and graduate student organizations. I emailed 233 LGBTQIA+ organizations across over 100 universities. All names, locations, and universities are anonymized in this article. Due to the geographical diversity of where respondents are from and attend university, I describe characteristics of their respective universities instead of offering specific names.

After recording these interviews, they were electronically transcribed via Zoom. I analyzed 760 pages of transcriptions to identify patterns across interviews.

Interview questions focused on racialized experiences in the intimate sphere, personal racial preferences, strategies of resistance against racist preferences, and distinctions between sexual preferences (in who respondents wanted to hook up or have sexual relationships with) and relationship preferences (in who respondents wanted to date and have romantic relationships with). (For a full list of questions, see Appendix A.) In analyzing these conversations, I sought to identify similarities with existing literature along with new insights about race in the intimate lives of gay men.

It is important to note two critical limitations of this research. First, my positionality as an Asian researcher may have influenced not just the number of responses to the research, but the specific responses given. For example, a non-Asian

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 185 person of color may have decided not to disclose personal preferences against Asian men due to social desirability bias. Conversely, my Asian identity may have pressured respondents to speak more extensively on the ways they understood and perceived racism in their intimate relationships. Second, my research respondents all attend universities. College campuses tend to be spaces in which race and racism are more greatly studied and discussed, inside and outside of the classroom: consequently, respondents’ views may not be reflective of the broader population of queer men of color. The more liberal and race-conscious environments these respondents are situated in likely have a large influence on their responses.

IV. Key Findings My research sought to identify connections and novel experiences expressed by interviewees about their intimate lives. Three key areas stood out across interviews: first, racist encounters remain consistently experienced by men of color, and are frequently expressed in virtual forums. Almost all interviewees identified racism as a persistent problem within the gay community that deeply impacted their lives. Furthermore, while respondents reported isolated incidents when queer men of color engaged in racist behavior, almost all respondents identified white gay men as the primary source of racist intimate experiences. Second, many young men of color expressed a preference for partners who are also people of color. In contrast to Han’s research, which indicated that the vast majority of men of color exclusively pursued gay white men, the current college students I spoke with do not just seem more open to dating people of color, but also expressed a preference for dating people of color over white partners. I argue that this constitutes a form of resistance to racist discrimination. Third, direct confrontations are another important avenue of challenging racist preferences and asserting one’s agency and dignity. Such interactions further highlight how queer men of color are not passive victims of oppression, but instead active agents in changing the social conditions around them. Overall, my research identifies novel experiences and insights into how queer men of color who are college students understand and resist racist experiences in the intimate sphere.

V. Racism in the 21st-Century Bedroom Almost all of my respondents described incidents of racism in intimate settings, including on dates or during hookups. When asked who they identify as the primary perpetrators of such racism, all interviewees answered white gay men. While some named standalone incidents of discrimination from other people of color, all seemed to view intimate racism as a problem that primarily came from white gay men, both from personal experience and shared conversations with peers. This finding is interesting considering how the younger generation is viewed as more progressive and accepting: as Stacey and Forbes conclude, intimate racist interactions have moved away from public expressions, which have become far less socially acceptable, toward unspoken interpersonal interactions.

186 | Slideshow Men interviewed for this article reported similar racialized experiences, along the overarching lines of fetishization and exclusion. Asian respondents most commonly shared experiences with being excluded from prospective sexual and dating pools, or experiencing a form of intersecting racialized and feminized identity. Black respondents described graphic racialized provocations that frequently left them feeling dehumanized and disrespected. Latino respondents (and one respondent who passed as Latino) grappled with linguistic fetishization and exoticized desirability.

Community-specific experiences are explored in more detail in the subsections below.

“They just think, oh, Asian, and they move on”: Asian exclusion and fetishization Asian respondents report experiences with racial exclusion consistent with the findings of Han, Poon, Ho, Ruez, Chou, and Taylor. William, a 20-year-old East Asian student at a private Midwestern university, shared that being a person of color is “like a filter that people use to just filter me out of the dating pool.” Amir, a 30-year-old South Asian graduate student from an East Coast public university, said: “Mostly I am the only person when you see the list of profiles, the only person who is a person of color …. I get less matches. I don’t know why, it could be because of that.” Aarav, a 19-year-old South Asian student at a large public Midwestern university, explained: “I think in general, white people, Black people, Latin people, they just don’t consider Asian people in any way worthy of even being considered. They just look at it, just look at the average Asian person …. They don’t even spend like 5 minutes to even decide if they think the average Asian person is attractive. They just think, oh, Asian, and they move on.”

Asian respondents consistently share that they feel excluded from the dating pool, a feeling that is more pronounced in largely white cities or college towns.

Aarav’s speculation of the psyche of exclusion is noteworthy because he notes how all of society engages in this discrimination against Asian people, not just white people. His quote offers a broader commentary on how exclusion is experienced by communities of color, but can also be perpetuated by communities of color due to the internalization of societal messaging.

This exclusion from the sexual and romantic dating pool is paralleled by a sense of exclusion from the broader gay social scene. Lingxiao, a 21-year-old East Asian student, shared that he felt it was hard dating on his private Midwestern college campus because: [T]here aren’t many Asian students on campus who are openly gay. A large number of white students come out more openly, but they are not interested in me or Asian students as a whole. … They’re not really hanging out or social with Asian people that much.

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 187 Lingxiao notes that while he perceives white students to be more open about queer sexuality, he doesn’t see them engage with queer Asian men as prospective sexual, romantic, or even platonic partners. Crucially, he notes that this racial segregation he observes in a sexual and romantic context extends to the social context, where white gay men don’t socialize outside of their community. Aarav (South Asian) connects these racially segregated queer friend groups with the exclusion he previously describes, saying that white people “tend to cluster up, and the only way for a brown person to be a part of that huge white people friend group is if they have a white name … the only white people that are willing to do stuff with people who are not white are people who hang out with people of color on a general basis … they are the kind of people who would not, like, have a block in their head about being intimate with a person of color.”When asked why this racial exclusion took place, respondents often referred to media and community socialization. Nicholas, a 19-year-old biracial South Asian man at an Ivy League university, shared that he believed he had a sexual preference toward white partners.

When asked why, he said, “I think that’s part of just being from a white Midwestern state,1 and being around white people constantly and like the portrayal of the media.” William (East Asian) echoes the sentiment, saying that earlier in his life, he had a “phase where I only looked at white men,” which is “attributed to, like, the media that I’m seeing … all I saw were white relationships. That’s kind of when I began looking at white men, and everything.” These accounts exploring internalized racism are echoed by Aarav (South Asian), who talks about the specific narratives imposed upon Indian people: “For some reason, when [people] think of Indian, they don’t think of attraction. Most people think of snake charmers and muddy roads.” To these respondents, societal narratives imposed through media have a clear connection to their own erotic and romantic desires. As Aarav notes, the popular imagination also limits the intimate desires for other prospective partners, demarcating Indian people as backwards or dirty.

These perceptions of exclusion were contrasted with experiences of fetishization, which were also widely shared. William (20, Asian) shared one case where he felt fetishized due to his race: “I went on two dates with this guy who gave me a weird feeling. He brought up me being Chinese a lot, his Instagram bio had a lot of Chinese characters even though he’s white …. I had to wonder to myself: is this fetishization?” The commonness of this question reflects how, even amongst a younger generation that is perceived to be more liberal, the question of racism remains salient in the minds of queer men of color. When dating or engaging in hookups, especially with white partners, Asian men are particularly hesitant about the ways they see race being discussed and brought up in intimate settings. Victor, a 21-year-old Asian man from a private Midwestern university, identified “people who are obsessed with K-pop,2 specifically people who are obsessed with the look of male K-pop stars” and 1 Note that the specific state is omitted for anonymity purposes.

2 K-pop is an abbreviation for Korean popular music, a genre of music which has seen explosive growth in the United States and the West more broadly since 2012.

188 | Slideshow “people who seem to displace their own culture for Asian culture” as “red flags” in prospective partners because they corresponded with fetishization. Dhanvith (South Asian) explains this by saying: “Asian Americans are, like, exotic in a way, and that makes them more desirable, not for anything long-term but just having the opportunity to sleep with someone who is perceived as exotic is interesting, or a new sexual experience, or something like that.”

By explicitly flagging the public perception of Asian Americans as exotic, Dhanvith seeks to explain how exoticism contributes to the broader experiences of fetishization.

The exoticization of Asian men is paired with a gendered process of feminization.

Victor (East Asian) shares: “[P]eople assume that I like a bottom position, or that I am just more submissive, things that do not fit the traditional male stereotype.” Such stereotypes contrast what most men identify as the sexually desirable archetype of “masculine” men within the gay community. The confluence of racial exoticization and feminization for Asian men can be seen in a quote from Riley, a 19-year-old biracial (half-white, half-Asian) respondent who describes his sexual preference for other Asian partners: I see somebody who is Asian, and I envision them to be somebody I can lord over in a sexual encounter, I envision them in a weaker way just because of the stereotype …. It feels more exhilarating, and it feels like more of a prize.

Riley’s sexual excitement when thinking about prospective Asian partners is rooted in a perception of docility and weakness. To him, having sex with an Asian partner offers the opportunity of domination (“somebody I can lord over”) due to “the stereotype” that Asian men are “weaker.” Furthermore, this sex is viewed as socially desirable, feeling like a “prize.” Such rhetoric reflects a broader sexual perception of Asian men as fundamentally effeminate, emulating discourses of conquest and domination historically used against Asian women rooted in perceived exoticism or biological submissiveness. This sex through domination is not just an “exhilarating” experience, but also offers social esteem to the men who engage in it by reinforcing their sense of masculinity.

“If you want reparations I can be your slave”: Black men and unwanted sexual provocations While Black men reported similar encounters with exclusion and fetishization, most spoke primarily about fetishization. Their experiences were distinct from Asian men in how direct, graphic, and nonconsensual many propositions were. Unlike the racialization of Asian Americans as an exoticized and feminized other, Black men are hypermasculinized and hypersexualized, rooted in racial narratives of dehumanization.

Some men did not feel these interactions were malicious or off-putting: Jevonte, a 21-year-old Black man from a private Midwestern university, shared: “[H]ooking up with guys, they’re kind of excited to pull down your pants. It was like, oh God! Does he have a huge dick? That comes up, but that’s not the only reason we’re talking here.”

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 189 For others, racialized comments often crossed a line and made them uncomfortable.

Jason, a 41-year-old Afro-Latino graduate student at a public university in the South, shared the types of racialized questions he receives on dating apps: The first thing they say out of their mouths, or that they text to me, will be “do you have BBC [big Black c*ck].” I’m like, okay, all you’re concerned about is how well-endowed I am. That’s not something that I feel is an appropriate question …. I have also heard, but more rarely, what I would consider race play, where people would say something along the lines of, “Oh, I want to make you my slave.” I get there’s the whole BDSM type of community,3 but when you say that as a white identified person to a Black person, it’s kind of problematic. But then also I’ve had it in the reverse, right, where it would be a white person who was like, oh I want you. I remember one person a really long time ago said something about, “Oh, if you want reparations I can be your slave.”

As an older respondent, Jason may be interacting with a different pool of gay men on dating and hookup apps, but his response reflects the alarming frequency of racialized experiences (“the first thing they say out of their mouths”). These racialized comments rely on histories of oppression to construct sexual dynamics that Jason did not consent to be part of. While some feminist theorists are supportive of race play as liberatory for people of color (Cruz 2016, Thompson 2004), others critique the practice by emphasizing that its erotic excitement is derived from real systems of oppression and reinforces racial hierarchies which position people of color as subjugated under whiteness (Linden 1982). However, because Jason is not the one instigating these interactions, it removes agency and empowerment for the person of color in the scenario, undermining the potential for challenging the systems of racial oppression that race play is reliant upon.

Other comments that specifically invoke slavery in the context of race play, or discourse of reparations, were experienced by other Black men as well. Denzel, a 22-year-old Black man at a Midwestern community college, recalled one sexual experience that was so jarring that he had to stop in the middle of sex: “We proceeded to have sex, and he started to say some really, really offensive things to me. Something about reparations, and asking me to whip him. And I was like, ‘Yeah, this is not okay, I’m not okay with this.’” Calvin, a 20-year-old Black man at a private Midwestern university, shared similar experiences of highly racialized sexual provocations: There’s so many profiles [on Grindr] that would be like, “looking for BBC,” or “looking for a Black king,” or looking for a top or bottom. Things like that.

Race is in the forefront of their role play, or the fantasy they have, and that’s a very big turnoff to me overall because I don’t want to be seen as just this race.

I want to be seen as a person.

3 BDSM is a term used to describe aspects of sex that involve dominance, submission, and control, including bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, and masochism (Brennan 2021).

190 | Slideshow Calvin’s reflection recognizes that the sexual fetishization he experiences objectifies and dehumanizes him by reducing him to a racialized sexual fantasy.

Language that implies dominance and masculinity (implications of being well-endowed, or language of Black royalty which connotes political and institutional power) foregrounds race in a way that prevents him from being “seen as a person.”

Consistently, Black men report the most explicit and violent racialized comments while interacting with prospective gay partners online or in person.

While Asian men are targeted with implicit indicators of sexual fetishization (e.g., overemphasis on Asian culture, attempts to speak Asian languages), Black men are consistently confronted with sexual fantasies explicitly related to their racialized objectification (e.g., references to slavery, rhetoric of reparations). Importantly, because Asian men are perceived as effeminate but Black men are seen as hypermasculine, they receive differential treatment within the gay community as masculinity is uplifted as more desirable in contrast to femininity.

Latino Men and the Fetishization of Language Amongst my respondents, three self-identified as Latino, one as Afro-Latino, and one as South Asian but self-identified as “Latino-passing.” With the exception of one respondent, all shared unique experiences of how being perceived as Latino led to comments about exoticism. A common fetishization was about language. Jose, a 21-year-old Latino student at an elite East Coast university, reported that he often felt fetishized in hookups with other men. He shared: It [sexual stereotyping] was rampant. I was seen as exotic; I was Spanish; and people were into that, and it was really weird and very uncomfortable to have the idea that someone wanted to have sex with me simply because of the way I looked …. In North America, people want you to say things in Spanish. I mean, I went along with it because it would be really uncomfortable to stop in the middle of sex … so there’s been multiple instances of things like that.

Even in the most intimate of settings, prospective partners view him as particularly desirable because of his ability to display exoticism, and language is used as a way to heighten this desired quality (hence, being asked to speak Spanish during sex). He shares the expectation from partners that “I’m supposed to be very good in bed” and “have this wild side that comes out when we have sex,” but also how he is unable to grapple with the discomfort in the context of a private space.

Garrett, an 18-year old at a private university on the East Coast, recalled being asked about language after matching with a man on a dating application: “We were just making some pleasant conversation, and he was like, oh, do you speak Puerto Rican? And I was like, no … but that kind of just rubbed me the wrong way.”

Language is also commonly associated with Latino men in the minds of men of other races. When asked about his sexual and romantic history with men, Evan (East Asian) said, “I don’t have that much experience with Latinos, but I’m studying Spanish right now, and I’m considering studying abroad in Madrid.” Calvin (Black),

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 191 when asked about the prospective partners he would be interested in, said “I don’t know much about the Latino community. I don’t know Spanish, which I mean, that’s on me because I chose French in high school. But, I mean, I grew up around a lot of people as well, so I know bits of the culture.” In both cases, men voluntarily bring up Spanish when discussing prospective Latino partners, corroborating reports by Stacey and Forbes that there is a socialized automatic association between the racial identity of being Latino and the ability to speak Spanish.

Some men of other races identified being Latino with being more sexually desirable. Aarav (South Asian), when discussing what it means to be brown, shared: Just being brown, as a concept, is weird in the sense that there’s different kinds of brown. There’s Latino, there’s the Indian brown, and there’s a Middle Eastern brown. The Middle Eastern brown and the Latino background are more attractive to the general population than the Indian brown, which makes no sense to me.

Nicholas (biracial, South Asian and white) shared that he frequently was racially profiled as Latino because of his lighter skin tone, and when trying to find sexual partners, would manage his expression of his own racial background on Grindr: On Grindr, you know the race setting. Where you tell them your race. I don’t put my race on there. That’s because I don’t think people are gonna want to have sex with me if I have “mixed” on my Grindr profile. So for me, I let my pictures do the talking. I see people who say, “only white guys,” “no fats,” “no Asians,” that shit’s fucked up. And so if they see that I’m a mixed Asian person, it would decrease my likability, or my fuckability on Grindr, you know.

Nicholas plays into the racial hierarchy which Aarav describes by managing his racial performance to minimize his association with Asianness and maximize his perception as Latino. Because he believes he can adequately pass as a more desirable racial group, he abstains from self-identifying as mixed race with the fear that it would “decrease my … fuckability” and cause a subsequent loss in erotic capital.

Latino men’s unique experiences with being asked about language in sexual and romantic settings, and grappling with desirability rooted in the perception of exoticism, cause great discomfort for respondents. However, even amongst people who dislike racialized hierarchies—such as Nicholas, who eloquently opines that “that shit’s fucked up”—they conform to racialized fantasies in order to maximize their prospective partners and sexual opportunities. These negotiations of how race is performed in the private sphere, and grappling with the uncomfortable association of sexual attraction and linguistic exoticism, are a unique way that queer Latino men experience and engage with racialized intimate experiences.

192 | Slideshow

VI. Resistance to Racism The overwhelming majority of respondents acknowledged racial preferences as socially unacceptable. Nicholas (biracial South Asian), who disclosed an implicit bias toward white partners, told me: “I think it’s bad on my part.” Ryan (Latino), who had firmly asserted that he had no racial preferences, told me: “[T]he amount of time your ancestors spent in the sun shouldn’t have any bearing on whether or not you have a relationship with that person.” These views are consistent with research that indicates that the explicit statement of racial preferences is no longer viewed as socially acceptable.

In response to racist experiences, the men of color I interviewed responded in two key ways. First was a preference in favor of partners of color, whom they viewed as safer and less racist prospective partners. Many also expressed a specific dating preference against white partners, who were associated with a greater level of detachment from their racial experiences and a range of negative traits (e.g., worse food). Second was direct confrontation or engagement, challenging racial inequities in queer spaces. I focus on one case study, where a Black respondent challenged a white gay man on Grindr for his practice of racial exclusion.

Preferences for Partners of Color One of the most interesting developments I saw was how over half of respondents shared about preferences for partners who are people of color. Many who grew up in diverse neighborhoods, including San Diego, Detroit, New York City, and Seattle, attributed their preferences to growing up in communities of color as formative to their racial preferences. This contrasts with what Han describes as almost a universal preference in favor of white partners amongst queer men of color in generations prior (Han 2021).

Multiple Asian respondents express a preference for coethnics because of cultural reasons. William (20, East Asian) shared that he believes he has “an inherent racial preference to Asian Americans …. I was born and raised in Queens, which is predominantly people of color: growing up around a lot of Asians probably shaped this preference.” Yuxuan (East Asian international student) shared that when he thought about dating another Chinese person, he imagined having an easier time meeting their parents and introducing their parents to his own: “[T]heir parents might be in China as well, and there is a better chance for them to connect with each other.” Aarav (South Asian) prefers both sexual and romantic relationships with other brown people: Aarav: In my head, the way I look is easier to understand for another person who looks the same way that I do. For that reason, I’m more drawn to the average Indian person …. I also catch feelings super soon, and the strength of those feelings is generally a lot greater when the person is Indian.

Interviewer: Do you think there’s a specific reason why that might be true, or is that just something that you’ve noticed?

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 193

Aarav: I think the reason is because the future of that relationship would be a lot easier to adjust to, compared to anyone else. I think there’s a particular struggle, I think each minority group has their own individual struggle, but the particular struggle that—I don’t know how to describe what it is, but the particular stigma that surrounds Indian people, and the particular struggle Indian people have in general. That’s a struggle that I only think another Indian person would understand.

Similar to research about straight couples, queer Asian men view cultural similrities as a primary attraction for dating Asian partners, inverting the racial pyramid of desirability.

Other men express that they have preferences toward all people of color.

Victor, a 21-year-old Asian respondent who grew up on the West Coast, shared that he felt he was more attracted to Asian and Hispanic men: “I was born into a community that was largely Asian and Hispanic, so I think my attraction skews in this direction.

I think it is a potential cycle: your beauty standards are modeled after what you grew up with.” Jose (Latino), when asked about his racial preference for prospective partners, said: “I very much would prefer someone that’s brown, specifically either Black or Hispanic.” Jevonte (Black), while not explicitly stating a racial preference, fondly reflected on his relationship with an biracial Asian man, which he described as both emotionally fulfilling and “my best sexual experience.” When asked why he thought this was the case, he explained: Part of his experience is kind of growing up being exoticized, because, even though he’s mixed, he looks completely Asian … he’s dealt with the worst kind of white guys. I mean, what do you call it? Yellow fever? That thing translates in the gay community as well, so he’s extra conscious about that because he’s experienced being fetishized for so long, and that’s probably why I never experienced that with him.

Men of color consistently shared that they have a preference for other men of color. Some preferred coethnic for stated cultural reasons, while others more broadly viewed gay men of color as being more culturally competent and less racially problematic. While most recognize that men of color from different racial backgrounds experience unique forms of exclusion, fetishization, or racism, there seems to be a widely held belief that experiences with marginality (“he’s dealt with the worst kind of white guys”) enhance a prospective partner’s ability to date in a culturally competent way that does not objectify or fetishize their prospective partners (“because he’s experienced being fetishized for so long, and that’s probably why I never experienced that with him”).

However, multiple respondents shared that they did not want to date white gay men when looking for romantic partners. Calvin, a 20-year-old Black man at a private midwestern university, shared: “I lean toward people of color in relationships. White

194 | Slideshow queer people have so much to learn, and I don’t know if I have the energy.” Jose (21, Latino) said: “I don’t ever imagine marrying someone who’s white. I think that’s a very real possibility, but I don’t think I’ve ever imagined that in my ideal.” Both respondents viewed white gay men as specifically lacking a shared experience in being queer, and being fundamentally unable to relate to them. Both also discussed romantic relationships as building deeper, more meaningful connections with a partner: with white gay men, they didn’t feel they would have enough shared language to build these meaningful connections.

Others point out specific pejorative characteristics in white partners that cause them hesitation. Aarav (South Asian) discussed in lengthy detail why he did not see himself with a white partner: They’re brought up in a very different way than I am. They see life so differently.

The culture is different to them. Most things that shouldn’t be okay are okay.

I have a lot of white friends who are very accepting and wonderful, but their parents are not. And that’s just another additional layer: I don’t want to date someone whose parents will look at me and tell their son that’s a brown person …. The average Indian person, most of my friends, are very surprised by how white people do things. That’s why I think I’d be more concerned. Also, the food does not work for me. I don’t like white people’s food.

Aarav identifies multiple cultural factors that make dating a potential white partner difficult for him, including food, customs, and parental racism from white partners. When asked about his racial preferences for a partner, he responded “brown people,” including Latino and Middle Eastern men. Despite the fact that Latino and Middle Eastern partners would also have cultural differences from his Indian background, he does not have as decidedly negative views against these partners: white partners are framed as uniquely undesirable romantic partners because of the presumption of racial discrimination, paired with a level of detachment not just from cultural norms, but a shared racial experience. As he later explains: I think I’m concerned about dating a white person because if that ever develops into something else, I would then be married into a white family, and I would be the only person of color around there, and I think that would freak me out.

That’s why I probably wouldn’t [want to marry a white person].

For Aarav, the sense of racial alienation feels particularly pronounced when thinking about the context of a white family. This speaks to a level of comfort with other communities of color, even from other ethnic backgrounds, compared to white partners, who are portrayed as uniquely distant from his own experiences.

Some of this rejection may also be a manifestation of racial resentment from experiencing discrimination. Victor (East Asian) explained how he responds to white people on applications like Tinder: This new thing that’s developing, and I think it’s mostly out of spite and I feel a little bit bad, but it’s just sort of like … you’re a little bit jealous of how somebody looks and so you don’t really like them. Like you’re attracted to

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 195 them, but you’re also mad at them for being more attractive than you are. And because we’re all men, there’s a point of comparison there. So I see these profiles and I’m like, everyone’s gonna swipe right on you so I’m going to swipe left.

While Victor articulates his experiences through the framework of spite, Aarav discusses the way he swipes on prospective partners as a byproduct of racial exclusion: It’s so internalized that I probably wouldn’t even swipe right on the app on the average attractive white person, because I know for a fact that they’re not swiping right. I mean, regardless of what my pictures look like. And that is something that I think most people of color just inherently understand.

In both cases, men of color express their resentment against racial exclusion from white partners by refusing to swipe right and match with white people on dating applications. These actions are a refusal to legitimize the hierarchies of attraction established within society, reciprocating the action of exclusion from white gay men in the digital space. The act of preemptively rejecting white partners is an act of racial resistance by withdrawing themselves from the dating pool and refusing to play the game in the parameters set. These actions reflect one way that gay men of color respond to such incidents of racism. In other instances, men of color directly speak out when faced with racist experiences: these confrontations can take place, both in face-to-face interactions and in the digital realm.

Direct Confrontations with Racism One experience that stood out to me was a story from Calvin, a Black respondent. He shared that he had run an experiment on Grindr, creating one account where he uploaded a picture and explicitly shared his race and statistics, and another without stating his race or including a photograph but including the same statistics (information such as height and weight). He explores the outcomes of his experiment as follows: I wanted to see if I got more replies or more people hitting me up and things like that, and I actually found out that I did get more attention when I did have my race on there, which definitely hurt. It definitely revealed to me—that was also a time when I feel that race affected my experience …. There were people I would text on there [the racially anonymous account], for example, that didn’t respond to me [earlier]. They would text that profile, so I would then target them and say, “oh, so you just don’t like Black people,” for example, and then I’d send my picture and know who they were. They would either go about their day or block me, but I called them out for that. Actually I did have one really, really good conversation with this one person. They said, “This helped me realize a lot,” and they said it made a difference in how they approach dating now, since that came to their attention and everything. It showed that there’s room for growth, but overall, it is going to take time and things like that.

196 | Slideshow In this quote, Calvin shares a few important revelations: first, he perceives that his account receives a greater level of engagement from other men when he does not reveal his race as Black (an experiment that has also been run by other Black men and Asian men—see discussion). This is a critical contributor to his conclusion that the treatment he faced was racist. Second, he confronts these men directly: he “called them out” and makes a point to name the ways that race impacts desire (“oh, so you just don’t like Black people”), which often creates discomfort and leads to being ignored or blocked. Lastly, he shares one instance where this confrontation actually changes the outlook of a person who is forced to more seriously grapple with their own racist biases.

Calvin’s story is notable in how directly he confronts his aggressors, and how it is contextualized by the patterns of racist behaviors which have been documented on Grindr by sociologists and queer communities of color at large for years. Crucially, the anecdote of one person who says they will further reflect on what Calvin says validates his experiences of racist exclusion and also reassures Calvin that “there’s room for growth.” His decision to outwardly name these experiences as racist contributes to a broader awareness of the exclusion that men of color face, which is more possible in the digital space, where he is able to message people directly, as opposed to virtual spaces, where other men of color note a high degree of racial segregation amongst queer men.

VII. Conclusion This article explored how current college students continue to experience racist encounters in the private sphere against Asian, Latino, and Black men of color. I demonstrate that while it has become less socially acceptable to explicitly state racial preferences, implicit discrimination or fetishization persists in the sexual and dating marketplace and contributes to feelings of dehumanization and objectification.

In alignment with prior research about sexual racism and dating preferences, my research indicates that the younger generation both recognizes and continues to grapple with similar stereotypes rooted in colonial and racist messaging about racial positionality. Most identify white men of color as the primary perpetrators of racist acts, responding with strategies of resistance.

Second, I show that an almost universal preference for white partners no longer persists. When asked about racial preferences, most respondents stated either no preference or a preference toward partners of color. This shows how the traditional racial hierarchy, where white partners are universally the most desired, has been destabilized by new factors that shape sexual desirability. Often, a preference for coethnics is shaped by the perceived value of shared cultural or linguistic backgrounds.

Additionally, a greater critical consciousness of intimate racism and the perception of shared experiences amongst men of color increase the desirability of partners of color. Many who articulated a preference in favor of partners of color also expressed anti-white dating preferences. While respondents recognized a broader racial ranking within the gay community, many sought to resist their subjugated position through

The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color | 197 strategies of resistance, including the exclusion of white partners and direct confrontation, highlighting both a heightened awareness of racial discrimination in intimate settings and the intent to challenge persistent inequalities.

Lastly, I share ways that gay men of color actively resist their own exclusion and fetishization through both direct confrontation and shifting personal erotic and dating preferences. Their stories show that gay men are not passive victims of racism, but instead actively challenging and shaping the social conditions around them.

While recognizing the realities of racial hierarchy led some to feel despondent or resentful, many adapt and survive by challenging previously held attractions, supporting and choosing other queer men of color, and embracing their own racial identities with pride.

198 | Slideshow

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The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok Jordan Rivera TikTok uniquely enables the acceleration of cultural appropriation.1 In the digital world, Black cultural innovation is being systematically stolen in the form of content, and TikTok is the key. The ingredients of a perfect storm for increased cultural appropriation start with America’s long history of cultural appropriation, technology’s role in exacerbating existing cultural dynamics, TikTok becoming the new digital enclave for Black people over Black Twitter, and TikTok changing the way culture is consumed and indexed through its algorithm and features—and end with white people on TikTok being directly incentivized to take and repurpose cultural content from the Black community to grow their following. A culmination of these ingredients ultimately results in a phenomenon where digital “Gen-Z culture” is becoming indexed as an altered, whitewashed version of Black culture. Throughout my project, I will demonstrate how these pieces fit together to paint a picture of heightened, more digitized social inequality and an increased fetishization of Black culture.

I. Introduction In March 2020, white TikTok stars Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae appeared as guests on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon on separate occasions and performed dances by other TikTok creators. Addison Rae’s appearance in particular featured dances by Black creators who did not receive credit for creating the dances or similar creative ideas. This sparked a conversation among users centered around cultural appropriation on the app, which resulted in Black creators choosing not to create a new dance to artist Megan Thee Stallion’s then-new hit song, “Thot S—.” After their refusal to create a new dance, Black creators made videos with commentary on the situation. One example is from TikTok creator Erick Louis,2 who made a video saying he would dance to the song, only to later post text that says, “Sike. This app would be nothing without [Black] people.”3 4 1 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, cultural appropriation is the unacknowledged and inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc., of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.

2 @theericklouis on TikTok. 1.1 million followers as of 2023.

3 Taiyler Simone Mitchell, “‘They Take Our Dances’: Black Users Demand TikTok Combat Cultural Appropriation,” Insider, August 21, 2021.

4 This is one example of many videos like it. On TikTok, it is difficult to know exactly why some videos go viral, who was the first to say something, or what group a video will reach. There is also a power law establishing that only a certain number of videos can go viral, and the rest get exponentially fewer views and less circulation. Though this particular video went viral, it is highly likely that videos more directly addressing the topic of cultural appropriation would get significantly fewer views and be circulated to people who already know about cultural appropriation, not necessarily those who need to hear about it.

204 | Slideshow When user @dominiquelaraine (a Black creator who makes dance videos) posted a choreography tutorial to the song, the comment section was full of discussion about the strike against creating dances. Examples include “Bestie, we were going on a strike” and “So you ain’t got the memo, we not helping them this time.” Interestingly enough, there was a decentralized consensus to strike that was enabled by the app itself, but the purpose of the strike was also because of the app-enabled environment.

We will explore this tension later in the project.

So what exactly is the cultural appropriation that motivated the strike? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, cultural appropriation is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc., of one people or society by members of another (typically more dominant) people or society. Cultural appropriation is one of the ways in which the power dynamic of systemic oppression is maintained. George Lee, a Black creator on TikTok,5 created content describing the differences between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation: “The difference … is the question of who progresses and profits the most …. When the cultural product is detached from the cultural producers, we get cultural appropriation.”6 What does cultural appropriation look like in practice? Digital blackface as described by Vox is the co-opting of dances, memes, and slang popularized by Black creators by the non-Black side of the internet. Digital blackface is a form of cultural appropriation and is committed casually and frequently. The makeup of Gen-Z culture on TikTok can best be exemplified through dance, though it is much more, including memes, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), etc.

The 2021 “#BlackTikTok Strike” for Megan Thee Stallion’s “Thot S—” was the first collective action the platform has seen. As noted, Black creators equated uncredited trends with unpaid labor and chose not to create a new dance. Weeks later, no viral dance challenge had emerged. This clearly showed that Black creators have always been the innovators on the app. They were fed up with rampant cultural appropriation on the platform and refused to dance to the song in protest.

Yet despite the strike, one of the influential TikTokers who contributed to it, Erick Louis, had his dance moves stolen days later by a pair of white creators without credit, and they received more than a million views on it. Viewing the strike from his perspective is valuable for knowing the real effects of cultural appropriation on TikTok. In an interview, Louis describes how Blackness is a shortcut to fame on TikTok for white creators and how they turn these moments into personal brands, sponsorship deals, and small media empires. “Black creators carry TikTok on our backs. We make the trends, we give the looks, we are funniest—there’s no argument about it,” says Louis. “But what ends up happening is non-Black folk appropriate our content, and they end up being the faces of what Black folks created.”7 This newly appropriated creation eventually becomes indexed as “Gen-Z culture” as the original contributions get erased. In his interview, Louis claimed that the app’s algorithms prioritize 5 @TheConsciousLee on TikTok, 2.3 million followers as of 2023 6 Mitchell, “They Take Our Dances.”

7 Leah Asmelash, “Black creators wouldn’t dance on TikTok to the latest Megan Thee Stallion track.

Here’s why their strike matters,” CNN, July 2, 2021.

The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok | 205 non-Black faces and silence Black creators.8 Louis’s thoughts demonstrate how marginalized creators on TikTok are discovering the age-old concept of cultural appropriation in a new form.

Cultural appropriation on TikTok is a positive feedback loop that grows with every trend. First, white creators use TikTok to engage in cultural appropriation in attempts to become famous (whether intentional or not). Second, this creates a harder environment for original white creators to succeed, so more white creators do the same. A second-order effect of this is that white creators will end up boosting the culturally appropriated sound by participating, making it even more viral. Finally, as more copied content floods the platform, trends become locked in history and indexed as diluted, stolen Black culture. This largely shows itself through music- and dance-related trends, as the Megan Thee Stallion song exemplifies, but is prevalent throughout all cultural facets. Then, the entire cycle repeats, starting with content that is likely derived from Black artists. The last part is important because it shows how cultural appropriation builds on itself. In this way, TikTok becomes a system with which culture is twisted and dispersed. The output is Gen-Z culture being defined by a collection of cultural ideas largely stolen from marginalized groups.

II. Thesis: TikTok is the key to a perfect storm of increased cultural appropriation TikTok is the key to a perfect storm of accelerated cultural appropriation. It begins with America’s long history of cultural appropriation, then technology’s role in exacerbating existing cultural dynamics, TikTok becoming the new digital enclave for Black people over Black Twitter, and TikTok changing the way culture is consumed and indexed through its algorithm and features—and ends with white people on TikTok being directly incentivized to take and repurpose cultural content from the Black community to grow their following. This ultimately results in a phenomenon where digital “Gen-Z culture” is becoming indexed as an altered, whitewashed version of Black culture.

This “perfect storm” has four main outcomes on the ground: loss in earned economic profit for innovative marginalized people, exploitation through non-marginalized creators concretely gaining from using ideas created by the marginalized, the increased fetishization of Black culture, and TikTok gaining users based on the ability to easily become famous without talent. In other words, ideas and innovations created by marginalized groups directly improve the economic position of exploitative non-marginalized groups, while depriving the marginalized of deserved money, attention, and career opportunities. Meanwhile TikTok profits from and is incentivized to continue this entire process.

There are two higher-level effects: 1) heightened and digitized social inequality; and 2) digital “Gen-Z culture” becoming indexed as an altered, whitewashed version of Black culture. This is critical because the largest effect is the erasure and transgression of Black culture. Feminist writer bell hooks shows us the pre-digital 8

Beatrice Forman, “Digital Blackface Led to TikTok’s First Strike,” Vox, June 29, 2021.

206 | Slideshow history of these large-order effects. She claims that Black culture is fetishized because white culture treats it as “exotic” and as an escape. In her foundational essay on the topic of cultural appropriation, “Eating the Other,” hooks outlines the commodification of otherness and how it offers a “new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling.”9 Her theory on the fetishism of race includes how white people see Blackness as being different in a way that is adventurous.

It is racism and stereotyping in an indirect way. Here, hooks identifies a shift in mass culture away from a segregated, whitewashed, Eurocentric media and toward one that interacts with, transgresses over, and appropriates elements of the other. This shift has made race a commodity, but still subject to being “the other.” There is a key tension here between the commodification of Black people and their status as “othered.” On one hand, they are valued for their social and cultural capital, and in turn, pursued and copied by white people. On the other hand, the same group of white people who highly value their cultural capital and seek to copy from them also directly marginalize and “other” Black people.

When contextualized, this shift surfaces as a more indirect, but still present racism on TikTok. This paradox is nothing new, as hooks claimed decades ago, but extending it into the digital realm is an important tension to identify and shed light on because half of America’s population (150 million people) use TikTok, primarily young people, and our world is more digital than ever, to the point where being online shapes our culture just as much as we use the internet to express what we do offline. Largely, the direct economic incentive to copy Black culture for fame and money (through TikTok) increases the fervor with which Black culture is sought.

III. America has a history of cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the act of copying or using the customs and traditions of a particular group or culture, by somebody from a more dominant group in society.10 Cultural appropriation as a concept has been debated by scholars for over a century, but the term itself came to prominence in the late 20th century, rising among discussions of multiculturalism, globalism, and intersectional conversations and perspectives on race, gender, and class. In the 1970s, in one of the earliest references to cultural appropriation, sociologist Dick Hebdige examined how white subcultures in Britain constructed “style” to reinforce communal identity and borrowed cultural symbols from other marginalized groups, particularly groups who had even less socioeconomic power (for example, punk style borrowed heavily from Rastafarian culture and working-class apparel).11 The key to differentiating cultural appropriation from other forms of cultural transfer is the context within which the exchange is happening. It is true that culture (beliefs, art, customs, etc.) can be shared between and across communities, and this 9 bell hooks, “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 21–39.

10 Oxford English Dictionary, 2023.

11 Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).

The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok | 207 can be important to said communities, but there is a long history of socially dominant groups seizing parts of marginalized cultures and profiting heavily from them.12 One historical example of American cultural appropriation can be found when examining rock ’n’ roll in the mid-20th century. Rock ’n’ roll was most directly derived from the rhythm and blues music (R&B) of the 1940s, which originated in Black communities.

Previously viewed as taboo because of its African-American roots, rock ’n’ roll was brought to white audiences by white artists who enriched themselves in the process.

Now, rock ’n’ roll is mostly identified with white culture. In 2017, Black actor and comedian Jessica Williams was criticized for “appropriating” white culture when wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt in a promotional photo for her podcast. As Williams and her co-host Phoebe Robinson pointed out, in addition to the fact that these criticisms disregarded the African-American roots of rock ’n’ roll, they also ignored the fact that “Led Zeppelin themselves cite African-American blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Skip James, and Howlin’ Wolf as their primary musical influences.”1314 The history of rock ’n’ roll barely scratches the surface of America’s history of cultural appropriation. The topic spans every aspect of culture—language, clothes, dances, food, etc. Through this example, we can begin to set the foundation of the process that TikTok exacerbates.

IV. Technology exacerbates everything it touches Whether it’s for good or evil, technology increases the magnitude of what it is used for. A quick example is Facebook’s ability to strengthen connections between families, yet also amplify misinformation. Facebook did not create the family bonds, nor did it create the misinformation; Facebook just spread the information it was given to a global level, for good or for evil. This concept is more substantially argued in Ralph Schroeder’s work Social Theory after the Internet: Media, Technology, and Globalization. Schroeder claims that the internet extends the reach and intensifies the permutation of media into society, but in doing so, both shapes the powers, and is shaped by them.15 He lays out three areas: politics, culture, and everyday life. Each of these follows its own system of logic but interconnects with the others—the common thread between them being that they are part of larger processes where technology penetrates more deeply into their logics. To explain simply, these broad areas of life (politics, culture, daily life) help shape technology, but also technology helps to shape them. The internet’s role in how politics work is a great example. The internet extends the reach of politics that already exist, yet politics has still foundationally changed 12 James O. Young, Cultural Appropriation and the Arts (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).

13 Phoebe Robinson on Twitter: “Lol. Wut? Considering Led Zeppelin’s music is completely based on blues music, the only ppl appropriating are Zeppelin. #DoYourResearch.” @Dopequeenpheebs, Twitter, May 4, 2017.

14 Troy L. Smith, “How Race and Ignorance Shape Our View of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” Cleveland.com, September 28, 2016.

15 Ralph Schroeder, Social Theory after the Internet: Media, Technology, and Globalization (UCL Press, 2018).

208 | Slideshow due to the entrance of the internet. Ever since Obama used Facebook in his 2008 run for president, the political dynamics of a race have never been the same. This dynamic is important to understand the relationship between social institutions and technology. With politics, new forces like social media enable circumventing traditional gatekeepers, which creates new space for asymmetries of power. Schroeder argues that the three areas act like this.1716 From a cultural lens, Schroeder’s framework can be applied to TikTok and cultural groups. TikTok as a technology continues and amplifies America’s long history of cultural appropriation, while culture itself begins to be shaped by TikTok. The second step is important: after TikTok exacerbates cultural appropriation, it cements a new cultural reality into the minds of its users. Often described as Gen-Z culture, this new cultural reality is heavily influenced by TikTok. What Gen-Z culture truly is the remnants of an exacerbated cultural appropriation.

A short example is people offline appropriating AAVE—like the term “slay”— because it may seem cool to them. This is the status quo. Then they will use the term on TikTok to be “cool” in front of hundreds of thousands of people instead of their ten friends at school. Eventually, the term will spread like wildfire through the app. The consensus for most people outside of the marginalized group where the term came from will be that it is a TikTok term instead of AAVE. If enough of these examples compound, like dances, more AAVE, streetwear, etc., people begin to view TikTok as having its own subculture, which ends up being completely built on the backs of marginalized people. When it gets this far, TikTok transitions to shaping culture itself in addition to being shaped by culture.

V. How does TikTok work?

TikTok is a social media app that people use to watch, share, and make short videos. TikTok is owned and created by the most valuable private company in the world ($220B),17 ByteDance, a Chinese start-up rapidly penetrating overseas markets. TikTok’s business model, like most social media networks, depends on advertisements. Businesses will pay TikTok to appear in front of users. With revenues of about $176.9 million in 2019 and $247.6 million in all-time revenues, TikTok has not yet matured in terms of monetization and it still experiments with various models.18 TikTok’s value proposition to users combines various essential functions of other popular social media platforms, like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. TikTok is unique because it makes it easy to consume and create large volumes of content through vertical video and automated playback, which fundamentally makes it an entertainment app that happens to be a social network through its infamous algorithm. Because of these features, users can just open the app and be entertained 16 Ibid.

17 Business of Apps, “TikTok Revenue and Usage Statistics,” 2023.

18 Rahat Sandhu, “Abu Dhabi’s G42 acquires $100 mln bytedance stake at $220 bln valuation,” Reuters, March 14, 2023.

The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok | 209 for hours with content tailored to them while putting in no effort to find the content.

These features, which are crucial to the user experience, are powered by personalized content, which is powered by an algorithm tailored to the user’s preferences. Such personalization can be problematic because fundamentally, someone will be shown what they resonate with the most to keep them on the app, even if it is harmful content or cultural appropriation.

While this personalization is similar to other social media platforms, where users are shown things they like to boost retention, TikTok is the only social network to center the entire experience around this. Others focus on connections with friends, short-form content, and photo sharing. Thus, TikTok is a social media company whose main focus is entertainment first, not necessarily connecting people. It is true that TikTok does encourage users to follow and message each other, as with other social media platforms, because interactions among users strengthen the stickiness of the app.19 TikTok also implements initiatives like the creator fund to cultivate a new class of online celebrities coming from the app itself, but the key is that TikTok is optimizing for entertaining people first, beyond all else.

For creators, TikTok makes it easy to create large volumes of content. This dramatically increases the number of people who make TikToks and the types of people who do so. TikTok users are allowed to create short videos with a maximum length of three minutes, which is much shorter than YouTube. This is in place to incentivize more casual videos like lip-syncing. TikTok also provides easy-to-use tools and resources for users to create. For instance, there are many filters to combine with a massive range of sounds, from music to clips from online videos, TV, or other users.

Users can join challenges, make jokes, or even record their daily lives and post content without feeling as self-conscious as they might on other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Part of this is the cultural connotation of the app, and part of it is how much easier TikTok makes it to post. Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram have more of a professional cultural connotation, where people make personas that might not be who they really are. TikTok has a more casual connotation, where people can be themselves. TikTok also has a powerful, easy-to-use, in-app video editor that none of the competition has. The net effect is that video creation is accessible to anyone.

This brings us to the algorithm, which is the foundation of TikTok’s software empire and the artificial intelligence (AI) innovation that the brightest in tech fail to emulate. The core technical differentiator of TikTok is the powerful algorithm that recommends content for users based on their prior choices such as likes, shares, or location. This is more user-friendly because users no longer have the “burden” of finding interesting content. Even on YouTube or Instagram, users still have to choose the next video from an algorithm-recommended list.

This is possible because TikTok’s AI-based algorithm determines users’ tailored information distributions based on analyzing the content of each video and tracking users’ preferences to generate an endless and highly attractive video stream. More 19 Henry Jenkins, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2013).

210 | Slideshow specifically, TikTok performs real-time content distribution based on a deep analysis of the user’s persona (market segmentation, age, gender, device) and feedback data that include views and engagement (comments, shares, and likes). TikTok feeds each user personalized content by consistently recommending similar content that can be shared, replicated, and built on. Essentially, TikTok’s algorithm allows the app to control the user’s menu of entertainment by observing their reactions to each past video. This way, users never need to think about searching for videos, but instead are fed personal preference–based content, which is a crucial part of TikTok.20

VI. TikTok has replaced Black Twitter as the town square for young Black people André Brock, a prominent scholar in the field of digital media studies, describes online spaces where marginalized communities, particularly the Black community, create and maintain their own cultural spaces as “digital enclaves.” These digital enclaves sit within the broader digital landscape to serve as safe spaces for members of these communities to engage with one another, share their experiences, and create content that reflects their unique cultural perspectives. By forming digital enclaves, marginalized groups can foster a sense of belonging and solidarity, even as they navigate the often hostile and exclusionary dynamics of the larger digital world.

In short, digital enclaves are how the Black community gathers to share and process joy, experiences, and trauma.21 Black Twitter used to be the Black digital enclave. By studying its cultural dynamics, we can better understand the relationship between the Black community and TikTok. According to Raven Maragh-Lloyd, “Black Twitter” refers to the phenomenon of African Americans using Twitter in numbers exceeding their demographic representation.22 Lloyd outlines how various media platforms reinforce racism while giving space for new modes of resistance and understanding. Through Lloyd’s analysis, we can also learn about Twitter as a technology. Lloyd discusses Twitter’s mechanics through André Brock’s analysis, arguing that Twitter’s mechanics produce explicit technocultural digital practices, and that Black-signifying discourse practices such as performance, audience, ritual, and releasing emotion map closely onto Twitter’s discourse features of addressivity, concision, and networks. This is true of TikTok as well.

Understanding the social dynamics of social networks like Twitter is important to understanding similar concepts for other networks like TikTok. The simultaneous commodification and maintenance of otherness that interact with, transgress over, and appropriate elements of Black culture on Twitter are bolstered by TikTok, which simultaneously accelerates the process and gives space for resistance. Through TikTok’s 20 Yulun Ma & Yue Hu, “Business Model Innovation and Experimentation in Transforming Economies: ByteDance and TikTok,” Management and Organization Review 17(2) (2021), 382–388.

21 André Brock, Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures (New York University Press, 2020).

22 Lori Kido Lopez, Race and Media: Critical Approaches (New York University Press, 2020).

The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok | 211 accessible form factor and wide user base, members of the Black community are given both a larger platform to resist and a larger stage to be exploited on than Twitter.

Beyond the role of Twitter itself, we can explore the role that digital space played in the Black community. Lloyd mentions Catherine Squires’s theory on multiple marginal spheres, where enclaves are secret spaces in which marginalized groups were historically forced to exist separately from the public spheres. According to Squires, these spaces “became a site of reprieve by incorporating discursive and physical means of survival.” In these spheres, members of marginalized groups can engage with one another, share experiences, and develop content that reflects their unique cultural perspectives. By understanding this, we can better understand how communities as a unit navigate and resist dominant power structures, foster a sense of belonging and solidarity, and contribute to the broader digital landscape.

The roles of digital space and the Black community became prevalent during the social unrest of 2020. This social unrest was marked by widespread protests and civil movements globally, primarily ignited by the killing of George Floyd in the United States, which sparked a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and further fueled by political divisions, socioeconomic inequalities, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

This period of time was a unique intersection of events, with the Black Lives Matter movement gaining momentum, the widespread use of TikTok, and the platform emerging as a Black digital enclave. As a popular short-form video-sharing app, TikTok became a crucial tool for activists, largely younger activists, to raise awareness about racial injustices, amplify Black voices, and mobilize protests. The app’s algorithm fostered the creation and dissemination of content related to the movement, leading to a digital space where Black creators and users could engage, share their experiences, and foster a sense of community. This Black digital enclave on TikTok played a vital role, not only in bringing issues of systemic racism and inequality to the forefront but also in challenging traditional media narratives and empowering marginalized voices in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

After these events, TikTok did not stop being a place where the younger Black community could have a sense of community online. A year later, this digital community infrastructure fostered the environment for the Megan Thee Stallion strike to occur—and by extension, TikTok has slowly become the new Black digital enclave.

If it was not clear prior to the events of 2020, that time was an inflection point for the Black community to be forced to connect online. During the COVID-19 outbreak, it was difficult for the Black community to gather in person—so it was even more important to share information and experiences to get through the difficult time.

Although digital enclaves have been an overwhelmingly positive entity for the Black community, they have also been another vector of discrimination. This tension can be explored through the concept of Black virality—a niche that explores the meaning of virality itself, how Black people fit into contemporary digital culture, and how virality both benefits and harms Black people. Ashleigh Greene Wade is a leader in Black viral discourse. Wade claims that viral Blackness “works to shift and/or erode borders/boundaries that inhibit the free flow of Blackness” and “breaks down

212 | Slideshow separations of virtual and physical spaces.”23 My research contradicts her claims; Wade fails to acknowledge how white communities co-opt Black virals, benefiting and profiting from Black virals while Black creators never see those profits. It is important to recognize that although Black virality is a tool for the free flow of Blackness, it can also be a commodity for white appropriators to enrich themselves.

VII. TikTok incentivizes cultural appropriation TikTok has changed the way people (especially young people) consume culture.

This touches every aspect of life: language, clothes, dances, food, etc. As previously mentioned, TikTok’s core goal is to be the stickiest social media platform. This means that much like any other site, it seeks to retain as many users as possible for the longest time, which directly impacts revenue, because the more users TikTok has and the longer the users are on the app, the more the company can make from advertising. To achieve this goal, TikTok has innovations on both the creator side and the user side.

For users, TikTok’s algorithm shows them exactly what they want to see.

TikTok delivers personal preference–based videos (this allows the company to deal with the different regulation and censorship systems of different countries).

TikTok also recommends content based on local tastes, which allows it to serve multiple (even opposing) groups at the same time. This remains true if a group prefers content that is culturally appropriative—they will see that content at an increasing rate.

For creators, TikTok dramatically lowers the barriers to creating catchy content.

It does this in many ways, but chiefly it incentivizes composable content through the atomic unit that is a sound. A sound is just a small clip of noise, over which videos can be recorded. This creates an environment that incentivizes creators to remix trends and creative ideas. This alone is benign when the original foundational content is credited; however, this is virtually never the case. The optimal move for white creators is to steal innovative ideas and claim them for themselves. bell hooks identifies a tendency to fetishize Black culture rather than directly transgress it. Combined with TikTok’s features of sounds, challenges, short attention spans, and lack of credit to original creators, this tendency makes it easy and lucrative to take someone’s idea and use it to thrive. One user creates a video that goes viral; then others use that trend as a sound, making the video more viral and incentivizing even more people to use the trend, creating a positive feedback loop.

Because of the TikTok algorithm, white users could be shown remixed Black content, usually because they respond well to that content. With this content, there is little original accreditation to artists, and even when that happens the profit is already taken.

One of the most glaring examples of this was a precursor to the Megan Thee Stallion strike previously mentioned (2021). After TikTok star Charli D’Amelio’s video of the “renegade dance” went viral, an entire dance craze was created in late 2019.

The original creator of the dance is Jalaiah Harmon, then a 14-year-old Black girl.

Charli now has almost one hundred million followers and is a multimillionaire, while 23 A. G. Wade, “New Genres of Being Human: World Making through Viral Blackness,” The Black Scholar 47(3) (2017), 33–44.

The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok | 213 Jalaiah Harmon never had the chance to fairly be credited for her work. According to Forbes, none of TikTok’s highest-earning creators are Black, despite Black content’s popularity on the app.24 24Another example is Addison Rae’s appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show (2021). Her performance was entirely made of dances she did not create, and was described by TikTokers as much less enthusiastic than the original creators’ versions. As of August 2021, her net worth was estimated to be around $5 million.25 What is happening on TikTok is theft of cultural innovation from the marginalized—at scale. This continues in a positive feedback loop. Because this process is so profitable for white creators and entertaining for white audiences, TikTok has no incentive to stop it. Nowhere else can white creators with little original content to contribute come and gain so much attention for just remixing videos. At the same time, Black creators who continue to innovate begin to speak out about what they see, but when they do, their content mostly reaches other Black creators and users who agree with them instead of the people who really need to see it. This is because TikTok’s algorithm shows people what they want to engage with, so white creators are much less likely to see opposing content because they might not interact with it as much. This is the algorithm’s effect on the social dynamics of the white and Black communities on TikTok, which thus exacerbates the issue.

In every iteration of this loop, we can view a new set of trends that become a layer of culture indexed in the library of culture. The results of this process are as follows: first, a trend that came from culturally appropriated content will come and go; then the remnants will become enshrined as Gen-Z culture; then the next trend, which most likely arises from cultural appropriation, gets remixed and shared based on the iteration of Gen-Z culture that came before it. In this way, cultural appropriation compounds.

The outcome of this process is that although Black creators continue to create and innovate on the platform and are outspoken about cultural appropriation, little actually changes. White creators continue to gain money and fame for remixing ideas that come from Black creators. This is not necessarily intentional—TikTok incentivizes them to take what is popular. This entire process is a loop that never ends, and grows with each revolution.

24 Abram Brown, “TikTok’s 7 Highest-Earning Stars: New Forbes List Led by Teen Queens Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio,” Forbes, October 7, 2021.

25 Mitchell, “They Take Our Dances.”

214 | Slideshow

VIII. Conclusion In the midst of a crucial moment with complicated economic, political, and cultural shifts—such as hyperpolarization, the mass shift to remote work driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, rampant misinformation on unchecked social media giants, corporate greed, and much more—the internet is now more important than ever. Thus, the issue of cultural appropriation in the digital age is critical to study at this moment. We are at a moment where content creators are profiting by the millions for their online content while income inequality is at historic highs. The stakes are enormous. In order to avoid digitizing the same social inequalities that exist today, we must actively combat cultural appropriation and fairly credit any creator wholly for the value they create. Here are a few concrete things that could be done to address this issue.

There needs to be a higher volume of scholarship focusing on Black labor in the digital economy. More scholarship could lead to coders implementing solutions that incentivize originality and proof of digital ownership, technology companies creating diversity/reparation initiatives to retroactively credit Black creators and boost current Black creators until the algorithm is fairer, and lawyers and policymakers changing IP law to make cultural appropriation similar in consequence to ideological theft.

Technology accelerates what it touches. Social dynamics are no exception.

Cultural appropriation is not new. White people have long profited from taking Black cultural innovation and repackaging it for white audiences. Fetishizing Black culture is also not new. However, the relationship between white and Black culture has shifted from one of segregation to one of interaction, transgression, and appropriation.

Social media technology has allowed for Black digital cultures to arise, where the Black community innovates through new connections in digital enclaves. This isn’t new either, with Black Twitter beginning nearly a decade ago. This all comes together on TikTok, where new innovations allow for heightened digitized social inequality and an increased fetishization of Black culture because of the acceleration of cultural appropriation.

TikTok incentivizes users to make short videos with other people’s sounds (so they can be looped and replayed for more streams) and lowers the barrier of entry for users by an order of magnitude. This allows for an environment where white creators systematically steal Black creators’ ideas and transform them (making them worse) into Gen-Z culture, and get rich and famous doing it.

The effect of this cultural appropriation is a positive feedback loop on a few fronts. First, new trends that derive from Black creators are cemented in the cultural lexicon as just Gen-Z culture, completely erasing and not giving credit to Black creators for their innovations. Second, white creators are incentivized to keep doing this, even if they do it in good faith, which makes it harder for original white creators to shine through when it’s so easy to get famous for stealing an idea. Thus original white creators are incentivized to hop on the trend as well. Finally, as a result TikTok profits immensely from locking users in both categories—and the more it

The Acceleration of Cultural Appropriation through TikTok | 215 happens, the less incentivized TikTok is to change anything. Future research may explore the concepts of cultural appropriation and how they exist on TikTok more deeply in various cultural verticals, like music, art, fashion, food, and language. There has not been a serious nationwide conversation since 2020. It’s time to rekindle the conversation on cultural appropriation on TikTok and change outcomes for marginalized communities.

216 | Slideshow

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Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons: Canonizing a National Myth Chloe West Following the end of the Wars of the Roses, the victorious Henry Tudor, now Henry VII, became focused on controlling England’s national memory of the wars through a propaganda campaign known as the Tudor Myth. Bernard André’s The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII (1502), the foundational text for the myth, sought to legitimize King HenryVII’s claim to the English throne following theWars of the Roses. Through a critical analysis of this text, this project demonstrates how the myth developed and remains popular to this day. At a time when humanist approaches to history were beginning to sweep across Western Christendom, this article argues that André chose to write in an antiquarian style as a way to make the Tudor claim appear older than any other English royal house, by following the example of a medieval hagiography and emphasizing the king’s Briton-ness.

Keywords: Tudor Myth • hagiography • Briton • Henry VII • humanism

Introduction Seventeen years after the Year of Three Kings, Bernard André, royal historiographer and poet laureate, reflected on the killing of Richard III by Henry, Earl of Richmond and future king of England, at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485: In accordance with law both divine and human, after such a long space of time, after so many wars, catastrophes and the murders whereby Richard III, cruelly put to death the two sons of Edward IV, namely Prince Edward and Richard Duke of York, thanks to the will of divine vengeance and God’s helping power, with the assistance of a small band of followers [Henry VII] deservedly killed Richard, and expunged him from our island.1 In his biography of Henry VII, The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII:The Right Puissant and Wise King of England and France (Historia Henrici Septimi), André celebrates Richard’s just death as a murderous usurper at the hands of the divinely vengeful Henry occurs within his biography. He was commissioned to write this Life by the king himself. He was from Toulouse and an Augustinian friar. Prior to arriving at court, he had been a tutor at the University of Oxford and was acquainted with Erasmus.2 By 1500, he had become personal tutor to Arthur, Prince of Wales, which gave him a unique position as a royal biographer.

1 Bernard André, Historia Regis Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andrea Tholosate Conscripta. (London, 1500), 2

220 | Slideshow He chronicled the Tudor king’s life up until the 1490s and focused extensively on Henry’s lineage and journey to the throne. It was a way for Henry to justify his claim to the throne and his new style of leadership. André provides a new perspective on how those at court may have viewed the end of the Wars of the Roses. His Life was one of the earliest manifestations of the so-called “Tudor Myth,” in which Henry VII purified and redeemed England from the corruption and destruction of the Houses of York and Lancaster.

The myth places the beginning of the wars, not in 1455 as most historians do, but in 1399 when Richard II was overthrown by Henry IV beginning the reign of the house of Lancaster. God was so angered at this injustice that He left England, casting the land into a century of darkness, bloodshed, and chaos that would bring about the Wars of the Roses.3 The godlessness of the time allowed for the power hungry and bloodthirsty nobles to rise against Henry VI and fight for the throne. Richard III was the pinnacle of this evil. Henry Tudor as the white knight of England vanquished the evil. By killing Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field, Henry returned God and restored peace to the kingdom. The union of Henry and Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and niece of Richard III, marked the joining of the houses of York and Lancaster, officially ending the Wars of Roses and any debates about the rights of the succession. The myth allowed the Tudors to control the creation of the national memory through a propaganda campaign that would last for the next century. They could direct the narrative and justify their seat on the throne.

Henry VII’s claim to the throne was much weaker than those of other contenders at the time. Born the son of the Earl of Richmond and Margaret Beaufort, Henry was not expected to become king. His legitimacy came from his mother’s side as the Beaufort family were descendants of John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III, and his mistress and later wife Katherine of Swynford. John and Katherine’s children were later legitimized by Richard II in 1397, granting the Beaufort line a claim to the throne.

However, Henry’s claim was still much weaker than those of his contemporaries as Edward III was his great-great grandfather. In fact, he had a stronger claim to the French throne through his paternal grandmother who was the daughter of Charles VI of France. Thus, propaganda campaigns such as the Tudor Myth proved necessary if he were to hold on to his crown.

The actual Wars of the Roses were a series of three civil wars over the English throne between the houses of Lancaster and York, members of the Plantagenet dynasty which had held the English throne since 1135. The wars are widely accepted to have lasted from May 22, 1455 to June 16, 1487. In 1455, Richard, Third Duke of York, the father of Edward IV and Richard III, along with some allied nobles, overthrew Henry VI. The Duke of York and his allies were particularly disapproving of the king’s relations with France which they saw as “the true Lancastrian legacy of 2 James Gairdner “Andreas, Bernard,” in Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Leslie Stephen, vol. 01 Abbadie-Anne (London, UK: Elder Smith and Co., 1885), pp. 398-399, 398.

3 David Grummitt, A Short History of the Wars of the Roses (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019), xv

Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons | 221

Figure 1. Tudor Dynasty Family Tree in The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England, 14–15. defending Henry V’s conquests and the English position in France.”4 For years, there had been tensions due to the Hundred Years’ War, the king’s declining cognitive function, and a power struggle between the king and his nobility.5 Parliament recognized Richard as the rightful heir to the throne in 1460.6 Upon Richard’s death in battle in 1460, Edward IV succeeded his father as the king of England. What would follow was a back and forth between Edward IV and Henry VI on the throne until Henry’s death in 1471. Edward then reigned until his death in 1483. His son ascended to the throne as Edward V and reigned for 78 days at the age of twelve before his parents’ marriage was declared illegitimate and his uncle Richard III took the throne. Richard was ultimately killed in battle by Henry VII in 1485, ending the Wars of the Roses with the Tudor Dynasty on the throne and the fall of the Plantagenets’ three century rule.

The death of Edward IV and the tumultuous years following were memories that those alive would never have forgotten. Similar to the way everyone over a certain age in the United States can remember such monumental historical events such as where they were on 9/11, these memories would have been recounted over and over again. As historian Philip Schwyzer discusses, “It seems plausible that in late-fifteenth-century London, everyone remembered where they were when they heard King Edward was dead. Such recollections are known today as ‘flashbulb memories’—highly detailed memories in which a personal situation becomes saturated with the significance of a devastating public event.”7 Through word-ofmouth people would have heard different versions of the events and individuals’ personal memories. However, over time, it would have become difficult to separate truth from the collective memory that had begun to form. As people grew older or died, the younger generations would have only memories of the memories of 4 Grummitt, A Short History of the Wars of the Roses, 15 5 Ibid.

6 Michael Hicks, “Richard, Duke of Gloucester: The Formative Years,” in Richard III: A Medieval Kingship (London, UK: Collins and Brown, 1993), 21.

7 Philip Schwyzer, Shakespeare and the Remains of Richard III (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 65.

222 | Slideshow their ancestors. This situation established the perfect conditions for Henry VII to broadcast his own version of events. The History and Life served as a way to establish a singular collective memory instead of the “flashbulb memories” that had been circulating around the kingdom.

Over the course of the first century preceding the Wars of the Roses, the public memory and reflection on the wars shifted as the Tudor dynasty cemented its power.

Since the sixteenth century, the Tudor Myth – the claim that England was thrown into chaos when God was angered by the overthrow of Richard II before the ascension of Henry VII and the Tudor Dynasty – has had an undeniable impact on the way in which people have remembered and written about the Wars of the Roses. The historiography of the wars during the sixteenth century saw the rewriting of history, which conveniently placed the bulk of the blame on those who were dead and could not defend themselves, and celebrated the survivors. Over the course of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries, attitudes toward figures evolved as the political context changed and the Tudor Myth began to dominate the English popular culture.

The propaganda campaign of the Tudor Dynasty was incredibly effective and continues to affect how the Wars of the Roses are remembered to this day. ​​The creation of national memory and mythic history in the aftermath of civil wars is imperative to understanding history. The first decades following the war set the tone for how a nation will rebuild. Who becomes the hero? Who becomes the villain? How does the new regime establish its legitimacy? While one side may have won the war, the battle over control of the narrative and memory can be just as important in the long run. The Tudor Myth, which has remained one of the most successful propaganda campaigns and allowed for Henry VII to seize control of the narrative. How did an earl from Wales become the father of the most famous dynasties in Britain history ushering in what is often regarded as England’s golden age? How did Richard III become one of the island’s most infamous monarchs?

Henry was what historians refer to as a “New Monarch,” a group of late medieval and early modern monarchs in Western Europe consisting of Henry VII, Isabelle and Ferdinand of Spain, and Louis XI. They represented a new style of kingship in which they aligned more with urban and anti-aristocratic groups, decreased the power of the nobility, had more direct control of government, and strengthened crown finances.8 Each of these monarchs ruled after a sequence of political breakdown and civil war, followed by assertive monarchy, followed in turn by public reaction against perceived excesses of monarchical power. Henry was very concerned with repairing the reputation of the English crown. He made sure to cultivate strong diplomatic ties with other European courts.9 This new form of governance provides context for the England in which survivors of the Wars of the Roses existed.

8 Steven Gunn. “Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities.” History 92, no. 3 (307) (2007): 305-306.

9 Dominicus Mancinus, C. A. J Armstrong, and Angelo Catone, The Usurpation of Richard the Third: De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium Libellus (London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1969), 25.

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A Review of the Literature For centuries historians have sought to answer this question and studied the Tudor Myth. They have examined the ways in which the first few texts written portrayed the last few years of the wars and how these sources built upon each other.

James Gairdner’s translation of Bernard André’s Historia Regis Henrici Septimi into English from Latin credits the monk with writing the only contemporary strictly historical record of Henry VII’s life. Gairdner asserts that the work provides an understanding of how Henry VII and his contemporaries understood and remembered the wars. He recognizes André’s work as one of the principal sources for historians of Henry’s life in later centuries including Francis Bacon.10 André helped to set the tone for the narrative of how the wars were to be remembered for generations to come. Gairdner did not see him as excessively positive in his writings of Henry. He does, however, admit that there was not a statement that André wrote about Henry that did not contain praise.

Historians of Shakespeare’s Henriad plays, a series of Shakespearean plays known as the Henriad (Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V; Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; and Richard III), which chronicle the rise of Henry V to power and the Wars of the Roses, have sought to place them into historical context.11 The plays offer valuable insight into how citizens of sixteenth and early seventeenth century England remembered the Wars of the Roses. The second and third parts of Henry VI were unhistorical in their depictions of Richard III, but the theme of evil that surrounds his character offers insight into contemporary opinion of him. The narrative of the play of Richard III comes from Edward Hall and Holinshed, who were influenced by Polydore Vergil who wrote under Henry VII and the Tudor Myth and was influenced by André’s The History and Life of Henry VII. Phillip Schwyzer’s Shakespeare and the Remains of Richard III was not specifically an exploration of the York king or the playwright, but examines the historical and cultural context of their lives. He wrote that his main goal was, “to observe how the present turns into the past (generally at nothing resembling a steady rate), and to explore how the past negotiates a place for itself in the present.

Ultimately, this book aspires to make us think more deeply about what it means to set and see a work of art within its historical context.”12 Shakespeare and his contemporaries did not write their works in a vacuum. They were a product of the social and political climates of their time. Shakespeare wrote at the end of the Tudor dynasty and the beginning of the Stuarts. All that had been known for generations about the Wars of the Roses and its actors was from the Tudor Myth and the establishment of a national memory.

10 Bernard Andreas and James Gairdner, Memorials of King Henry the Seventh Historia Regis Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andrea Tholosate Conscripta, Necnon Alia Quaedam Ad Eundem Regem Spectantia (Burlington: TannerRitchie Publishing in collaboration with the Library and Information Services of the University of St Andrews, 2008), xvi.

11 Meredith Anne Skura, Shakespeare the Actor and the Purposes of Playing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 131.

12 Schwyzer, Shakespeare and the Remains of Richard III, 5.

224 | Slideshow

Historical Background and André’s Methodology Writers like Hall, More, Vergil, and Shakespeare owe much of their knowledge to André, as he was the only person who was alive and present during both the Wars of the Roses and their immediate aftermath to have been able to write an account.

To truly understand the context in which they wrote one must focus directly on the History and Life of Henry VII. It offers an insight into how individuals felt about the war during the first two decades of Henry’s reign, or at least how they were expected to feel, because the king established the Tudor Myth. The descriptions of the individual actors as well as André’s writing style were all intentional. They established very specific roles and clear protagonists and antagonists to Henry’s life story. Throughout the biography, there is a clear theme of Henry’s destiny to be king. André purposely deviated from the traditional contemporary styles of writing history. His writing style cemented Henry’s right to rule by simultaneously portraying him as a descendant of ancient lineage while also a new monarch who was distinct from the old order of the English Plantagenet kings; he was more connected to Europe and a new era of rulership. The origins of the Tudor Myth and Henry’s membership in this style of “New Monarchy” shine through in this work.

During the English Renaissance, the ways in which self was understood greatly impacted the way writers portrayed their subjects. Curating how oneself was perceived by others became very important amongst the upper classes, with the monarchy establishing the standard. There appears to have been a lot less autonomy in self-fashioning in the sixteenth century than before, in that family, state, and religious institutions began to impose a more rigid and far-reaching discipline upon their middle-class and aristocratic subjects.13 There was a new emphasis on a heightened control of the narrative and the elimination of any alternatives. The new restrictions on what society, at the time, deemed appropriate when creating and expressing one’s identity applied not only applied to oneself but also to the ways in which they wrote about others. Such restrictions such as these would have been incredibly vital for figures such as Henry VII at the time. It is necessary to think about the Tudor Myth and Henry’s thought process when creating it. Part of self-fashioning would have included controlling what was published about oneself. With André’s important position at court, it is likely that the king would have commissioned or at least influenced him to write the biography. This is crucial when considering his rhetoric and writing style.

The humanist movement emerged in the mid to late fifteenth century. During André’s education and academic career, he would have encountered the movement and its supporters. His conception of history and how to write was influenced by this world. He lived at a time when scholars began to change their idea of what history was. Attacks on the medieval tradition of recording of history became popular as the humanist movement had begun to emerge a few decades before André wrote The History and Life. The new school of thought encouraged historians to pass their 13 Stephen Jay Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 1.

Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons | 225 own moral judgements upon events and to scrutinize historical texts for accuracy.

Scholars reconsidered the limits of what liberties historians could take when recounting historical events.

In Italy during the 1440s, Lorenzo Valla offered a new theoretical justification for speeches in the prologue of Gesta Ferdinandi Regis. An Italian humanist, Valla is best known for writing an 1440 oration on The Donation of Constantine which exposed the consitutum Constanti, a piece of papal propaganda which said that Constantine gave the pope a third of the Roman Empire following his conversion, as a forgery.14 While scholars had rejected the validity of the constititutum for centuries before Valla, what made his work stand out was the “unprecedented violence of its language”.15 He marked a new method of critiquing historical evidence and the way history was written about.

At the time, it was believed that historians should impart some wisdom or a lesson in their writings which was often done through creating speeches. Valla argued that historians, “did not record speeches word for word, but composed them artistically, to teach the same sort of general lesson that the poets embodied in the actions of their mythical heroes.”16 History was not simply about communicating the facts about an historical event. Historians’ jobs were more akin to the poets of antiquity. Historical accuracy did not rest just on stating the facts as they happened.

Historical accuracy also included ensuring that the reader took away the right lesson.

There were rules to the creation of these speeches through the rhetorical doctrine of decorum which established the appropriate ways of acting and speaking that could be applied to certain situations and actors. Decorum was, “a technical and conceptual crossroads – the point where the protocols of rhetoric, which taught one how to compose speeches appropriate to a particular situation, met those of moral philosophy and political prudence….the historian could make his work as general as that of the poet.”17 History was not only an art, but the meeting of art and social science, as writers were obliged to creatively compose their works while also communicating the significance. Decorum was a technique historians had to learn in order to be successful. Valla established that, “[s]o far as I can judge, the historians show more gravity, prudence and civil wisdom in their speeches than any of the philosophers manage to in their precepts.”18 Historians had an enormous responsibility in their work. They passed on wisdom and lessons to their readers even more than philosophers, the great thinkers of their world. What their readers took away should affect their lives. It should influence the way in which they think.

14 Carlo Ginzburg, History, Rhetoric, and Proof (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999), 54.

15 Ibid., 55.

16 Lorenzo Valla (1973). Gesta Fernandi regis Aragonum. ed. Ottavio Bsomi. Padua: Antenore, cited in: Anthony Grafton, What Was History?, 36.

17 Anthony Grafton, What Was History?: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 37.

226 | Slideshow Humanist Angelo Decembrio described an example of education in the movement at the court of Ferrara in the 1440s. The court engaged in intense discussions of literary questions and using a guide, “a madly energetic combination of nostalgic literary dialogue and grindingly detailed book on orthography, the Politicia litteraria, offers…lively accounts of Roman inscriptions…. These vivid dialogues... evoke both a particular, humanistic culture of texts and facts – chiefly ancient texts and facts – a sharp modern ability to discriminate among them.”19 The Ferrarese court represented a greater growing trend in Europe at the time. The intentional choosing of sources and discerning of what was reliable marked the beginning of history as historians today think of it. This was the world in which André was educated and wrote the History and Life. He wrote in an era in which a new method of writing about history was being formed. To deliberately depart from this was intentional and especially because he wrote about Henry VII’s life in the style of a hagiography.

“My design is not to write histories, but lives,” declared André in his Life of Henry VII. “Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, and may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battle to be treated by others”20 André viewed himself as narrating a life rather than being a historian narrating battles or politics. In this period, history was about kingdoms and wars rather than individuals. While he may not have considered it to be a history, by modern standards, the text would be regarded as such. According to him, history was about the larger picture. In writing about lives, the story becomes more personal. It brings humanity into history. It also marks a shift in how history was written. André’s methodology was more similar to the medieval tradition than the new Renaissance humanist. His only source was himself. He wrote that he, “decided to write down the achievements of Henry VII that struck me as noteworthy, in snatches, as they chanced to come to mind, without any instructor, and all the more so because at the time my mind was very much at liberty.”21 In regard to sources, it is likely that much of André’s information was based on hearsay in an environment which had very little good to say about the Plantagenets and a lot of good to say about the Tudors. Inaccuracies or exaggerations were not as important, because the stories provided some legitimacy to the Tudor Myth and the narrative that the dynasty wanted to push. Because this narrative played into the common contemporary sentiments, any flaws could be overlooked. People had long “stressed the long-term causes of the civil wars and exaggerated their destructive 18 19 20 21

Valla, Gesta Fernandi Regis, 37.

Grafton, What Was History?, 50.

André, The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII, 1.

Ibid., 2.

Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons | 227 effects, moralising and developing the notion that the wars were somehow a divine punishment for the sin of 1399.”22 André’s analysis was not a new one in this regard and did not echo only the Tudor Myth. The argument had been made in Edward IV’s first parliament in 1461, repeated by Richard III in 1483 and stressed in the papal bull of 1486 permitting the marriage of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York. Thus, it was the fact that André’s Life was so focused on Henry’s lineage, the way in which it justified his claim to the throne, and the style in which he wrote that made the work so important in the history of the Tudor Myth.

Analysis of Henry André opens by describing the lineage of Henry VII and his claim to the throne.

On his mother’s side he descended from royal families across Europe including multiple Holy Roman Emperors, “so much so that he surpasses all previous sovereigns of Christendom, as well as those his own age in the excellence of his stock.”23 To have such an incredibly royal lineage on just one side would have been remarkable and served to establish him as a rightful member of the contemporary group of European sovereigns. To claim that he surpassed all of Christendom’s sovereigns past and present in “excellence” demonstrates the portrait Henry wanted to paint of himself. As Henry’s claim to the English throne was so tenuous, this assertion that he had royal lineage from other kingdoms gave him more credibility than he would otherwise have had.

On Henry’s father’s – Owen Tudor, Earl of Pembroke – side, André claimed that the king was both a descendant of both Brutus and Saint Cadwallader. According to the biographer, the latter of whom the king had “succeeded as lawful heir after a lengthy interval of time.”24 Saint Cadwaladr was the son of Cadwalladon, the Welsh King of Gwynedd during the seventh century who famously subjugated the English kings and reigned for forty-seven years. Upon Cadwalldon’s death, André wrote, “As a terror to the Saxons, his body was encased in a bronze statue hard by the west gate of London, bearing these two verses as an inscription: King Cadwallon lies in the wall of London, who laid harsh death on the English born with his sword.”25 This established Henry to be more of a Briton than all previous English kings or contenders to the throne, since they would have been of Anglo-Saxon and Norman descent. The Tudors were more Briton than the English, since the Tudors’ lineage predated the Anglo-Saxons themselves. Additionally, their ancestor subjugated the foreign invaders.

The inscription André mentioned served as a parallel to Henry’s own life. Part of the Tudor Myth was that the king was the white knight of England who had saved the country from a century of darkness. Henry’s invasion of the country had liberated the kingdom from the bloodthirsty nobles and pretenders to the throne all of whom had supposedly been English born.26 22 23 24 25

Grummitt, A Short History of the Wars of the Roses, 65.

André, The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII, 2 Ibid.

Ibid.

228 | Slideshow After his father’s death, Saint Cadwaladr ascended the throne. After plagues and famine, he was forced to flee the land and escape to Rome where he was welcomed by Pope Sergius. Upon Cadwaladr’s death, André wrote that he was “canonized by that same pope and the entire College of venerable Cardinals.”27 To have had the entire College of Cardinals unanimously vote for one’s canonization is not very common nor does one become a saint so soon after death. For both to have happened to Saint Cadwaladr highlights the holy lineage André sought to portray for Henry VII. Following his death and exile, André wrote, “From that time [Cadwaladr’s death] down to the arrival of his lawful heir Henry VII in England, his line of rule was interrupted by the savagery of the English, who commenced to rule”.28 Henry’s Welshness was almost a selling point: clearly, the English kings and nobles had been inadequate rulers. Under their direction, England had been plunged into darkness and forsaken by God Himself. They were savages. It was the Welsh House of Tudor that ushered in the new golden age in England. The Welsh were the real Britons.

André writes oof the island’s inhabitants who had been left behind: But, as I was saying, the English who remained and survived the plague summoned inhabitants from Germany and divided the island between themselves [and then] subsequently disowned the rule of the Britons, calling it England from the people who lived in the angles of Saxony.29 The Welsh had endured and survived the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons, who would one day call themselves English, until the day Henry Tudor became the first legitimate ruler in eight centuries, fulfilling a centuries old prophecy.

This opening statement by André is likely a reference to an ancient Welsh vaticination y mab darogan or “the son of prophecy,” that was said to have been written

by Merlin himself. It declared that a messianic figure would emerge to lead Britons to freedom from foreign invaders.30 It foretold that a great warrior would come to banish the Saxons from the British Isles and drive them back to the sea from which they came. It would restore the Britain of Cadwaladr, freeing the indigenous tribes of Welsh, Cornish, and others. A Welshman would be crowned king of the Britons, the y mab darogan in London which was a symbol of the seat of British power.31 The first reference appeared during the tenth century in a 200-line heroic poem titled Y Armes Prydein Fawr (The Great Prophecy of Britain).32 After the Norman invasion, court and traveling bards began including the French as the invaders whom would be driven out. Gerald of Wales wrote during the late twelfth or early thirteenth century wrote A Description of Wales which declared that foreign invaders would soon 26 Edward IV had actually been born in Normandy. A fact that was often used against him by political enemies to support the accusation that he was a bastard and not English.

27 André, The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII, 2.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Breverton, Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King (Stroud, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2019), 19.

31 Ibid.

Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons | 229 be destroyed.33 Throughout the Middle Ages, men such as Llywelyn the Last, Owain Lawgoch, and Owain Glyndwr were believed to be the prophesied warrior, but failed.

Henry’s own ancestors had played key roles in Owain Glyndwr’s war for Welsh independence from 1400 to 1415.34 Such a prophecy was well known amongst the Welsh and certainly one which Henry would have heard.

André’s narrative and his description of Henry’s lineage set him up as the foretold y mab darogan. He was more Briton than any previous King of English. His Welshness was part of what legitimized him as the rightful king. For him, the Wars of the Roses were not about abuses of power by the king or the strength of nobles but the nearly thousand-year-long struggle over control of Britain and protecting the land from foreign invaders. Henry’s divine destiny had been told centuries before he was born. It was written in the stars for him to be king. He was not a usurper like those before him. Following this brief summary of Henry’s genealogy, André recounts the king’s birth and childhood and continues the narrative that Henry was destined to be king.

André emphasizes that Henry was an exceptional child and incredibly devout.

The Tudor Myth highlights the divinity of Henry’s ascension to the throne – he brought God back to England. In the History and Life, André declared that, “[Henry] was distinguished by the grace of consummate virtue and probity, so much so that down to this very day he is far and wide called a blessed king by all men because of the miracles God daily showed as recompense for his merits.”35 From his birth, Henry was uniquely protected by his divinity. To say that he was “distinguished by the grace of consummate virtue and probity” sheds light on the narrative that the king and André sought to build for him. These are the traits of someone born to restore God’s blessing to England. He was the paragon of all things a king should be, especially the rightful king. God Himself blessed Henry with miracles as a reward for his merits as a Catholic and destiny as an English monarch.

In order to support his assertion that Henry VII was destined to take the throne, André wrote of the reign of Henry VI and blamed evil fr causing his deposition. Henry VII was born two years into the first war of the Wars of the Roses.

At the time, Henry VI was still the king of England. André described his reign as “of most happy memory.” Continuing the theme of divinity, he wrote that during this “excellent” king’s reign, “an evil spirit grew envious of the peace of this realm, the same spirit which in earlier centuries had long set the Saxons and Britons to fighting each other within this realm, and stirred up trouble against the said excellent King Henry.”36 This “evil spirit” he described was a group of nobles rising up against Henry VI whom they had believed to be mentally deficient inadequate to rule.37

32 33 34 35

Ibid.

Ibid., 19-20 Ibid., 19-20 André, The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII, 3

230 | Slideshow During his own reign, Henry VII strenuously undermined the power of the aristocracy and had taken a strong hold on all matters of governing England during his reign.38 This new style of ruling was justified in part by descriptions, such as André’s, of the nobility’s revolt in strong religious terms. André’s characterization of the wars as “the same evil spirit” which had befallen the land in the time of Saint Cadwaladr supports the argument for Henry VII as the Welsh king’s rightful heir. In spite of all of this violence, André assures the reader that the future king was protected by “divine grace” and managed to serve God even in his youth through his education.

Once Henry VII had reached “the age of reason,” he began to receive the best education available to him, studying topics such as theology and literature.

Henry showed signs that he was destined to be king. André wrote that he was an exceptionally bright child and his “virtuous character shone forth, when he both read and listened to divine offices with attentions, to the extent that all who saw him regarded this as presaging his future probity and happiness,”39 There was no question even in his childhood that Henry Tudor was to be king one day. It was important for the king’s self-fashioning that André describes him as virtuous and devout. Because the three previous English kings had been so controversial, it was essential that the new Welsh king of England be depicted as having an unquestionable character and merit. Henry also had to secure the support of the veterans of the Wars of the Roses through more than divine right – he had to be seen as the rightful successor to at least one of the causes.

The Tudor Myth argues that the Wars of the Roses werer ended through the marriage of Henry VII, representing the Lancasters, and Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and York heir after the disappearances of her younger brothers. The Tudor Rose, a red and white rose, was a combination of the symbols of the houses of York and Lancaster. Henry positioned himself as the Lancastrian heir to the English throne. His father, the Earl of Richmond, had been the half-brother of Henry VI through his mother Catherine of Valois and had fought on the Lancastrian side. After his father’s death, Henry inherited the earldom at only a year old. André writes that the young earl had been favored by Henry VI who, “summoned the Earl of Richmond [the future Henry VII] and forecast that someday he would assume the helm of the state, and was destined to hold everything in his grasp.”40 Henry VI already had an heir at the time he would have made such a declaration. His son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was four years older than the then Earl of Richmond.

André rewrote history in this way to demonstrate to the reader that everything that ever occurred in Henry Tudor’s life was a prologue to him becoming king.

36 37 38 39 40

Ibid.

As of March 2023, it is still not known what exactly this illness of Henry VI was.

Gunn, “Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities,” 305 André, The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VI, 3 Ibid.

Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons | 231 According to André, Henry’s near holiness was so apparent that those around him, including Henry VI, could tell that the earl would someday become king. For André to make such a claim shows the narrative that Henry sought to create for himself. It was important that Henry be empowered whatever he could to justify his claim to the throne. An endorsement by a king whom André portrayed as having been so cruelly overthrown would have been exactly what Henry needed. The wars were still relatively recent when André wrote the History and Life, and supporters from both sides were still alive. Henry VI’s endorsement would have gained Henry Tudor Lancastrian support. Henry had spent most of his life in France before returning to Britain in 1485 when he killed Richard III in battle. He needed to prove why someone who had spent the majority of his life in France and possessed only a century old ancestral tie to the English throne should be king.

André provided exactly the sort of justification Henry needed. He wrote that, in accordance with the previously mentioned prophecy Henry fled across the English Channel to France where he grew up as it had been, “decreed by a divine oracle, since the holy king had commanded it, that…the earl should depart.”41 Once again the theme of divine destiny reappears, this time not only was Henry Tudor holy but Henry VI too. But the elder Henry was not the only ruler who knew of the Earl of Richmond’s divine destiny. François, the Duke of Brittany took in the young earl who grew up at his court. André even claimed that the duke himself had said, “And, by heavens, these signs I am easily led to believe that he is found to attain the helm of government someday.”42 Even to foreign lords who had only recently been opposed England’s in the Hundred Years’ War could tell that the young lord was destined for greatness.

In contrast to his portrayal of the individuals on the Lancastrian side, André did not have good things to say about the Yorks. He writes that as the young Henry Tudor grew up in Brittany, André wrote that Edward IV, then the Earl of March, illegitimately laid claim to the throne and the first of the Wars of the Roses rraged on. André held very ill sentiments about the Yorkist cause. In keeping with the medieval historian tradition of creating speeches for their subjects, André made up a speech that Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor’s mother, wrote to her brother-in-law.

In the speech André’s feelings about Edward are clear as he writes, “For, as you see, after, [Edward] out of his error of opinion and lust for power has appointed himself sovereign, perverting all laws both divine and humane, and persecuting innocent and guilty with equal audacity.”43 In this narrative, there was no rightful claim for Edward IV to the throne. He was not fighting against tyranny like he had claimed to be, but out of greed. He had violated not only the law of man, but the laws of God. This sets up Henry’s claim to the throne. Because the Yorks had violated God by overthrowing Henry VI, there was no way they could ever keep the throne. The turmoil that would follow their time as the royal house was predetermined. It was destined that Henry Tudor would one day rise up to save England from the evils of the house of York.

41 42 43

Ibid., 4.

Ibid.

Ibid.

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André’s Methodology André’s writing style in The History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII is incredibly deliberate. In a time when humanists were introducing new methods of writing about history, André wrote in a way similar to earlier medieval hagiographies such as Jean de Joinville’s hagiography of a French king, The Life of Saint Louis and Bonaventure’s Life of Saint Francis of Assisi, both written during the thirteenth century.

André does not offer any information about who Henry was outside of his religiosity and honor. As an acquaintance of Erasmus and an Augustinian monk, he would have been aware of this new movement of humanism, but also would have read the works of individuals such as Bede and other writers of early medieval hagiographies. His depictions of Henry deliberately emulate saints’ lives in the way his subject’s life story is recounted including from birth.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were significant in the formation of France and its literary culture with de Joinville being credited as an important witness and participant in this process.44 History as a genre underwent a transformation during this time in France, a period during which the hagiography was not considered that separate from it. History was considered true not only because it was based on credible sources and firsthand accounts but also because it highlighted virtuous individuals whose stories served as valuable lessons.45 This was the era of the roman or romance, a form of history that was written in a romance language instead of Latin. Some of the most famous roman works to emerge from this era were the histories of Britain which focused primarily on Arthurian England. They told the stories of Arthur and his knights beating back foreign invaders and uniting the island’s kingdoms.46 Since he was French, André’s education would have been heavily influenced by this legacy.

Henry’s personal relationships, including with his wife and mother, were of no concern to André. This is consistent with hagiography, where any information about the subject’s personal life, interests, or appearance would have had “no functional value in a piece of writing that that attempts to present a model of human achievement perfected by grace and self-sacrifice.”47 Contemporary biographies and chronicles of André and Henry would have mentioned, at least briefly, the appearance of the subject and their major interpersonal relationships. But the reader of the History and Life learns nothing about Henry outside of his theological and political accomplishments.

Such a manner of writing about a subject’s life is very similar to that of the hagiographies of the High Middle Ages. Joinville who too was writing about a king, was not concerned with the personal relationships of Saint Louis unless they served as a lesson on proper conduct of a pious man or king or were instrumental in his 44 Caroline Smith, “Chronicles of the Crusades,” in Chronicles of the Crusades (New York: Penguin Group USA, 2009), xi-xli, xx.

45 Karen Sullivan, “Romance, Roman, and Novel,” in The Cambridge Companion to French Literature, ed. John D. Lyons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 3–17, doi:10.1017/ CCO9781139565837.003.

46 Sullivan, “Romance, Roman, and Novel.”

47 John Kitchen, Saints’ Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 26.

Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons | 233 religious journey. One of the few discussions of Louis’s relationship with his sons appears when he gives his oldest son advice about kingship. Even in this situation Louis was concerned with his people and a life free from sin declaring, “I beg you to make yourself beloved by your kingdom’s people. For in truth I would rather a Scottish man came from Scotland to govern the people of this kingdom honestly and well than that you should govern it unjustly.”48 The good and safety of the people were more important than the nationality of the monarch. In the same vein, Henry’s lack of Englishness was not as important as the fact that he had saved the kingdom from a tyrant and was a just and righteous man. Even when André describes Henry’s upbringing, he appears to have always been the person he was as an adult, a common trait of hagiographies.

André never ascribes any childlike qualities described to Henry VII, and the young earl’s interaction with Henry VI sounds like one between two adults. Likewise, in Bonaventure’s The Life of Saint Francis, the only mentions of the saint’s childhood are concerned with how even in childhood, the saint showed signs of a providential destiny.

Saint Francis, who is best known for being a leader of the movement of evangelical poverty during the thirteenth century, and for his dedication to imitating the life of Christ.49 Just as Henry was foretold by Merlin himself, Francis was, “set forth in the true prophecy of … the Apostle and Evangelist John, under the similitude of the Angel ascending from the sunrising and bearing the seal of the Living God.”50 Francis was destined to lead this life. He was sent by God to serve and guide Catholics everywhere. Even as a youth, “there was divinely implanted in the heart of the young Francis a certain generous compassion toward the poor, the which, growing up with him from infancy, had so filled his heart with kindliness…”51 Francis was never like other young men who were more concerned with themselves and material things. He had always been focused on God and helping those less fortunate than himself. There are no mentions of his family or friends, as they were not relevant to his journey to become the saint that he was. Similarly, the other people mentioned in the History and Life serve only to further Henry achieving his destiny.

Every part of the History and Life, including his relationship with others, is phrased explicitly to prove the narrative that Henry was always destined to be a holy figure – very similarly to the ways in which hagiographies were written, including his relationships with others. Hagiographers often only dwell on the particular members of a saint’s family only when they directly promote or hinder religious development.52 André mentions only two members of Henry’s family more than once: his mother, Margaret Beaufort, and his uncle, Jasper Tudor. The two are given speeches invented

by André like a medieval history – but their speeches only serve as evidence of Henry’s destiny. Even Henry’s enemies are not given much attention.

48 Jean de Joinville, “The Life of Saint Louis,” in Chronicles of the Crusades, trans. Caroline Smith (New York: Penguin Group USA, 2009), 147.

49 I. Charles Brady and Lawrence Cunningham, “St. Francis of Assisi,” Encyclopedia Britannica, October 6, 2022 50 Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis (Assisi: Sacro Convento di San Francesco, 1263)., 2.

51 Ibid. p. 7.

52 Kitchen, Saints’ Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender, 27.

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Conclusion The decision to write the History and Life as a deliberately medieval hagiography and to cast Henry Tudor as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy aids in giving Henry VII legitimacy as the king of England. It antiquates Henry sufficiently enough that his claim seems ancient enough to be true. He is not some foreign usurper who spent his childhood in Brittany and suddenly appeared to take the throne. He was more of a Briton than his English enemies and had claims to the throne tracing back to before the Anglo-Saxons appeared. He came from a long lineage of warriors of Briton independence and self-determination. Like his ancestor, Saint Cadwaladr, he was a holy warrior who fought for the safety of his people. He was the y mab darogan, tthe savior of the Britons and scourge of the Saxons. Although the house of Tudor and Henry’s style of ruling might have been new, his legitimacy was older than England itself, and he was almost a saint himself.

André’s History and Life serves as an example of the narrative that Henry VII himself sought to present about the Wars of the Roses and his claim to the throne. André’s work was the first source written under the Tudors that explained their origin and the end of the Wars of the Roses. It established the official narrative that the country was expected to follow about the events of the previous decades as England formed its national memory. The emerging English Renaissance method of self-fashioning influenced the way Henry wanted himself to be presented to his people. He controlled the narrative. To have André write the biography in the style of an early medieval or Late Antiquity hagiography established Henry as an a king rooted in antiquity, who could return God to England and the kingdom to its legendary original state before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. The fact that Henry named his heir Arthur after the legendary king highlights his desire to be seen as a king of an England who predated the English and Saxons themselves. Instead of having the loosest claim to the throne of any claimant of the during the wars, he had the strongest as his lineage predated that of the English.

Thomas More and Polydore Vergil began to write their works The History of Richard III and Anglica Historia respectively during Henry’s reign; however, neither published or finished until Henry VIII’s reign. Thus, André remains the only example of how people in the time of Henry VII were expected to remember the wars and the sentiments they were supposed to hold regarding the Tudors. The first hints of the propaganda campaign that would become the Tudor Myth are apparent in this work.

Through his writing style and characterization of individuals, André established Henry as God’s chosen one who returned England to its rightful glory and banished evil, ushering in the Golden Age of the Tudors.

Saint Henry Tudor, King of the Britons | 235

Bibliography André, Bernard. Historia Regis Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andrea Tholosate Conscripta. London, 1500.

Bonaventure. The Life of Saint Francis. Assisi: Sacro Convento di San Francesco, 1263.

Brady, I. Charles and Cunningham, Lawrence. “St. Francis of Assisi.”

Encyclopedia Britannica, October 6, 2022.

Breverton, Terry. Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King. Stroud, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2019.

Cleland, Elizabeth, Adam Eaker, Marjorie E. Wieseman, and Sarah Bochicchio. The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.

Ginzburg, Carlo. History, Rhetoric, and Proof. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999.

Grafton, Anthony. What Was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Greenblatt, Stephen Jay. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare.

Chicago,: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Grummitt, David. A Short History of the Wars of the Roses. London: I.B. Tauris, 2019.

Gunn, Steven. “Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities.” History 92, no. 3 (307) (2007): 301–17.

Joinville, Jean de. “The Life of Saint Louis.” In Chronicles of the Crusades, translated by Caroline Smith, 137–336. New York: Penguin Group USA, 2009.

Kitchen, John. Saints’ Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography. New York,: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Keegan, John. The Illustrated Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. New York,: Viking, 1989.

Schwyzer, Philip. Shakespeare and the Remains of Richard III. New York,: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Smith, Caroline. “Chronicles of the Crusades.” In Chronicles of the Crusades.

New York: Penguin Group USA, 2009.

Sullivan, Karen. “Romance, Roman, and Novel.” Chapter. In The Cambridge Companion to French Literature, ed. by John D. Lyons, 3–17. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. doi:10.1017/CCO9781139565837.003.

Skura, Meredith Anne. Shakespeare the Actor and the Purposes of Playing.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Valla, Lorenzo, and Ottavio Besomi. Laurentii Valle Gesta Ferdinandi Regis Aragonum. Padua, Italy: Antenore, 1973.

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Contributor Bios 2022 Cohort Lauren Bush is completing a Philosophy-NeurosciencePsychology and German double-major at Washington University in St. Louis. After graduation, she will serve as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Germany.

Upon returning to the United States, she plans on pursuing a philosophy PhD and a career in higher education.

Lauren would like to thank Professor Nicholas Koziolek for his unwavering support and insightful advice as her Kling faculty mentor.

Malcolm Douglass will graduate Washington Univeristy in St. Louis with a major in History and a minor in Religion and Politics through the John C. Danforth Center. Post-graduation, he will be working to promote accessibility in elections; in the near future, he plans to pursue a law degree. Malcolm is very grateful to both Dr. Elizabeth Borgwardt and Dr. Lerone Martin for their help throughout the research process. He is also thankful to Dr. Wendy Love Anderson and Dr. Jean Allman for their unwavering support throughout the Kling seminar. He will always appreciate his time in the seminar as it introduced him to the thrill of long-term research. In his free time, he enjoys movies and watching the Washington Wizards lose yet another season.

Kiara Mallory is completing a double major in English Literature and African and African American Studies with a minor in Medical Humanities. She has enjoyed her time throughout the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship researching the intersections of Black life and literature and is excited to continue her studies in graduate school. She is grateful for the mentorship of both Sowandé Mustakeem and Mary Jo Bang and all that they contributed to her research and development as a student. Throughout the Merle Kling fellowship, Kiara gained an immeasurable amount of knowledge about African American life and death, Black literature, and research in the humanities. She is especially grateful for the guidance of Dr. Jean Allman and Dr. Wendy Love Anderson as the fellowship opened her eyes to the possibilities of research in the humanities

238 | Slideshow including the honors thesis that she completed and the PhD program that she looks forward to starting. Kiara couldn’t be happier to have embarked on the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship and appreciates each of the members of her cohort, both of her mentors, and both of her instructors. This experience has shaped her as a student, researcher, and individual.

Christian Monzón will graduate Washington University in St. Louis with a double major in Political Science and Latin American Studies. After graduation, he will move to Washington, DC, to work as a Ruckelshaus Fellow at the Meridian Institute, an organization dedicated to finding collaborative and research-informed policy solutions to environmental issues. In his spare time, he likes to hike, play basketball, and spend time with friends. While he is excited to move onto the next phase of his life, he wants to thank his professors, peers, and advisors for their constant support across four years. Particularly, he thanks Prof. Bret Gustafson, his faculty advisor for his Kling Project, for helping transform his initial research question and design into reality, along with Dr. Wendy Love Anderson and Dr. Jean Allman for always emphasizing finding beauty and meaning in the research process. He will carry the skills and lessons he learned in the Kling Fellowship far into the future, and is grateful for having the opportunity to participate in it. Later on, he plans to apply to master’s degree programs in public policy, travel the country and world, and find new hobbies and interest post-graduation.

2023 Cohort Aaliyah Allen is graduating with a major in American Studies and minors in Music and Psychology. Throughout her undergraduate career she has been interested in questions of racial authenticity, popular music, sonic politics, and Black femininities. Her project “Femcees and Identity: Racial Authenticity, Representation and Genre Categorization for Black women in Contemporary HipHop” is a comparative analysis of Megan Thee Stallion’s and Doja’s modes of representation and the limitations to each. Her Kling mentor is Dr. Zachary Manditch-Prottas. In the fall of 2023 she will be attending the University of Southern California’s program in American Studies to pursue a PhD. Thank you to Professor MP, the Kling program, my partner, my puppy, and my parents.

Contributor Bios | 239 Jack H Grimes is a writer from Appalachia studying Philosophy, Political Science, and Writing. They have also completed coursework and personal study in German and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. They have spent the past four years researching political theory, especially relating to the role of the corporation in American capitalism, and completed an Honors Thesis in Philosophy on the corporation-employee relationship. They are a QuestBridge Scholar, a performance poet with WU-SLAM, former Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the Washington University Review of Philosophy, and recipient of an Academy of American Poets University Prize. After graduation they plan to pursue a career in book publishing and eventually attend graduate school.

Matthew Layden is from Oak Park, Illinois, and is graduating with a major in History and a minor in Spanish. Matthew’s primary focus in history over the last few years has been responses to fascism in the twentieth century, with a particular interest in antifascist leftist movements during the Spanish Civil War, the topic of both his Kling article and his honors thesis. His thesis examines the political collaboration and conflict between the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, a politically powerful anarchist trade union, and the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. After graduation, Matthew is spending a gap year as an ESL teaching assistant in Madrid, and hopes to continue his academic interest in history in the coming years.

Hechen Henry Liu is a researcher whose work focuses on labor, urban issues, and post-socialism. He is also a non-fiction writer and documentary photographer. With a college education in Anthropology and East Asian Studies, his goal is to gain a better understanding of the experiences of workers in segregated and geo-politically disrupted areas worldwide. Recently, he received an honors degree in Anthropology for his research on the memories and nostalgia of laid-off workers during urban demolitions. He plans to pursue a graduate program in critical theory and will continue his fieldwork in northeastern China, Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan during the summers of 2023 and 2024.

240 | Slideshow Ranen Miao (he/him) is from Edison, New Jersey and graduated with a triple major in Political Science, Sociology, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His article, “The Dating and Sexual Experiences of Queer Men of Color: Racial Preference in the 21st-Century Bedroom,” explores the ways that intimate racism impacts queer men of color, and how men of color respond and resist discrimination and fetishization. On campus, Ranen served two terms as student body president and as the president of the College Democrats, Asian Multicultural Council, and Pride Alliance and as editor-in-chief for the Undergraduate Law Review. After graduation, he plans to work on public policy. He thanks his mentor, Professor Cynthia Feliciano; his Kling mentors, Professors Stephanie Kirk and Wendy Love Anderson; the Kling cohorts he has worked with; his friends; and his family.

Jordan Rivera is a graduating senior at Washington University in St. Louis, studying History with a focus on the societal impact of technology. His academic endeavors explore the historical effects of technology and the future implications on societal outcomes. Professionally, Jordan has consistently leveraged technology to promote equity in various capacities, including political campaign work, on campus social activism, and entrepreneurship building products that bring abundance to everyone. Alongside his passion for technology, Jordan harbors a profound interest in music. His research lies at the nexus of history, music, and technology, where he investigates the accelerated cultural appropriation phenomenon on TikTok. Chloe West is from New York, NY and will graduate with a major in History and minors in Religion & Politics and Legal Studies. Her primary focus in history has been the creation of national myths and memories by countries after a civil war, with a special interest in the Tudor Myth and sixteenth-century English reflections on the Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudor Dynasty. Her senior thesis builds upon her Kling article, analyzing the evolution of the Tudor Myth in the various social and political contexts of sixteenth-century England.

After graduation, Chloe plans to work for two years in city government before attending law school. She is also considering further exploring her academic interests in history.