Michelle R. Boyd Jim Crow Nostalgia, Reconstructing Race in Bronzeville (2008)

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.Their vision of authenticity emerged in response toblack urbanization and proletarianization and was part of a self-consciouseffort to distinguish the Old Negro from the New Negro.Similarly,recent attempts to correct the racial bias of Western thought and culturehave spurred numerous black scholars to assert the existence of black lit-erary and intellectual traditions based in folk or everyday traditions ofspeech and music (Baker 1980, 1984; Gates 1989; Collins 1990, 2000).Intellectuals interpretations of blackness mirror lay understandings thatlocate authenticity in behavior, dress, and class ( Jackson 2001).Gov-ernments, too, are involved in the construction of racial authenticity.As104 TIES AND CHITLINSpost World War II political economic shifts have caused urban areas to usetourism as an economic engine, municipal governments have taken pains torework their place images, presenting them as the site for a host of raciallyspeciWc consumer experiences (Grazian 2003; Mele 2000).While scholars routinely condemn essentialism, black political actorsfrequently deploy authenticity in political struggles.They attempt tolegitimize themselves by insisting that they as individuals or their agendasreXect the essential nature of the community.Equally important is howindividuals and groups attack one another for failing to conform to or re-produce what they consider to be essential racial features or characteris-tics.This strategy is fundamentally a criticism about the representativenessof the individual or group.The charge is that the individual is so outsidethe experience of the larger group that he or she is unable to stand for thegroup and its preferences.Such was the language used, for example, to ex-press opposition to the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the SupremeCourt (Morrison 1992).These framing strategies matter, because politicalactors claims about their own or others racial authenticity fundamentallyshift the terms of political debate by introducing a different standard ofpolitical representativeness.Representation is traditionally deWned as de-scriptive or substantive: the former occurs when the spokesperson reXectsthe characteristics of the constituency, and the latter occurs when thespokesperson can substitute for someone else because they share the sameinterests and policy positions (Swain 1995).While these traditional deW-nitions of representativeness measure the extent to which an individualreXects the character or opinions of some majority of the aggregate, authen-ticity measures the extent to which the individual reXects and reproducesthe essential nature of this community.While political scientists have traditionally understood representa-tion as an act, Fenno suggests that it is best understood as a never-endingprocess, whereby the politician works at building and maintaining support-ive connections with some proportion of his or her constituents (2003,5 6).Similarly, I argue that racial authentication may be thought of as a pro-cess of claiming and establishing one s adherence to expectations of black-ness.Racial categorization and identiWcation do not translate automaticallyTIES AND CHITLINS 105into adherence to certain values or positions.As a result, black politicalactors repeatedly authenticate themselves, using acts and utterances toassert and adjust themselves to notions of what it means to be a real memberof the black community.In Douglas/Grand Boulevard, coalition membersexpressed interracial tension in the conventional language of displacement,yet they adopted the language of authenticity in intraracial conXicts, assert-ing their legitimacy and challenging that of their opponents by declaringtheir belonging in both the racial and spatial community.The Outsiders: Interracial Conflictand the Language of Community BelongingRacial tensions were signiWcant for the residents and organizations of Dou-glas/Grand Boulevard not in spite of, but because of their cooperationwith white elites.Neighborhood residents of every income level expressedsubstantial concern over the possibility that neighborhood developmentwould result in their displacement [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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