Jeet Heer posted a really thoughtful comment or two in the Ebony White thread. It seemed a shame to have them buried in comments, so I thought I’d highlight them here.
I’m on deadline so can’t respond at length right now but basically Noah is closer to the mark on this than Matt is. Eisner was no Mark Twain; in creating Jim Twain was able to do something miraculous: take a minstrel stereotype and imbue him with human feelings (most of the time: Huckleberry Finn is a very uneven work). Ebony White was closer to Amos and Andy than to Jim: i.e., not a malicous or hate-filled stereotype but just a condescending one.
One other point: it really doesn’t work to say that Eisner was a product of his time: the civil rights movement was already challenging stereotypes in that era and many cartoonists responded by trying to create more believable black characters. By the late 1930s in Gasoline Alley Rachel stopped being and maid and set up her own household; in Little Orphan Annie circa 1942 Harold Gray created a very smart, non-stereotypical black boy named George who befriended Annie; and in his Our Gang stories Walt Kelly took Buckwheat (who started off not dissimilar to Ebony White) and made him an equal to the other white kids. So Eisner didn’t represent the way everyone was in the 1940s; in many ways he was behind the times. And he got rid of Ebony because black readers complained and also his very young assistant Jule Feiffer didn’t like Ebony. Again, a sign that Eisner wasn’t leading the pack but rather responding to other people who were more progressive than he was.
I’ll add that in addition to Ebony White, Eisner also created Chop-Chop (the very stereotypical chinese cook of Blackhawk) and Blubber the Eskimo boy. So there was something in Eisner that responded to stereotypes of ethnics. And again, he was behind the times because other cartoonists (see Milton Caniff in Terry in the early 1940s) tried to portray the Chinese (although not the Japanese) in a more respectful way.
And here’s a second brief one.
Yeah,Sean (and Derik) are right: Eisner’s racial stereotyping is related to his affinity for caricature and theatricality (wasn’t Eisner’s dad involved with the Yiddish theater?). This actually makes Eisner distinctive in a current sense: more contemporary cartoonists like Spiegelman and Ware tend to eschew the tradition of theatrical histrionic, preferring comics were the range of gestural expression is more muted. And, of course, as Noah says, comics have a long history of this. In part, I’d argue, because their is an affinity between caricature and stereotyping.
I just read Matt Seneca’s post and reread Noah’s.
Short take: You’re wrong, Berlatsky!
I posted the rest at tcj.
http://www.tcj.com/blog/the-two-sides-of-ebony-white/
That pretty much puts a period on the end of the sentence.
Hey Tom. Thanks for the response.
I’m willing to accept that Ebony isn’t a “simple piece of ugliness”. But, whatever his virtues, he also remains an offensive racist stereotype. And I haven’t really heard anything that suggests that you or Matt think he ever actually articulated a response to that racist stereotype (a la Shylock, for example, or Jim in Mark Twain.) The fact that Ebony has human qualities is something…but being a demeaning racist caricature is something too.
Like I said, I wouldn’t censor it. But I have trouble getting behind the idea that it’s either surprising or an injustice that a disgraceful racial caricature is not more loved and respected, even if said caricature has its good qualities as well.
I think you’re right that racist representations can have smart things to say about race, or can contribute to anti-racism in various ways. I think Kipling is like that. I just don’t really hear anything from you or Matt that suggests that Eisner was anywhere near as smart about race as Kipling was.
As just maybe an example…you’re claiming that Eisner was pushing back against racism by making Ebony human and sympathetic. But ideologically blacks were often allowed to be human and sympathetic…as long as they were in, and were perceived as being happy in, subordinate roles. In fact, blacks were often then (and still) presented as more human, in some ways — more sympathetic, more selfless — again, as long as they were subordinate. From what you’re saying, it sounds like Ebony pushes back against a very simplistic caricature of racism. It doesn’t challenge the way racism actually works though, because Eisner didn’t understand the way it actually works and didn’t really care about it, the way Kipling or Twain (or I’d argue, Conrad) did.
I guess the point for me is that nothing that you or Matt has said makes me especially interested in reading Spirit comics featuring Ebony White. You haven’t really convinced me that I’d find the handling of race anything but painful (though I’m sure I’d love the drawing.) Given that, it’s hard for me to get behind the idea that other people need to be reading these books.
But, you know, maybe I’ll read more Spirit someday and change my mind. And I still like your articles (both of them) even if I’m not exactly convinced.
Whether or not you are personally interested in reading the Spirit or how you personally feel about ethnic caricature isn’t the issue. The issue is, “Does Ebony mean Eisner was a racist?” That question has been answered pretty conclusively, eloquently, humorously, sarcastically, and repeatedly. If you remain unconvinced, well… That isn’t surprising, I guess.
“you’re claiming that Eisner was pushing back against racism by making Ebony human and sympathetic.”
Caveat: “Pushing back” implies that Eisner wanted to fight racism. I have no idea if he did or he didn’t.
“ideologically blacks were often allowed to be human and sympathetic…as long as they were in, and were perceived as being happy in, subordinate roles.”
Not the case with Ebony. The essay I did last year has something about that.
“blacks were often then (and still) presented as more human, in some ways — more sympathetic, more selfless”
Not relevant here. Ebony isn’t saccharine; when I described him as a fully fleshed-out personality, I wasn’t kidding.
“it sounds like Ebony pushes back against a very simplistic caricature of racism. It doesn’t challenge the way racism actually works though”
You’ll have to fill in those two boxes: the “simplistic” view of racism and the “how it actually works” view of racism.
If it’s just a matter of blacks being sweet as long as they know their place, the criticism doesn’t apply to Ebony.
“I guess the point for me is that nothing that you or Matt has said makes me especially interested in reading Spirit comics featuring Ebony White.”
Hey, I don’t try to do the impossible.
Stephen, I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t give a flying fuck if Eisner was racist or not. I don’t know what was in his heart. I know what he created. The question is whether Ebony White is a racist caricature. And yeah, that question has been answered, and most everybody is in agreement (that would be Matt, Tom, Jeet, and lots of other folks) that it is. What the consequences of that are, or exactly what the parameters are, is somewhat up for dispute.
Tom, that last comment came closer to making me interested. Nothing’s impossible!
Caveat: “Pushing back” implies that Eisner wanted to fight racism. I have no idea if he did or he didn’t.
That is an important point, which goes back to my original comment buried back deep in the furor. “Racism” is an action word. Stereotypes aren’t automatically racist, because we all use stereotypes to categorize and refer to human attributes all the time. Eisner created a sympathetic, rounded, innocent character in Ebony that included racial stereotyping. That is a neutral thing, not an actively racist one. Perhaps the best way to counteract racism is by simply not engaging in it.
I would suggest however that if you want to discuss this issue, Noah, that you remain civil and on point. Your desperate tone isn’t serving your argument very well.
Stephen — We’ve got a problem with word usage here. A lot of times people treat “racist” like it means hater. So if a guy does something racist, then we know he was a hater and therefore a vile person.
But often enough “racism” is used just to mean a belief that a given race is superior or inferior. I certainly think Ebony is an example of that sort of racism in that his racial characteristics are presented as laughable. Eisner was racist to the extent that he thought getting those sorts of laughs was a good idea.
Does that make him a bad man? I very much doubt it, and Noah isn’t claiming it did. He’s just asking what do we do with this particular piece of our racist heritage. His answer: the hell with it. Mine: not so fast, there’s a lot that you’re overlooking.
“Tom, that last comment came closer to making me interested. Nothing’s impossible!”
Noah, you’ve never tried arguing with you.
Stephen, I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t give a flying fuck if Eisner was racist or not.
Tsk, tsk. This from the cool, calm and collected intellect that accused me of being “pissy” yesterday? LOL!
After Surfer Joe wiped the floor with this clown, and after a shameful retreat where he took his ball and went home, he sneaks around for a little backbiting the next day when he thinks the coast is clear!
So he doesn’t give a flying fuck whether or not Eisner was racist, eh? Excuse me, but doesn’t the title “Will Eisner Was No Mark Twain” fairly scream racism? He’s doing lots of pathetic backpedaling to pretend he implied no such thing, which has fooled exactly no one. He has demonstrated, and even admitted, zero knowledge of his subject. Believe me, brother, it shows.
BTW, I love the way Twain is being used as the new standard of anti-racism by the Politically Correct goons. It wasn’t that long ago when self-righteous jerks like Noah were attempting to smear Mark Twain, too, and Huckleberry Finn was a banned book in American high schools. Wiser heads prevailed, thankfully – but I guess that’s all conveniently forgotten.
A few more thoughts from Surfer Joe:
Interesting that he thinks Eisner “created” a stereotype. That would make the term “stereotype” a bit of a paradox when used by its creator. When he admits he’s not a fan, he loses most of his claim to serious criticism and is just a guy ranting about what offends him. When he says “Wonder Woman” was better in that era. he loses his claim to any other kind of critical competence. And his argument that intent doesn’t matter is just suicidal- a formula for annihilation. Legally and morally, intent ALWAYS matters.
I think this is an excellent point to remember:
But ideologically blacks were often allowed to be human and sympathetic…as long as they were in, and were perceived as being happy in, subordinate roles. In fact, blacks were often then (and still) presented as more human, in some ways — more sympathetic, more selfless — again, as long as they were subordinate.
If you look at blacks in the Hollywood of Eisner’s younger days, most were comical or something along what you describe. Few (if any?) portrayals were as virulently racist as Birth of a Nation. I’ve seen far more like what’s in Gone with the Wind and Song of the South. These black characters, too, featured a streak of independence and came across as likable or even the most likable of the characters (Uncle Remus is the only interesting human in SOS — at least, he has the best songs), but still …
I have to shake my head when this discussion arises. As some have said, Eisner was communicating in the iconography of the time and he took as much care in depicting this character as roundly as any other. Relationships between Jews and Blacks in this era, where complicated, but not without respect and empathy. This remains true today.
As Eisner aged, I am not aware of racism in the man. Not any more then any other. Now we are discussing the comparative cultural value of two dead men, working in two different mediums, eras, industries and cultures. I agree there was intent in Twains work to push culture forward. But neither man is alive to respond to interpretations of intent. More to the point, the cultural influence and value fluctuates with time, place and the reader. I for example, view Eisner’s images as artifacts to be cherished and seen through quaint prisms of the time and place. I don’t see Ebony appearance reflecting my Black friends, any more then Elmer Fud reflected my grandfather (he didn’t). Ebony was his own persona, and thus represents no one else. In this way Eisner was successful and true to his character. In my modern perspective, I am not concerned about how he may depict my Black friends race. I would hope we are all so far removed, that any connection would be seen as silly. As for Ebony’s whit and humor, I see that quality in many people. I wish it was in more.
That said, like everyone here, I am responding to this discussion, as I paradoxically shake my head.
When I was in high school in Texas, The Catcher in the Rye couldn’t be taught because it contained naughty words. Huck Finn was okay, though. Was this because the school board thought ‘nigger’ a good term? Probably not, but what they excluded vs. included was an effect of racism.
Stephen, I haven’t insulted you, and don’t plan to. If the word “fuck” used for emphasis makes you uncomfortable, this blog is probably not a good place to hang out.
“Stereotypes aren’t automatically racist, because we all use stereotypes to categorize and refer to human attributes all the time. Eisner created a sympathetic, rounded, innocent character in Ebony that included racial stereotyping. That is a neutral thing, not an actively racist one.”
Stereotypes aren’t automatically racist. However, racist stereotypes are in fact racist. You want to make the discussion about Eisner’s intent. But creating a caricature based in a vicious tradition of racist iconography has formal and historical meaning. The tropes you pick matter, whatever you happen to do with them. Drawing Ebony the way he is drawn is in fact an actively racist thing to do. The fact that the society in which Eisner lived was actively, viciously racist doesn’t change that fact, because racism isn’t an individual sin; it’s an institutional reality.
Eisner may be innocent, though I don’t think it’s much of a compliment to him to suggest that he didn’t understand the traditions he was working in. Ebony White, however, is not innocent. Eisner did not create Ebony White out of nothing. And what he created him out of, in no small measure, was racism.
“Does that make him a bad man? I very much doubt it, and Noah isn’t claiming it did. He’s just asking what do we do with this particular piece of our racist heritage. His answer: the hell with it. Mine: not so fast, there’s a lot that you’re overlooking.”
I wouldn’t exactly say to hell with it. I think it’s worth debating and thinking about; if people want to read it, that’s cool. Matt was arguing that there should be more visibility and appreciation for Ebony; I was arguing, not that there should be none, or less, but that I had trouble seeing my way to the argument for more.
Your point about separating racism and hate is a good one, I think. You don’t have to hate or be a bad person to be a racist. Lincoln was a racist, at least at times. Mark Twain was a racist, in some times and in some ways. The point of these sorts of discussions isn’t to condemn people who are dead (since after all, they don’t care) but, as Tom says, to figure out what to do with the racist heritage we have. It’s about how racism works now as much as about how racism worked then…since, obviously, the two are connected in a lot of ways.
Mike…how does providing a link to this thread constitute sneaking away?
Ah, well, whatever…you’re defending your friend and idol I guess. Fair enough.
I’m defending my teacher, and before you get your little panties in a bunch and overturn the chessboard again, it would behoove you to remember who started all this.
Defending your teacher then. That’s fine.
Charles, I must disagree. Noah’s point about likable-but-subordinate blacks is very much off target. Ebony was something else altogether, and that’s what makes him still worthwhile today.
Mike F. — Please give it a rest. Or, if you must continue, work out some line of patter involving a chihuahua. It was the only thing that made that other guy bearable.
I certainly think Ebony is an example of that sort of racism in that his racial characteristics are presented as laughable.
Cartooning is the art of presenting human characteristics as being laughable. If you exclude certain people from being caricatured, you aren’t treating them equally. As I said, intent is the determining factor.
I’m not defending racism. I’m defending the use of caricature.
…It was the only thing that made that other guy bearable.
Not so much his valid points, huh?
However, racist stereotypes are in fact racist.
That’s self evident. I would point out that racial stereotypes are not necessarily racist stereotypes.
“Cartooning is the art of presenting human characteristics as being laughable.”
This seems like a painfully limited definition of the art of cartooning.
But beyond that…you’re insisting on an absolute formalist definition and evaluation, and cutting out history entirely.
Nobody says that black people should be excluded from mockery…as individuals. However, mocking black people for being black through an iconography explicitly historically connected to racism is kind of different.
Eisner picked up an iconography that was racist. You can argue (as Tom is doing) that he did some things with it that undermined or questioned the racism. I’m not entirely convinced, but it’s a reasonable argument. However, arguing that the representation itself is innocent and not racist…I think that’s really confused.
Lincoln was a racist, at least at times. Mark Twain was a racist, in some times and in some ways.
The world would be a better place then if we had more rackets like those two. I’m getting the feeling that you just like using the “r word” even when it has no contextual meaning.
Sorry my iPad spell checker appears to prefer the word rackets to racist.
The world would absolutely be a better place if there were more racists like Lincoln! That’s my point in that sentence!
Lincoln said on numerous occasions that he didn’t think blacks were equal to whites and that he didn’t think they should have the same rights as whites. Mark Twain’s representation of Jim is sometimes racist caricature. But! They also were both capable of really courageous racial idealism. I mean, they’re both heroes of mine, racism and all.
We have this thing in this country where it’s assumed that the only people who can be racists are KKK members with red necks and hearts consumed by evil. That’s just not the case. Racism is institutional, and has been endemic. The point isn’t that we’re all a little racist either; the point is that racism is something that people in this country, white and black, have had to deal with and continue to deal with. How they deal with it is really important. Lincoln was a racist…but he fought for the rights of blacks at great personal sacrifice, up to and including giving his own life. Eisner probably wasn’t a racist in most ways — but he used a disgraceful racist caricature through much of his career. People are complicated and racism is complicated. But putting people into boxes of “good” and “evil” and saying the first should never be criticized and the second are beyond the pale is not a good place to start a conversation.
Historically, all racial groups in America were subject to stereotyping in exactly the same way. I’m a “dumb Swede”, Mike F is an organ grinder, the cop on the corner was an Irish potato eater, Jews were pawnbrokers, Chinese ran laundries… All of these stereotypes were used within racist contexts to be sure. But the stereotype wasn’t necessarily racist. The application of it was. America has always been a melting pot of cultures, and nowhere in America was this more true than in New York City where Eisner lived and worked. It’s only natural that the differences between people would become a source of humor.
I certainly think Ebony is an example of that sort of racism in that his racial characteristics are presented as laughable.
Does Bozo the Clown’s red hair make the character racist?
That wasn’t intended to be facetious. Red hair is no less a racial characteristic than eye shape or skin color. The point, which has been made over and over – to apparently no avail – is that removing intent from the equation makes the argument not only wobbly, but open to almost any interpretation.
Mike F. — Yeah, I just didn’t find his points that valid. He impresses you, maybe you impress him. But that’s as far as it goes.
Stephen: “Cartooning is the art of presenting human characteristics as being laughable. If you exclude certain people from being caricatured, you aren’t treating them equally.”
The other thread went into that a bit. I think you and I can agree that a black can be caricatured without racism. And that artist intent does play a part. We differ on whether intent can be summed up as presence or nonpresence of hostility.
And I’d say that zeroing in on the traits that are associated with a given race and not with the majority, and doing so in the same way that the majority has traditionally zeroed in on those features in order to make fun of that race for being itself and not the majority — well, that would be racist and not simply racial.
Whether it makes the person who does the cartoon a bad, bad man is something else.
Excuse the sentence structure. I think we can safely predict that you will have some worthwhile response to my point, and that neither of us will wind up convincing the other. And if that sounds like I’m bugging out, I am, because I have work to do. But if you want to pursue this, I’ll check back later.
Yeah, I just didn’t find his points that valid…
You’re right. I’d much rather read about your impending yoga lesson and your personal work schedule than read Joe’s silly old comments regarding judging an artist’s work against changing societal standards.
Hiya Tom,
Noah’s point about likable-but-subordinate blacks is very much off target. Ebony was something else altogether, and that’s what makes him still worthwhile today.
Wasn’t Ebony a sidekick in The Spirit? Rochester would often prove the more reasonable in his relation to Jack Benny, but that was still in a racist structure, yeah? As with blackface, I think one can make reasonable arguments about the positive effects to these sorts of characters. I also think you can have a well-fleshed out character (although characterization is not something I’ve found to be Eisner’s strong suit) that still serves a racist function. And vice versa, in The Rainbow Stories, Vollmann gives a detailed portrait of SF skinheads where the reader identifies with them without my thinking he himself is supporting their views.
Charles — Ebony as sidekick. Good point, in that it’s unimaginable for a ’40s hero to be black and his sidekick white. (It would still be pretty noteworthy now, of course.) But the kid had a lot of autonomy. He wasn’t okay to the extent that he did as told and stayed subordinate; his character flourished by being independent.
Stephen — didn’t see your question about the hair before I posted. I think it’s superseded to the extent that you and I, at least, appear to agree that intention shouldn’t be taken out of the equation. Of course, my view of intention isn’t confined to whether a given artist wants to be mean about a group. But if he doesn’t even have a group in mind, why worry?
… and somebody tell Mike F. I’m going to do my yoga.
Stephen, differences are a source of humor…but blackface iconography was used consistently and viciously within a context of promoting white supremacy.
Blacks aren’t the only group that that has happened to in history; there’s iconographic traditions of denigrating Jews as well, and one aimed at Irish Catholics in England at various points. Still, black racial iconography was still very much used in a tradition of white supremacy when Eisner was creating his comic. New York was not just a melting pot; it was a viciously segregated city, in which blacks were in many ways second class citizens, just as was the case in many northern cities (New York was I think better than Chicago…but read James Baldwin. It wasn’t good.)
Furthermore…the comic book industry itself was severely segregated. So Eisner lived in a segregated city and worked in a segregated industry in a country which practiced systematic, disgraceful segregation and racism. Within that context, he picked up and used racist iconography which was systematically used to denigrate black people. I would argue that that’s quite different from the kind of friendly, multicultural, everybody-joshing-everybody ethnic humor you’re seeing it as.
I have sheet music of a W. C. Handy song which depicts a thick lipped black dandy standing up in church smiling while a preacher scornfully pontificates. Over his head is a thought bubble with dancing girls and black guys drinking booze and shooting dice. The title of the song is Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting. Interestingly enough, the song was sung by Bert Williams and published by Handy’s own company. Black owned, black written and black sung. Does that mean that W. C. Handy and Bert Williams were racist like Abe Lincoln?
Also, were you aware that Louis Armstrong was a pall bearer at Al Jolson’s funeral and said that Jolson did more to raise the image of the black man than any other white performer of his age?
That quote is patently absurd if you only consider it in the light of modern political correctness, but if you understand the context of the time and Jolson’s intent with his blackface performances you realize what a brave and ennobling stand Jolson was taking.
Context and intent are the determining factor.
As Charles says, blackface was a pretty complicated phenomena, which arguably had some positive aspects in context. That doesn’t mean that the blackface tradition was not racist.
Black people’s interaction with blackface iconography is pretty complicated as well; Spike Lee explores it fairly thoroughly in Bamboozled. The film basically suggests, I think, that blackface traditions were in some ways part of black tradition and black culture — but that white eagerness to see blackface (and its analogues) as black culture is deeply racist and harmful.
The wikipedia Blackface article is really good (I’m somewhat acquainted with the main author, who’s really smart and dedicated.) The article says about black performances of blackface:
Context is important as you say, and intent can matter too. Was Eisner’s context and intent the same as the blackface minstrel performers you’re citing? Surely a black performance for a black audience is different than a white creator writing for a white audience? Do you see Eisner using Ebony White to mock the idea that blacks actually look the way Ebony White looks? Is Eisner deliberately confronting racism, the way this article suggests that black blackface performers did? Or does he draw Ebony White that way because that is the way you draw blacks when you are attempting to make your white audience laugh at them for their inferiority?
Incidentally, Lincoln said this:
“I am not nor ever have been in favor of the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office or having them to marry with white people…. I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.”
It’s not the only thing he said about blacks obviously, but it’s clearly racist. There’s evidence that Lincoln moved away from this view later in his life, and he certainly (as I said before) acted very courageously in the cause of racial idealism. But if you deny that what he said there is racist, it’s hard for me to see what could qualify as racism in your eyes.
So you’re saying wearing blackface was brave and ennobling, not racist? What context or intent made that so? Context and intent could, on the other hand, be used to argue that Al Jolson did some good things for the image of a black man despite the blackface. Surely Louis Armstrong performing is a less racist image than Al Jolson performing in blackface. That was true back then, and it’s true now. Good grief.
that was in response to Stephen.
Yeah…and the fact that performers like Bert Williams had to wear blackface is obviously problematic. Billie Holiday in her autobiography talks about being asked to black up at one point in the south I think because her band was black and she was too light; the owners worried that she’d be mistaken for a white woman, which would be scandalous.
The context of blacks using blackface is always really tied to the history of oppression. For the W.C. Handy sheet music…I wouldn’t necessarily be so sure that that was being sold only to blacks. Whites were the ones with the money, obviously, and Handy (and jazz) were popular with whites as well as blacks. Bert Williams was hugely popular with white audiences, and obviously a big part of his appeal was giving them what they wanted in terms of black representations.
When you have a massive system of oppression and control, and you find the people who are oppressed and controlled behaving in the manner that has been proscribed to them, it seems, shall we say, dishonorable to use their acquiescence as evidence that they weren’t being controlled in the first place. Black people found ways to use and even enjoy blackface iconography, and maybe even to turn it to their own ends, but their invention and courage doesn’t give white people, or Will Eisner, a free pass to say he’s just doing the same thing.
If anybody’s interested, you can get great Bert Williams recordings here.
That links to the last in a three volume set so search the site for Bert Williams.
There’s also a compilation called Monarchs of Minstrelsy.
So you’re saying wearing blackface was brave and ennobling, not racist? What context or intent made that so?
Louis Armstrong said that because Jolson’s performances in blackface emphasized the humanity of the character he was portraying- the emotions and feelings that are common to all men. He felt that Jolson was brave to invest so much of his own personality and unique gifts into a character that was normally a one dimensional stereotype. Jolson never addressed the fact that other people may have used blackface as a means of cruel subjugation. He simply made the character his own and reached out to share it with his audience.
The same might be said of Ebony. Other people may have used the stereotype for cruel purposes, but Eisner made him resourceful and human. Young people, both black and white, likely identified with him and liked him.
Ultimately, that is a lot more effective way of counteracting racism than it is to paste labels on people and condemn them without considering the intent behind their use of stereotypes. A million people make apologies and excuses for characters like Jolie and Ebony. But Jolson and Eisner never did. They didn’t feel that they had anything to apologize for- and they were right.
But Eisner actually did, with some vacillation, try to change the character. He felt it was no longer appropriate, and seems in general to have been uncomfortable when questioned about it (at least according to the anecdote in the other thread.) He seems to have (quite rightly) had more doubts about it than you do.
You don’t know Eisner or his work, Noah, and your dogged insinuation – repeated over and over and over AND OVER again – that the man can be summed up with a dated drawing and subjective anecdote is offensive to those of us that did know him. In fact, Will considered Ebony a rounded, dynamic and fully-developed character, more interesting than the Spirit in many ways. And there are hundreds of anecdotes about Will, although they wouldn’t serve your narrow purpose. Get some new material, Noah, and while you’re at it, try researching your subject next time. You might try reading and familiarizing yourself with an artist’s work before smugly labeling and dismissing it. You describe yourself as an “ill-tempered critic” – but frankly, “ill-informed” would be more accurate.
Mike F.: “You might try reading and familiarizing yourself with [Eisner’s] work before smugly labeling and dismissing it.”
Jeez, You really dislike Noah!… I wouldn’t recommend that to my worst enemy.
So, Mike…Jeet and Alex and others are incorrect when they suggest that Eisner phased Ebony White out of the comic, or tried to update him? I didn’t think that was really disputed.
It’s not possible that Eisner had conflicted views about the character, or that changing times caused him to rethink what he was doing? What do you gain by asserting that exactly? I just don’t see how robbing Eisner of his complexity makes him more noble or admirable.
Mike F, Ebony was a racist caricature. End of story? No, because Eisner himself tried to tone down his creation and finally eliminate him from the strip.
Your trolling doesn’t advance your cause, by the way; quite the opposite.
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Jeet Heer says:
…I’ll add that in addition to Ebony White, Eisner also created Chop-Chop (the very stereotypical chinese cook of Blackhawk) and Blubber the Eskimo boy. So there was something in Eisner that responded to stereotypes of ethnics.
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“…there was something in Eisner that responded to stereotypes of ethnics”? Sounds pretty pathological, when put that way.
Feminist lecturer: “There was something in Bill Ward that responded to ‘sexy’ stereotypes of women with huge, bulging breasts and high-heeled shoes…” (Audience shudders)
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And again, he was behind the times because other cartoonists (see Milton Caniff in Terry in the early 1940s) tried to portray the Chinese (although not the Japanese) in a more respectful way.
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Well, gee. Wasn’t there pretty plainly a political reason for Caniff suddenly being more respectful to the Chinese? The same way that, once Russia became an ally, all of a sudden those Commies weren’t the epitome of evil any more? Except that, once the war was won, all of a sudden they WERE evil again? (Sounds like the “once an enemy, now an ally” instant switcheroos in “1984.”)
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So Eisner didn’t represent the way everyone was in the 1940s; in many ways he was behind the times. And he got rid of Ebony because black readers complained and also his very young assistant Jule Feiffer didn’t like Ebony. Again, a sign that Eisner wasn’t leading the pack but rather responding to other people who were more progressive than he was.
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Sure, Eisner’s depiction of Ebony was “behind the times.” But he was a significant, established character; so that it became the less-worse option to get rid of him rather than run him through the “blanditron.” (And end up like Schulz’s utterly inoffensive and forgettable Franklin.)
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Yosemite Sam’s a cowboy, not a redneck. They’re kind of different.
The U.S. didn’t have a two centuries long tradition of oppressing white texans, nor does Yosemite Sam partake of a visual iconography linked to that (nonexistent) tradition.
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Indeed so! But now, let’s get on that vile racist Al Capp’s mockery of mountain people and their culture…
But, speaking of “rednecks”; is Jeff Foxworthy a “racist” because, though with affectionate humor, he traffics in rednecky stereotypes in his “You might be a redneck if…” comedy?
From jefffoxworthy.com:
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Redneck Joke of the Day
You Might Be A Redneck if…Failed to execute CGI : Win32 Error Code = 50
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http://www.jefffoxworthy.com/comedy/jod/index.shtml
Uh????? Those redneck jokes are getting too avant-garde for me…
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Surfer Joe says:
…Just try having something remotely fresh or new to say, rather than just striking the righteous pose of the eternally offended- again. This would have been a hot topic in about 1984, and was well covered by then, if not earlier.
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…Ran across this comment at today’s “Yehuda Moon” comic strip ( http://yehudamoon.com/index.php?date=2011-02-18 ):
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Pierre:
I find everything offensive. It helps me keep the moral high ground.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Stephen, I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t give a flying fuck if Eisner was racist or not. I don’t know what was in his heart…
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Then, why call him a “racist”? Starting with, at the very beginning (the “Will Eisner Is No Mark Twain” essay):
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Ebony White doesn’t show Eisner struggling with racism. It just shows him being racist.
For his time, too, Twain was anti-racist, while Eisner was, for his, just casually, everyday racist.
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I mean, aside from “murderer” or “rapist,” “racist” is about one of the worst, most highly-charged hot-button accusations one can sling these days. And, no wonder:
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rac·ism
–noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
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(From dictionary.com)
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Tom Crippen says:
Stephen — We’ve got a problem with word usage here. A lot of times people treat “racist” like it means hater. So if a guy does something racist, then we know he was a hater and therefore a vile person.
But often enough “racism” is used just to mean a belief that a given race is superior or inferior. I certainly think Ebony is an example of that sort of racism in that his racial characteristics are presented as laughable. Eisner was racist to the extent that he thought getting those sorts of laughs was a good idea.
Does that make him a bad man? I very much doubt it, and Noah isn’t claiming it did..
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Not a bad man, just one who at the very least believes (to pick the mildest example from the definition above) that “inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement”?
And, re the humorous facets of the character, was it Ebony’s “racial characteristics” that were it, or his behavior, personality that wrought the laughs?
In that old “Winsor McCay…RACIST!!!” TCJ message board thread ( http://archives.tcj.com/messboard/viewtopic.php?p=62155&sid=dd0e8d24c0354ca1a9042a31ba0a5ec4 ), I’d mentioned:
In what way, shape or form does an old-time cartoonist’s usage of stereotypical imagery necessarily indicate their racism? I’d be more negatively impressed by reading of actual real-life behavior or remarks by those cartoonists against minorities.
…I’m also dubious about flinging “the R-Bomb” around nilly-willy…To call someone who renders blacks in stereotypical caricature – the unquestioningly accepted convention of his time – a “racist,” those offensive-to-our-eyes but hardly hate-filled drawings “vicious”, is to dilute by spreading-too-thin a term which should be saved for clearly vile actions and attitudes.
How about calling such work “stereotypical” or “offensive” rather than “racist”?
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Incidentally, Lincoln said this:
“I am not nor ever have been in favor of the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office or having them to marry with white people…. I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.”
It’s not the only thing he said about blacks obviously, but it’s clearly racist. There’s evidence that Lincoln moved away from this view later in his life, and he certainly (as I said before) acted very courageously in the cause of racial idealism. But if you deny that what he said there is racist, it’s hard for me to see what could qualify as racism in your eyes.
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When first reading those remarks some years ago, I was disappointed and took them at face value. But later read – in the “New Yorker” or “New York Review of Books,” I think – a well-documented article which convincingly made the case that Lincoln had to hide his abolitionist, progressive attitudes and only gradually, with lawyerly stealth, bring them forth; slipping significant phrases into speeches to lay the groundwork for a more open assault.
Telling points to Lincoln’s attitudes show up as early as the “Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858”:
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Lincoln did not argue for complete social equality. However, he did say Douglas ignored the basic humanity of blacks, and that slaves did have an equal right to liberty. As Lincoln said,
“I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”
As Lincoln said,
“This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself…”
Lincoln said he himself didn’t know how emancipation should happen. He believed in colonization, but admitted that this was impractical. Without colonization he said that it would be wrong for emancipated slaves to be treated as “underlings,” but that <b?there was a large opposition to social and political equality, and that "a universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded." Lincoln said that Douglas’ public indifference to slavery would result in slavery expansion because it would mold public sentiment to accept slavery. As Lincoln said,
“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.”
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Emphasis added; from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates_of_1858
Frederick Douglass was earlier skeptical of Lincoln, but grew to see him as equally committed to ending slavery:
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In spite of the seeming pro-slavery policy of the Lincoln administration, Douglass was earnestly working in the President,s support. He was wise enough to understand that if Lincoln in the beginning, had stated his policy to be, not only to save the Union, but also to free the slaves, all would have been lost…
This was the first of Douglass’ visits to the White House. At one such meeting, he relates, “while in conversation with him [Lincoln], his secretary twice announced Governor Buckingham of Connecticut, one of the noblest and most patriotic of the loyal governors. Mr. Lincoln said: Tell Governor Buckingham to wait, for I want to have a long talk with my friend, Frederick Douglass. I interposed and begged him to see the governor at once, as I could wait, but no, he persisted that that he wanted to talk with me and that Governor Buckingham could wait. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular colour.”
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http://www.rense.com/general63/friend.htm
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In his autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist author wrote:
The increasing opposition to the war, in the North, and the mad cry against it, because it was being made an abolition war, alarmed Mr. Lincoln, and made him apprehensive that a peace might be forced upon him which would leave still in slavery all who had not come within our lines. What he wanted was to make his Proclamation as effective as possible in the event of such a peace… I was the more impressed by his benevolent consideration because he before [had] said, in answer to the peace clamor, that his object was to save the Union, and to do so with or without slavery. What he said on this day showed a deeper moral conviction against slavery than I had even seen before in anything spoken or written by him. I listened with the deepest interest and profoundest satisfaction, and, at his suggestion, agreed to undertake the organizing of a band of scouts, composed of colored men, whose business should be somewhat after the original plan of John Brown, to go into the rebel states, beyond the lines of our armies, and carry the news of emancipation, and urge the slaves to come within our boundaries.
Presumably, it was at this meeting that Mr. Lincoln told the abolitionist leader: “Douglass, I hate slavery as much as you do, and I want to see it abolished altogether.”
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http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=38&subjectID=2
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The new birth of freedom that Lincoln spoke of at Gettysburg referred to the imminent abolition of slavery. The Civil War did not begin as a war to abolish slavery. Quite the contrary, the Union that the North initially fought to restore was a Union in which nearly half of the states were slave states. As late as August 1862—sixteen months into the war—Lincoln declared that
my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
Often misinterpreted, Lincoln’s purpose in this statement was to prepare public opinion for the proclamation of emancipation he had already decided to issue at the right time. He had concluded that it would be necessary to free at least some of the slaves in order to save the Union. He knew that many defenders of the Union disagreed, and he was telling them in advance that necessity might require them to accept emancipation if they wanted to save the Union…
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Emphasis added; from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/sep/24/lincoln-off-his-pedestal/ .
Good lord, Mike. And people say I’m prolix.
Just at the top; in the quotes I say things like Eisner was “being racist.” To me, at least, that’s different than making a sweeping judgment about his essence. I think he was being racist when he created Ebony as a racist caricature. I don’t think that means that he was racist in his soul, or that he hated black people. It means that in this instance he was being racist.
I also believe, as I said above, that the way that “racist” has come to be synonymous with absolute evil is really problematic in some ways. Lots of good people (like Lincoln) can be racist at times…or indeed, in general. Making it the sole province of the KKK or Nazis prevents us from understanding how racism works institutionally, and how it can exist even in people who are very admirable in other ways.
Along those lines, as I said, Lincoln’s racism was complicated. My own sense is that, as with the country as a whole, he started out more racist than he became. The Civil War, and particularly the participation of black soldiers on the Union side, created a lot of racial idealism among whites.
Poor rural whites actually take a fair amount of shit, and are not infrequently portrayed in unpleasant ways in the media. I’m not very familiar with either Al Capp or Jeff Foxworthy…but, for example, Deliverance gets a lot of its power from invidious stereotypes.
Either Eisner was a racist because he created Ebony or he was naive and didn’t know what he was doing when he created the character. You choose… The latter option clearly explains why he was a mediocre artist, by the way…
I think one of the problems in this thread is that people just aren’t accepting the extent to which socio-cultural racism, even racism the person doesn’t recognize, is still really truly honest-to-God racism.
I have a lot of personal experience with this: I grew up in a fully segregated town in the rural south. I knew a lot of people who, in all other respects, were tremendously kind and good-hearted, but who accepted segregation and a hierarchy of the races without questioning it.
I know many black people who, as poor rural children, were not dissimilar to the stereotypes of rural Southern blacks when they were children — but they grew up to be nothing like those stereotypes, once they had the opportunity to be something different. But the vast majority of those kind and good-hearted people couldn’t see that potential, and they couldn’t see the role that prejudice and stereotypes played in blinding them to it. I should say we, or I’d be lying, because I didn’t figure it out until college. We didn’t understand the damage segregation and stereotyping and low expectations and just plain not NOTICING did to “those people” and the possibilities they saw for their lives. We let ourselves off the hook because we knew we weren’t evil.
And we knew what the evil was too, so we meant it when we said we weren’t evil. When I was 6 years old, the Ku Klux Klan marched in front of my house on their way to an empty field where they were having a rally. This was back when they could still cover their faces, so it was the whole shebang — fire and masks and chanting. I was utterly terrified, sobbing — I can still conjure up nightmares just thinking about it. I wasn’t one of those people — so I wasn’t racist.
But that’s bullshit. I wasn’t violent. I didn’t take pleasure in scaring people, or in mob rule. But I wouldn’t have dated a black man. I didn’t invite my black classmates, many of whom probably had interests more in common with me than my white classmates, to my house to play or to a movie. I didn’t have any respect for black culture or cultural mores. I was put off when my classmates didn’t smell clean — and nobody ever mentioned to me (until I was in my late teens) that many of them didn’t have running water in their houses.
None of those perceptions changed until I went to college and left that environment, until I met people who helped me see it differently. I did not know any better. But my attitude and perspective were still completely totally fucking wrong. In every possible respect. And I would repudiate anything I did then that reflected that perspective.
So it really doesn’t matter to me if Eisner was a really great guy. It doesn’t matter if that was the culture he knew. It doesn’t matter if he made great art anyway.
Those attitudes are STILL RACIST and IT’S STILL HIS FAULT, just like all the little things I did and felt are still my fault. It’s not grey.
Caro: ” It doesn’t matter if he made great art anyway.”
I hope that we agree that racist art can’t be great art. I also know that Will Eisner did other things too, but great art he never did, that’s for sure.
And… that’s a great post above, Caro!…
I think racist art can sometimes be great art, actually. I think Winsor McCay did some great art which is (casually, but nevertheless) racist. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness I think is racist in some ways, but still to my mind great, not least because of the way it handles race.
I respect the hard line position you take too, though, Domingos.
So why aren’t there other Ebony-type characters polluting the work of every other comic artist among Eisner’s contemporaries?
Obviously, Eisner chose to use this racist image and so it taints his body of work.
Eisner wasn’t alone, unfortunately. There’s the mammy in “Gasoline Alley.” There’s Connie in “Terry and the Pirates.” Lots of black and Japanese offensive caricatures in _Tintin_ (not to mention anti-semitic caricatures in a Nazi dominated newspaper: _Le Soir_). Ditto for the black offensive caricatures in Burne Hogarth’s “Tarzan.” Tonto (which means “stupid” in Spanish) in _The Lone Ranger_ (along with countless other caricatures of “the savages”). Etc… etc… etc… I said elsewhere that American comics of yore weren’t defending much different an ideology from what was going on in Berlin and Rome at the time. This reminds me of France which was one of the most anti-semitic countries in the world until WWII ended, of course…
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Just at the top; in the quotes I say things like Eisner was “being racist.” To me, at least, that’s different than making a sweeping judgment about his essence. I think he was being racist when he created Ebony as a racist caricature. I don’t think that means that he was racist in his soul, or that he hated black people. It means that in this instance he was being racist.
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OK, fair enough…
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I also believe, as I said above, that the way that “racist” has come to be synonymous with absolute evil is really problematic in some ways. Lots of good people (like Lincoln) can be racist at times…or indeed, in general. Making it the sole province of the KKK or Nazis prevents us from understanding how racism works institutionally, and how it can exist even in people who are very admirable in other ways…
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Yes. But the way to get around that is by phrasing things in a more careful fashion.
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Domingos Isabelinho says:
Either Eisner was a racist because he created Ebony or he was naive and didn’t know what he was doing when he created the character. You choose… The latter option clearly explains why he was a mediocre artist, by the way…
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So, it’s artistically better to be racist than naive? (And, can’t someone be naive in some areas, exceptionally worldly-wise everywhere else?)
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Caro: ” It doesn’t matter if he made great art anyway.”
I hope that we agree that racist art can’t be great art…
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“The Merchant of Venice” is a dud, then?
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Caro says:
…None of those perceptions changed until I went to college and left that environment, until I met people who helped me see it differently. I did not know any better. But my attitude and perspective were still completely totally fucking wrong. In every possible respect. And I would repudiate anything I did then that reflected that perspective.
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So if you totally don’t know any better that something is wrong, you’re still to be held utterly culpable?
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So it really doesn’t matter to me if Eisner was a really great guy. It doesn’t matter if that was the culture he knew. It doesn’t matter if he made great art anyway.
Those attitudes are STILL RACIST and IT’S STILL HIS FAULT, just like all the little things I did and felt are still my fault. It’s not grey.
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Mr. A will agree with you there; you’re either totally righteous and pure or utterly corrupt and EVIL: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/Mr%20A%204.gif
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James says:
So why aren’t there other Ebony-type characters polluting the work of every other comic artist among Eisner’s contemporaries?
Obviously, Eisner chose to use this racist image and so it taints his body of work.
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“The Spirit” was created in 1940; so, let’s see how racially sensitive things were at that time…
“3 Dif Very Racist 1940’s BLACK COMIC POSTCARDS”: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=220741610115
“Stereotypes of African Americans: Essays & Images – Chicken & Watermelon Themes” starts in the 1890s, goes on through the 40’s, and includes the horrifyingly grotesque “Coon Chicken” image from 1950, which I’d thought was created for the “Ghost World” flick: http://www.authentichistory.com/diversity/african/chickenwatermelon/index.html
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-gayest-fattest-most-racist-most-useless-sidekicks-of-all-time/ filled me in on “Whitewash Jones,” with images that make Ebony look positively genteel.
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Cap had a side-kick named Bucky and Bucky had a sidekick named Whitewash Jones
That’s right, the sidekick of a sidekick was Timely’s first black super-hero…
Whitewash was part of Timely’s (and thus Marvel’s) first ever super-hero team, appearing in Young Allies Comics #1 (Summer 1941)…Another black hero joined Timely in December 1942 when the Whizzer gained a sidekick in the form of Slow-Motion Jones. Introduced in USA Comics #6, Slow-Motion was older than Whitewash, but had basically the same personality and speech-patterns.
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http://monomythic.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/marvel-mystery-monday-whitewash-and-slow-motion-jones-marvel%E2%80%99s-first-black-heroes/
“Dart Adams presents Black Like Me: The History Of Black Comic Book Heroes Through The Ages Part One 1900-1968”: http://poisonousparagraphs.blogspot.com/2009/02/dart-adams-presents-black-like-me.html
I just approved your long post! Just got caught in spam; sorry about that.
Edit: And I’m going to delete that double post MIke. As well as the follow ups about deleting posts….
@Mike Hunter. I agree that there were some comic characters — Whitewash Jones is a great example — who were much more racist than Ebony White. But there were others — Buckwheat from Kelly’s Our Gang comics or George in Little Orphan Annie in 1942 — who were much, much less racist. This re-inforces the idea that there was not a single unified racist culture that all white people subscribed to. There was a spectrum of racial attitudes. The racism of Ebony White could have been worse, but Eisner made much less of an effort to try and change or challenge the racism of his time than several other cartoonists. So this reinforces the idea that there was an element of choice involved. We’re all products of our time, but some people react to socially condidtioning differently.
@Domingos Isabelinho. “I hope that we agree that racist art can’t be great art.” No, we don’t agree with that at all. Aside from the Merchant of Venice mentioned above (not one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays but still a very great and important play) there is also Oliver Twist and countless other works. You can find racism in many major writers, ranging from Trollope to Poe to Conrad. In fact, it would be surpising if great art were exempt from racism given how pervasive racism as an ideology has been for the last few centuries. And the same is true to a much greater extent for sexism. This is part of what Walter Benjamin meant when he wrote: “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” Part of the task of criticism is to acknowedge the barbarism that exists in civilization, and the civilization that exists in barbarism.
I agree with Jeet again! Mercury must be in retrograde or something….
Mike — murdering someone on purpose is wrong. You get convicted of murder.
Murdering someone by accident, unintentionally, is ALSO WRONG. You get convicted of manslaughter.
There’s a difference between error and culpability. From the perspective of the person doing the killing the culpability is different.
But from the perspective of the dead guy, the error of murder and manslaughter is exactly the same.
I would hope that anybody I treated badly would forgive me based on my ignorance. But that still doesn’t mean someone else is responsible for my actions.
Thanks Jeet, for that — I had been putting off making an argument along those lines. Domingos’ position ultimately shuts out most art.
Great art is truly rare and great artists did average work sometimes. We all have our criteria, I suppose… But I understand why you’re so tolerant. You think that Hergé and Frank King did great art so… ’nuff said!…
@ Domingos Isabelinho. “Great art is truly rare and great artists did average work sometimes.” Let’s leave Herge and King aside for a moment. I mentioned the Merchant of Venice and Oliver Twist. Do you think these are “average” works? The Merchant isn’t Shakespeare’s best play by any means but it’s surely superior to 99.99% of all plays ever written. And Oliver Twist isn’t Dickens best work; it’s not Bleak House or Little Dorritt or David Copperfield. But it’s still better than 99.99% of all novels ever written. So relegate, on ideological rather than aesthetic grounds mind you, these works seems a hopeless and indefensible position. And many other comparable works can be mentioned (i.e, the collected poems of Pound, Eliot, Yeats; the fiction of Wyndham Lewis, Celine, Knut Hamsun etc.; the music of Wagner). Really, I don’t know how your position can be defended without, as Matthias says above, shutting out most art.
There’s some pretty horrific anti-Semitism in Dostoevesky too, and in some of his greatest novels. Is he also to be chucked aside?
Yes.
All that name-dropping is tiresome. Since I’m always attacking sacred cows you should know by now that I’m not in awe in front of them. I judge in a case by case basis. Céline is an interesting case, by the way: he was a known and furious anti-semite, but I would be grateful if you point me to an anti-semite page of his in _Voyage au bout de la nuit_.
@Domingos Isabelinho. “I judge in a case by case basis.” Well, I mentioned two very specific cases: The Merchant of Venice and Oliver Twist. Are you willing to say that these are “average works”? I suppose you could say that the Merchant of Venice is an average Shakespeare play (not one of the best, not one of the worst); the same for Oliver Twist as an average Dickens novel. But even so, Shakespeare’s average and Dickens’ average is still near the peak of human achievement. Irving Howe: “With the opening chapters of Oliver Twist Dickens made his way, forever, into world literature.” Agree or disagree? “Voyage au bout de la nuit” wasn’t Celine only work; but let’s say there was an anti-Semitic passage there similiar to the ones found in Celine’s later novels or his essays. Would the existence of that one passage turn “Voyage au bout de la nuit” into an average work?
I should add that aside from discussing this on a “case by case” basis we could look at it from an overall philosophical point of view. Deciding whether a work of art is racist or not is a political decision. Deciding whether a work of art is good or not is an aesthetic decision. Now aesthetics is intertwined with politics and influenced by politic and informed by politics but it is not the same thing as a politics (otherwise we would just go to art for the same benefits we get from political commentary). Since aesthetics is not absolutely congruent with politics, a political judgement of a work of art can never be decided by politics alone, even if politics is an always and inescapably an informing feature of the judgmenet.
Yes. I don’t like _Oliver Twist_ at all. Let’s say that you’re right and _The Merchant of Venice_ is better than 99.99 % of all plays ever written. Maybe the truly great ones are just 00.01% (or even less) of the corpus?
That’s just the point. I can’t separate ethics from aesthetics. (I’m talking about the work of art though; I couldn’t care less if the artist was/is a jerk or not.) Art for me is like science. Both activities try to reach the truth using different means. Racism, propaganda, kitsch, escapism, are lies, hence they can never be great art. Aesthetic points of view are like political points of view though: they come fron a certain ideology, they can never be objective.
Maybe it would be helpful not to use terms like “great” and “average” here: I think even a single racist passage would significantly diminish a work, yes. It would make it less emotionally and psychologically resonant at least with present-day audiences (hopefully). The extent to which it can elevate us morally or aesthetically is limited, because we have to qualify the racist representation and in doing so, we have to stand superior to the art. We have distance and monitor our emotional responses. We have to qualify the truth of the work. That makes it a lesser achievement.
You can still make the argument that it’s great art if you want to, but it needs qualification. I personally would never say that Pound’s work, for example, is great. I would say it’s interesting, complicated, important — but I would feel like I was lying if I called it great, for the reason Domingos gives in his comment just above.
And for the record, the aesthetics/ethics distinction would not have flown with Howe. He also said that “We must beware what Clement Greenberg has rightly called the culture-sickness of this age, the sickness which permits people to excuse or justify the most dreadful behavior and the most vicious ideas in the name of culture.”
Howe, who was living in a time when literary anti-Semitism was something more of a problem than it is today (Pound, for example, had just received the Bollengen Award for Cantos) did feel it was futile to spend that energy on dead writers when there were so many living ones who needed chastising. I nonetheless feel certain he would have viewed those anti-Semitic works as diminished. He wasn’t claiming that Oliver Twist established Dickens’ place in literature because it was his greatest achievement — Twist gets that place because it’s the first novel in which Dickens was really Dickens. Pickwick, which precedes it, is verbose and highly commercial.
There’s a lot in Dickens that I love…but I find his treatment of women really painful, to the extent that it makes it hard for me to love any of his books unreservedly.
On the other hand, Herge’s racism is part and parcel of a lot of what I like about his work. The same is true of Lovecraft; the lumbering racial and gender anxiety is where the horror comes from in his books.
On the third hand…D.H. Lawrence is a compulsive misogynist. But his consciousness of his own misogyny, his ideological commitment to anti-feminism, forces him to articulate the feminist position more clearly than many of his contemporaries. Unlike Dickens (who just drowns his women in sentimental glop) he sees gender relations as being about power, and he has interesting and even arguably liberating insights into that power, even though (for the most part) he’s an unrepentant male supremacist.
And then there’s someone like James Baldwin, whose essays I think are absolutely great art because of their anti-racism and the clarity, insight, and beauty with which it is expressed.
Walter Benjamin’s point bears repeating here: any work of art reflects ideologies of its time, and ideologies, as Domingos’ indicates, change with time. Apparently, Domingos thinks that his particular set have no use-by date and makes him able to pronounce absolutely upon the quality of any given work.
I take it the Pyramids at Giza are mediocre works of architecture because they were constructed using slave labor?
Or, alternatively, let’s imagine a future where the eating of animal flesh is universally regarded as monstrous. Whither one of Domingos’ (and my) favorite writers, Proust, who describes the preparation of meaty food with such relish?
So, I say that aesthetic judgments can’t be objective and I’m using absolutes?
Your sense of history is a bit rusty Matthias. No slave ever worked in the pyramids.
As for Proust: I don’t remember that part in _Un amour de Swann_.
“I hope that we agree that racist art can’t be great art.”
Sounds pretty absolutist to me.
And you’re right, slaves probably weren’t used for the pyramids. I was a bit quick there. But we might well imagine that the workers weren’t treated in accordance with today’s ethical standards, and other significant civilizations, such as the Greeks or the Chinese, made use of slaves to build things.
My overall point is that your categorical application of contemporary ethics upon all art shuts out most of history. Any artwork will at some level reflect its times, including aspects of it that we now find problematic — just as Proust, or many other great modern authors, not condemning the consumption of meat could end up being regarded as a blemish upon their reputation in the future. (Not that I’m advocating that it should).
My further point is that such works may still have qualities that transcend any issues we might have, or they might even — as Noah suggests with his examples — deploy them with such intelligence that we find value in them despite their being problematic.
Why am I even making this argument?
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Jeet Heer says:
@Mike Hunter. I agree that there were some comic characters — Whitewash Jones is a great example — who were much more racist than Ebony White. But there were others — Buckwheat from Kelly’s Our Gang comics or George in Little Orphan Annie in 1942 — who were much, much less racist. This re-inforces the idea that there was not a single unified racist culture that all white people subscribed to. There was a spectrum of racial attitudes. The racism of Ebony White could have been worse, but Eisner made much less of an effort to try and change or challenge the racism of his time than several other cartoonists. So this reinforces the idea that there was an element of choice involved. We’re all products of our time, but some people react to socially condidtioning differently.
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Certainly Eisner was nowhere near as thoughtful or sensitive as he could have been in creating the “look” of Ebony, surely the character’s most troubling aspect. And he was behind the times when compared to other cartoonists. So he made no attempt to challenge the racial status quo as far as depictions of blacks were concerned.
(But then again, even in his later, “serious” work, Eisner had a scene in one GN where Mafioso were slurping spaghetti; he (and Woody Allen, criticized as a “self-hating Jew” in one Jewish magazine) embraced stereotypes of kvetching, neurotic Jews…)
Can we agree, though, that basically attitudes in America moved through time from “more racist” to less so? If that’s the case (as I think it surely is), it’s interesting how in the site I mentioned earlier…
“Stereotypes of African Americans: Essays & Images – Chicken & Watermelon Themes” starts in the 1890s, goes on through the 40?s, and includes the horrifyingly grotesque “Coon Chicken” image from 1950, which I’d thought was created for the “Ghost World” flick: http://www.authentichistory.com/diversity/african/chickenwatermelon/index.html
…there’s no evolutionary progression where it starts out loaded with blubber-lipped stereotypes and moves on to more realistic depictions; the former are peppered throughout, with the worst – the “Coon Chicken” one – ‘way down in 1950. (Maybe it war a regional thing, where some parts of the country were more retrograde than others? Homogenizing “mass culture” less prevalent in those days?)
Attitudes towards racism didn’t move from more racist to less in a straight line. America was much less racist in the Reconstruction period than after its failure (because of KKK instransigence.) The nadir of American race relations is used to refer to the period from 1890 to 1950 or so. Commenters argue that that period was more racist than even slavery in many ways, in that there was little racial idealism among whites in the north as there was during the slavery period.
The idea that progress on racism is inevitable is one of the ways we let ourselves (and Eisner) off the hook in these matters. Attitudes got better, then they got worse. It’s not a move towards progressive enlightenment. What people do affects how they think and vice versa.
I’d recommend James Loewen’s “Lies My Teacher Told Me.” It’s a great book.
I should say…the period is definitely called “nadir of race relations”. Whether that’s meant to indicate it was worse than slavery is unclear. I think the point is arguable along the lines I suggested.
You can also check the article on the nadir of race relations at wikipedia, which I started and contributed to (though it’s changed over the years as these things do.)
I apologize for being late to the discussion on this, and I hope I’m not repeating information that others may have mentioned in these extensive comments.
Just to clarify the historical record, and not to defend Eisner because I pretty much agree with Jeet’s assessment, Eisner probably did not create Chop-Chop. The character did not appear until the third Blackhawk story in Military Comics, and Eisner usually only worked on no more than the first two stories of any of the properties he created for Quality. Also, Chuck Cuidera always took credit for creating Chop-Chop himself, claiming he modeled the character after Connie in Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates. Eisner and Cuidera had some heated debates over who created Blackhawk, but Eisner never contradicted Cuidera’s claim about creating Chop-Chop.
Also, to add to Jeet’s useful list of nonstereotyped black characters from the 40s, Balbo the Boy Magician, who appeared in Fawcett’s Master Comics during the 40s, had a black business partner named John Smith who was drawn realistically and never spoke in dialect. This is particularly amazing considering this was the same publisher who gave us Captain Marvel’s “valet,” Steamboat. Therefore, there were enough examples of such characters that it is difficult to argue that Eisner was simply doing what everyone else was doing regarding racial caricatures.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the that useful correction about Chop-Chop. Imagine claiming credit for Chop-Chop. Oh boy. Lot’s more to be said here.
Leaving Chop-Chop aside though, Eisner’s did have a tendency (as Mike notes above) for ethnic stereotypes of other groups, not just Russians and Italians but also his own group, American Jews. I think this is the basic point I’ve been trying to make all along which has gotten lost in the shuffle. Eisner thought in stereotypes; key to his art was the deployment of stereotypes. So Ebony White wasn’t just the unfortunate mistake a great man made while young; it’s also the key to his art. What we need is a discussion of the overlapping nature of caricature, cartooning and stereotyping.
Jeet said:
Hear, hear.
Matthias: ““I hope that we agree that racist art can’t be great art.”
Sounds pretty absolutist to me.”
What’s the absolutist part? Me hoping? Or me defending a subjective opinion?
In conclusion: you’re basically on the side of those who say that Will Eisner was non-imputable because of his zeitgeist.
“Why am I even making this argument?”
Ditto, so that’s that!…
One more thing about slave labour and huge monuments dedicated to the glory of the rich and powerful (which I usually dislike, by the way; I had a strong negative reaction to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, for instance). Here’s what I said a few posts ago: “(I’m talking about the work of art though; I couldn’t care less if the artist was/is a jerk or not.)”
No, I’m not suggesting we should separate aesthetics and ethics, merely that it’s useless to posit a contemporary set of ethics as an absolute criterion for judging the ultimate quality of a given work.
I’m not letting Eisner off the hook, merely pointing out what I perceive to be the obvious problems of your stance.
As to buildings constructed in problematic ways: surely they glorify an elite that employs such means of construction, implicating the art.