May 25, 2008
Driving Back Into Louisiana’s History
By RON STODGHILL
STRIDING across the rain-soaked field of an abandoned Louisiana plantation, Mitch Landrieu, the state’s lieutenant governor, waved his hands impatiently. “C’mon, you’ve got to see this,” he called out, sounding more P. T. Barnum than politician. Marching beside him was the Whitney Plantation’s owner, John Cummings, a wealthy Louisiana lawyer turned preservationist who, with Mr. Landrieu’s help, hopes to prove that the old Southern plantation, or at least this one, is still very much in business.
Centuries past its prime, the Whitney Plantation sits grandly beneath a canopy of oak trees along a dusty road in St. John the Baptist Parish, a sleepy river community 35 miles northwest of New Orleans. The estate, promoted as the most complete plantation in the South, is an antebellum gem. It includes, among other things, a Creole and Greek Revival-style mansion, an overseer’s house, a blacksmith shop and the oldest kitchen in Louisiana. Built in the late 1700s by Jean Jacques Haydel Jr., the grandson of a German immigrant with a penchant for fine art, the house walls are adorned with murals said to be painted by the Italian artist Domenico Canova, a relation of the neo-Classical sculptor Antonio Canova.
Yet Mr. Landrieu is far less interested in the Haydels than the legacy of the 254 slaves who once inhabited the nearly dozen shacks behind the big house during Whitney’s reign among the largest sugar farms in Louisiana. His muddy shoes planted in front of a row of neatly situated sun-bleached shacks during a recent visit, Mr. Landrieu nudged a reporter toward what he likes to call a living museum:
“Go on in. You have to go inside. When you walk in that space, you can’t deny what happened to these people. You can feel it, touch it, smell it.”
He compared the experience to visiting the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
Personal politics aside, in an era of proliferating theme parks and “Girls Gone Wild” spring breaks, it is entirely possible that hanging out in former slave quarters — or, for that matter, the adjacent so-called “nigger pen” lockup — runs counter to most Americans’ idea of a vacation. But in post-Katrina Louisiana, where an antidote to recent images of black disillusionment, despair and displacement has so far proven elusive, the recently started African-American Heritage Trail offers a disarmingly triumphant immersion into Louisiana’s rich black history and culture through such powerful juxtapositions of freedom and bondage and the creativity that sprung out of both conditions.
Served up in heaping gumbo-style portions, the African-American Heritage Trail is not always easy to digest: it spans 26 sites, wending its way through museums, marketplaces and cemeteries from New Orleans to Shreveport.
To be sure, this is one wandering, race-obsessed road trip: not even those tasty Cracklin or Boudin balls at Highway 190 truck stops, or the reassuring baritone of the actor Louis Gossett Jr., who narrates a fact-filled audiotape of people and places, can always cut the lull of hundreds of miles of often barren, rural highway. And if you’re toting kids as this trailee was, you might feel at points as if you’re driving the African-American Headache Trail.
But if you can hang in, there’s a realism to this traveling history lesson, with a richly tactile and authentic quality. You’ll find it as you stand in front of the childhood home of Homer Plessy, whose refusal to move from the “whites only” section of a rail car would lead to the landmark Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson; as you take in the story of Madame C. J. Walker, the hair-care entrepreneur who bootstrapped her way out of poverty to become the nation’s first black female millionaire; as you stroll through Armstrong Park in New Orleans, named to honor the jazz pioneering work of Louis Armstrong. And of course it’s there in the Cajun and Creole cooking that puts an exclamation mark behind each stop.
In a state that relishes its contradictions, Louisiana’s African-American trail is actually the brainchild of Mr. Landrieu, the white liberal scion of a famous Louisiana political family. In the 1970s, his father, Maurice Edwin Landrieu, known as Moon, made history, and his share of enemies, when as New Orleans mayor, he hired the first blacks into his administration. Mitch, a self-proclaimed champion of social justice, said he conceived the trail as a way of brokering dialogue between the races at a time when the nation sorely needed it, an idea that gained urgency in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“We want to transform the discussion about race and poverty in America,” said the 47-year-old Mr. Landrieu, who served 16 years in the State House of Representatives (his father and sister, Mary Landrieu, also a Democrat and currently a United States Senator, held the same seat). “Many, many white people and black people of good will have been separated by ideological fights that have been powerful. But you can’t transform the discussion if you can’t remember what happened.”
Mr. Cummings puts it another way: “Is black men not caring for their children today in any way connected to slavery? These are the kinds of questions we should be asking. I want to get beyond the moonlight and magnolia myths of the plantation.”
There is a more practical basis for the trail also. “There’s not enough money to build a museum in every parish in Louisiana,” Mr. Landrieu said. So, over the past couple of years, he has spearheaded an effort to link private-sector cultural attractions into a network of state-sponsored tourism programs, from bird-watching to golf tours. The African-American Heritage Trail is but the latest example of fiscal creativity with Louisiana’s tourism program.
“The whole state of Louisiana really is a museum,” he said.
At the turn of the 19th century, Louisiana was a major player in the Deep South in international slave trade, thanks to its location on the Mississippi River and its rise as a sugar capital. Far more compelling than its robust slave population, though, was the culture that developed around it, as a blend of French governance, liberal manumission laws and tradition of racial mixing created an especially unique twist to an already peculiar institution.
A trail weighted with such historical crosscurrents could easily turn into a kind of four-wheel Rubik’s Cube in the wrong guide’s hands. That is why what appears at first blush a freewheeling journey that can begin and end virtually anywhere in Louisiana is best approached with a degree of conformity.
There are some obvious reasons to start the trail in New Orleans, including the fact that airfares to there will most likely be cheapest. But perhaps the most compelling reason to begin in New Orleans is that one of the oldest, richest strains of African-American culture flows directly from there, or more specifically, from Tremé, which according to historians, is the nation’s oldest surviving black community. On the northern fringe of the French Quarter, Tremé, also known as Faubourg Tremé, bears resemblance to a well-to-do Caribbean community, with pastel-colored Creole and shotgun-style cottages and Greek Revival-style homes lining narrow shaded streets.
Throughout the 19th century, Tremé (named after Claude Tremé, a Frenchman who split up the lots and sold them off) was populated by free people of color — many of them fair-skinned French-speaking Creoles — who identified more with their European than African ancestry as they dominated the trades as merchants, businessmen and real estate speculators.
In many cases, their ascension up the social ladder was orchestrated through Cordon Bleu or quadroon balls, private soirees in which wealthy Creole families presented their daughters to white suitors for long-term relationships.
So fascinating are the quadroon balls that you’ll want to visit the African-American Museum, located in the heart of Tremé, for more nitty gritty on these affairs, as well as the lowdown on Tremé’s most infamous Creole woman, Marie Laveau, known as the voodoo queen, who is believed to have resided, at one point, in the Passebon Cottage on the museum’s property.
The centerpiece of Tremé, though, is St. Augustine Catholic Church, which embodies much of the community’s complex cultural narrative. Built in the mid 1800s at the request of people of color, St. Augustine remains the spiritual nerve center of the New Orleans black community.
The church also has the distinction of being one of the nation’s first integrated churches thanks to a legendary “War of the Pews” in which free people of color and whites one-upped one another in purchasing family pews for Sunday Mass. Free blacks not only nabbed two pews for every white family pew, but also gave them as gifts to their enslaved black brethren. After church, and filled with the spirit, colored congregants would migrate to Congo Square (today within Louis Armstrong Park) where they would sing, dance and play music in their native African traditions.
With the French Quarter so nearby, dinner at the Praline Connection, a black-owned, child-friendly Creole soul food joint in neighboring Faubourg Marigny, is a good way to cap the evening — and the New Orleans portion of the trail. While this unpretentious, affordable place, isn’t exactly historic — it was founded in 1990 — its gumbo has earned praise from locals, as have the smothered pork chops and other specialties. And kids, exhausted by now, will squeal as straight-faced waiters serve up fried alligator as nonchalantly as a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
A few sites on the heritage trail veer from Mr. Landrieu’s “living museum” construct, though they are not necessarily any less satisfying. Among them is the River Road African-American Museum, in the town of Donaldsonville, about 65 miles north of New Orleans. The River Road area is brimming with historical significance: Donaldsonville elected the nation’s first African-American mayor, Pierre Caliste Landry, in 1868, Others who hail from the area include King Oliver, Louis Armstrong’s musical mentor, and a corps of enslaved African-American soldiers who fought with the Union at nearby Fort Butler.
The museum’s founder, Kathe Hambrick, a native of Donaldsonville, enthuses over their tales to audiences as though reminiscing over her own family scrapbook. Ms. Hambrick started the museum in 1994 after living for several years in California.
“Everywhere I turned, there was this word ‘plantation,’ ” Ms. Hambrick said. “And every time I heard it, I would get this knot in my stomach. One day I decided to take one of these plantation tours. It was all about antiques, furniture, architecture and the wealthy lifestyle. But I wanted to know how many lives of my ancestors did it take to produce one cup of sugar.”
Since then, Ms. Hambrick has assembled a collection that combines everything from shackles and plantation tools with antebellum maps and deeds from slave auctions. The production is heavy stuff, and its details, while fascinating to adults, may be less so to small children yearning to return to the open air.
But a couple of hours north, the Louisiana landscape opens wide, and as you travel along Highway 1 toward the town of Natchitoches (pronounced NACK-ah-tish), home of the Cane River Creoles, the hard stories in Donaldsonville fade under the great magnolias that shade the entrance of Melrose Plantation. This is where the love story of Marie-Therese, known as Coincoin, the grand matriarch of Melrose, took place.
Raised as a slave in the household of a Louisiana military commander, Marie-Therese was later sold to Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer, a French merchant. The two fell in love and she eventually bore him 10 children. Marie-Therese and her children eventually gained their freedom and became wealthy landowners in their own right. As the story goes, Marie-Therese Metoyer owned slaves but also bought many slaves their freedom along the way.
One of her sons, Nicholas Augustin Metoyer, financed the first Catholic church in the United States built for people of color. St. Augustine Catholic Church was founded in 1803 and is located in Natchitoches.
The story of the Metoyers seems to illustrate Mr. Landrieu’s belief that the trail “is about so much more than civil rights — it’s about hope.” He paused, and rephrased his thought for wider appeal. “This trail is really about how hope hits the streets.”
IF YOU GO
The Web site for the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail, louisianatravel.com/explore/cultural_history/african_american_heritage_trail, offers maps and detailed information on the trail’s sites. You can also call (800) 474-8626.
WHERE TO EAT
The Praline Connection (542 Frenchman Street; 504-943-3934; www.pralineconnection.com) in the New Orleans neighborhood of Faubourg Marigny offers affordable local dishes like gumbo and smothered pork chops. Entrees $12.95 to $19.95.
In a restored Art Deco building in historic Donaldsonville, the Grapevine Cafe and Gallery (211 Railroad Avenue; 225-473-8463; www.grapevinecafeandgallery.com) offers arty atmosphere and lauded South Louisiana cuisine, like crawfish étouffée ($13.95) and seafood gumbo ($5.25).
WHERE TO STAY
The major hotel chains might offer convenience for families, but Louisiana boasts a wide array of B & B alternatives. In New Orleans, the Hubbard Mansion Bed and Breakfast (3535 St. Charles Avenue, 504-897-3535; www.hubbardmansion.com), set behind oaks along St. Charles Avenue, blends modern amenities with classic charm for about $160 a night.
Farther north, near Melrose Plantation along the Cane River in historical Natchitoches, there’s the cozy Creole Rose Estates Bed and Breakfast (318-357-0384; www.creoleroseestates.com), a three-bedroom waterfront getaway with scrumptious Creole meals cooked by the host, Janet LaCour. Rates range from $145 for two people to $250 for six people a night.
RON STODGHILL, a former staff writer for The Times, wrote “Redbone: Money, Malice and Murder in Atlanta.”
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 16:03 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Quote:
But perhaps the most compelling reason to begin in New Orleans is that one of the oldest, richest strains of African-American culture flows directly from there, or more specifically, from Tremé, which according to historians, is the nation’s oldest surviving black community.
after reading the article and quotes such as the one featured above, can you honest say the title of this thread is accurate? Seems like you attempting to deny African Americans a piece of their heritage
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 394 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 16:30 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
anonymouse wrote:
after reading the article and quotes such as the one featured above, can you honest say the title of this thread is accurate? Seems like you attempting to deny African Americans a piece of their heritage
I don't think that to be the case, however, when I talk about the Louisiana Creole culture having been "hijacked," things like this article is exactly what I'm talking about - i.e., attributing things of this culture to the general African American population.
This is just one example of what I talk about alot - i.e., if a one-droppist can't make you black, then they'll just make themselves mulatto (in the Louisiana Creole case, things like non-Creoles naming their children "Andre," "Antione," among other things, etc) - either way, the effect is to make the mulatto indistinguishable.
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 16:55 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
after reading the article and quotes such as the one featured above, can you honest say the title of this thread is accurate? Seems like you attempting to deny African Americans a piece of their heritage
I don't think that to be the case, however, when I talk about the Louisiana Creole culture having been "hijacked," things like this article is exactly what I'm talking about - i.e., attributing things of this culture to the general African American population.
This is just one example of what I talk about alot - i.e., if a one-droppist can't make you black, then they'll just make themselves mulatto (in the Louisiana Creole case, things like non-Creoles naming their children "Andre," "Antione," among other things, etc) - either way, the effect is to make the mulatto indistinguishable.
But in this case SOMEONE is hijacking a part of African American culture because in all seriousness how can you ignore or remove the African American quotient from Louisiana Creole history?
the part about the names is downright silly. Naming a child a french derived name in no way shape or form diminishes anyone's history or culture.
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 394 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 17:19 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
anonymouse wrote:
But in this case SOMEONE is hijacking a part of African American culture because in all seriousness how can you ignore or remove the African American quotient from Louisiana Creole history?
A "Louisiana Creole" is pretty much defined a descendant of anyone who was a settler in Louisiana, while it was still a French colony, prior to it becoming part of the United States - this was in 1803. Therefore, they're technically not "African American" in the same sense as those from the states to the east, as the "African American" culture had been forming up long before this. All of this said, I don't see a real "African American quotient" - I'm mulatto, and I live six hours from the Texas/Louisiana state line - but moving to Louisiana and being mulatto is not going to make me Creole. In the end, this isn't something for African Americans to claim.
anonymouse wrote:
the part about the names is downright silly. Naming a child a french derived name in no way shape or form diminishes anyone's history or culture.
The names were an example of one aspect of hijacking another people, in order to keep those people from being distinguished from their own. While I can't say that this is the intent of those who do that, it sure was a desired effect.
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 18:30 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
But in this case SOMEONE is hijacking a part of African American culture because in all seriousness how can you ignore or remove the African American quotient from Louisiana Creole history?
A "Louisiana Creole" is pretty much defined a descendant of anyone who was a settler in Louisiana, while it was still a French colony, prior to it becoming part of the United States - this was in 1803. Therefore, they're technically not "African American" in the same sense as those from the states to the east, as the "African American" culture had been forming up long before this. All of this said, I don't see a real "African American quotient" - I'm mulatto, and I live six hours from the Texas/Louisiana state line - but moving to Louisiana and being mulatto is not going to make me Creole. In the end, this isn't something for African Americans to claim.
The thread title seems to negate the contributions of African Americans to "Creole Culture". And while I am not even a novice on this topic it seems to me that unless "Creole Culture" stagnated and never changed after 1803 it is curious to imply that African Americans have not contributed nor are connected to Creole Culture.
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 19:27 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
anonymouse wrote:
The thread title seems to negate the contributions of African Americans to "Creole Culture". And while I am not even a novice on this topic it seems to me that unless "Creole Culture" stagnated and never changed after 1803 it is curious to imply that African Americans have not contributed nor are connected to Creole Culture.
I also am not comfortable with the idea that African Americans are "stealing" Creole culture, or even that such a thing as reprehensible cultural expropriation is even possible. But to answer the specific question of African-American influence on Creole culture, it depends on what you mean by "African American."
On the one hand, since around 1700 the descendants of Africans in America contributed profoundly to the culture of the gens de couleur libre in language, music, folklore, religion, costume, foods, child-rearing, and everything else that makes any culture unique. The syncretic religious practices usually called "voodoo" are Yoruba. The Bantu word for the vegetable that you call "okra," is "gumbo."
On the other hand, the ethnic traits that we associate with African Americans today: church-centered social life, Protestantism, English language, distinctive pronunciation, passionate belief in hypodescent, moderately strong belief in the ODR, self-perception as a distinct nationwide (rather than regional) ethnic community, and so forth, were unknown among the gens de couleur libre until after the Civil War, when they were brought in by Black Yankees. The Creole culture was then forcibly split into Black and White branches by Jim Crow.
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 394 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 21:50 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
fwsweet wrote:
I also am not comfortable with the idea that African Americans are "stealing" Creole culture, or even that such a thing as reprehensible cultural expropriation is even possible.
If we stop and think about it, isn't the one drop rule a perfect example of cultural expropration?
To give examples of what I'm talking about: Beyonce and Lynn Whitfield, among many other Creole-identified celebrities. Do these people appear to belong to a culture that's separate from the general African American culture? Unless someone else sees something that I don't, I'd have to say a big fat "no". Not even those that I know personally appear to.
Whatever culture they may have had was probably stripped during the Civil Rights era, when they successfully pressured into IDing as black.
Posted: Tue 27 May 2008 23:53 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
fwsweet wrote:
I also am not comfortable with the idea that African Americans are "stealing" Creole culture, or even that such a thing as reprehensible cultural expropriation is even possible.
If we stop and think about it, isn't the one drop rule a perfect example of cultural expropration?
To give examples of what I'm talking about: Beyonce and Lynn Whitfield, among many other Creole-identified celebrities. Do these people appear to belong to a culture that's separate from the general African American culture? Unless someone else sees something that I don't, I'd have to say a big fat "no". Not even those that I know personally appear to.
Whatever culture they may have had was probably stripped during the Civil Rights era, when they successfully pressured into IDing as black.
You act as if one must choose to embrace one and only one culture, a strange attitude to adopt considering that you celebrate your mulatto heritage.
And why do you suggest that identifying as 'black' somehow negates one's culture? Heck I think we'd all be hard pressed to identify what/happens in these people's lives when the cameras are not rolling
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 00:35 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
fwsweet wrote:
I also am not comfortable with the idea that African Americans are "stealing" Creole culture, or even that such a thing as reprehensible cultural expropriation is even possible.
If we stop and think about it, isn't the one drop rule a perfect example of cultural expropration?
To give examples of what I'm talking about: Beyonce and Lynn Whitfield, among many other Creole-identified celebrities. Do these people appear to belong to a culture that's separate from the general African American culture? Unless someone else sees something that I don't, I'd have to say a big fat "no". Not even those that I know personally appear to.
Whatever culture they may have had was probably stripped during the Civil Rights era, when they successfully pressured into IDing as black.
No it isn't. You're neglecting to mention the outmarriage and blending that has happened over generations. Louisiana Creoles have married outside of their cultural group for centuries, and many married Black American Anglos. Tina Knowles is a prime example. So is my father (not directly Lousiana Creole but part of the same diaspora of mulatto folks who emigrated from Haiti. My mother is from LA and has Creole relatives (her great-uncles I believe). So all of this talk of "hijacking" is really inappropriate unless one contends that generations of Creoles were forced to outmarry. It is true that the ODR has blurred the lines between formerly distinct ethnic communities with acknowledged African genetic roots, but so has the behavior of Creoles themselves.
Cultural amalgamation is rarely one-sided. We should be mindful not to caricature a phenomenon that has happened since the beginning of time. It is sad to lose a culture but one could make the argument that the Lousiana Purchase/Anglo dominance spelled the beginning of the end, not the ODR. AND the culture isn't dead. The traditions are known and they can be revived and passed down through families.
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 394 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 03:00 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
anonymouse wrote:
Heck I think we'd all be hard pressed to identify what/happens in these people's lives when the cameras are not rolling
I knew that the fake ignorance that you're known for would come sooner or later.
But let me tell you something - I consider Dover, Delaware to be home. If you're from the Mid-Atlantic area, the Louisiana Creoles were a people that you only read about. Their distinct culture apart from other monoracial people served as an inspiration for many.
In 2002, I went to New Orleans for the first time - I considered this to be my pilgrimage, no different from a Muslim who's going to Mecca. And I got a nice heavy dose of reality that slapped me right in the face.
I interacted with the locals, I immersed myself as much as possible. In 2006, I moved to San Antonio. I'm six hours away from the Louisiana state line, so I'm there every now and then - but I still don't have to go far, because there's a good amount of Creole-identified people right here in San Antonio. What do I find?
That these people claiming to be Creole is not much different than the redneck next door, Billy Joe Connor, telling you that he's Irish. This Milwaukee's Best chuggin', country music listenin', trucker hat wearin' guy is not much different from any other white person you know - but "Irish" happens to be a more "formal" or "dignified" title on top of or as opposed to mere whiteness. From what I observe, "Creole" isn't any different.
sagascend wrote:
No it isn't.
I guess my mistake was saying this in the form of a question. As a mulatto, when I'm told to abide by ODR, it IS an attempted hijack...
I remember about a year ago, this guy who worked for me was talking to me about hip-hop artists that I'd never heard of. He noticed the puzzled look on my face, and I explained to him that I didn't know who he was talking about. You know what this kid said to me? "You need to start listening to hip hop, it's a part of your culture."
In this situation, ODR was not explicitly stated, but the implication was definitely there.
To sum that situation up, whatever real or perceived culture that I belonged to, he was trying to yank me out of and drag into his. If that's not a hijack, I don't know what is. And that's a mere microcosm of things that many mulattoes have to put up with!
sagascend wrote:
You're neglecting to mention the outmarriage and blending that has happened over generations. Louisiana Creoles have married outside of their cultural group for centuries, and many married Black American Anglos. Tina Knowles is a prime example. So is my father (not directly Lousiana Creole but part of the same diaspora of mulatto folks who emigrated from Haiti. My mother is from LA and has Creole relatives (her great-uncles I believe). So all of this talk of "hijacking" is really inappropriate unless one contends that generations of Creoles were forced to outmarry. It is true that the ODR has blurred the lines between formerly distinct ethnic communities with acknowledged African genetic roots, but so has the behavior of Creoles themselves.
Cultural amalgamation is rarely one-sided. We should be mindful not to caricature a phenomenon that has happened since the beginning of time.
And so have many other ethnic groups - but exogamy hasn't cause these ethnic groups to go anywhere. The reason I didn't mention exogamous Creoles is because I didn't believe it to be vital to the discussion. "Hijacking" would be the reason they went from being in the middle of a three-tiered caste system to the bottom of a two-tiered - unless we think it was voluntary on their part; not something that the Creoles of old are known for.
sagascend wrote:
It is sad to lose a culture but one could make the argument that the Lousiana Purchase/Anglo dominance spelled the beginning of the end, not the ODR. AND the culture isn't dead. The traditions are known and they can be revived and passed down through families.
Yes, one could make that argument, but this argument doesn't rule out ODR's effect.
From what I see, saying that the Creole culture is not dead is analogous to saying that Latin is not a dead language, and citing the Vatican as an example. In other words, what's left is the result of a conscious effort to preserve it.
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 03:30 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
Heck I think we'd all be hard pressed to identify what/happens in these people's lives when the cameras are not rolling
I knew that the fake ignorance that you're known for would come sooner or later.
Some people tend to run on at the mouth and post some of the most inane concepts and try to pass them off as facts. I just give people enough rope to hang themselves with so if you want to call that "fake ignorance" so be it.
You listed a singer and an actress with known public personas. Who the hell knows what they do in and/or how they conduct themselves in their personal lives. Is it that hard to understand?
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 394 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 03:43 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
anonymouse wrote:
Some people tend to run on at the mouth and post some of the most inane concepts and try to pass them off as facts. I just give people enough rope to hang themselves with so if you want to call that "fake ignorance" so be it.
You listed a singer and an actress with known public personas. Who the hell knows what they do in and/or how they conduct themselves in their personal lives. Is it that hard to understand?
Yes, I know your tactic - but while "straw man" is the most called-out fallacy on this forum, your tactic is also a fallacy known as argumentum ad ignorantiam. I'm very familiar with this, so don't expect to see me "hang myself" any time soon.
By the way, you'll notice that I mentioned "those that I know personally" in that same paragraph. You can have your rope back.
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 04:02 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
Some people tend to run on at the mouth and post some of the most inane concepts and try to pass them off as facts. I just give people enough rope to hang themselves with so if you want to call that "fake ignorance" so be it.
You listed a singer and an actress with known public personas. Who the hell knows what they do in and/or how they conduct themselves in their personal lives. Is it that hard to understand?
Yes, I know your tactic - but while "straw man" is the most called-out fallacy on this forum, your tactic is also a fallacy known as argumentum ad ignorantiam. I'm very familiar with this, so don't expect to see me "hang myself" any time soon.
By the way, you'll notice that I mentioned "those that I know personally" in that same paragraph. You can have your rope back.
continued responses will definitely steer this thread further off topic - I'll respond via PM.
But I notice you did not acknowledge the truth of what I said about entertainers and their private vs public life/personas. Use better examples and avoid sweeping generalizations and you won't hear a peep from me.
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 04:18 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
fwsweet wrote:
I also am not comfortable with the idea that African Americans are "stealing" Creole culture, or even that such a thing as reprehensible cultural expropriation is even possible.
If we stop and think about it, isn't the one drop rule a perfect example of cultural expropration?
To give examples of what I'm talking about: Beyonce and Lynn Whitfield, among many other Creole-identified celebrities. Do these people appear to belong to a culture that's separate from the general African American culture? Unless someone else sees something that I don't, I'd have to say a big fat "no". Not even those that I know personally appear to.
Well Beyonces Creole heritage comes from her mother and her grandmother. They are Creole.
Lynn Whitfield comes from a similar background. She talked about her creole heritage more so than an african american heritage. She said she was raised by creole people.
Whatever culture they may have had was probably stripped during the Civil Rights era, when they successfully pressured into IDing as black.
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 04:25 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
Heck I think we'd all be hard pressed to identify what/happens in these people's lives when the cameras are not rolling
I knew that the fake ignorance that you're known for would come sooner or later.
But let me tell you something - I consider Dover, Delaware to be home. If you're from the Mid-Atlantic area, the Louisiana Creoles were a people that you only read about. Their distinct culture apart from other monoracial people served as an inspiration for many.
In 2002, I went to New Orleans for the first time - I considered this to be my pilgrimage, no different from a Muslim who's going to Mecca. And I got a nice heavy dose of reality that slapped me right in the face.
I interacted with the locals, I immersed myself as much as possible. In 2006, I moved to San Antonio. I'm six hours away from the Louisiana state line, so I'm there every now and then - but I still don't have to go far, because there's a good amount of Creole-identified people right here in San Antonio. What do I find?
That these people claiming to be Creole is not much different than the redneck next door, Billy Joe Connor, telling you that he's Irish. This Milwaukee's Best chuggin', country music listenin', trucker hat wearin' guy is not much different from any other white person you know - but "Irish" happens to be a more "formal" or "dignified" title on top of or as opposed to mere whiteness. From what I observe, "Creole" isn't any different.
sagascend wrote:
No it isn't.
I guess my mistake was saying this in the form of a question. As a mulatto, when I'm told to abide by ODR, it IS an attempted hijack...
I remember about a year ago, this guy who worked for me was talking to me about hip-hop artists that I'd never heard of. He noticed the puzzled look on my face, and I explained to him that I didn't know who he was talking about. You know what this kid said to me? "You need to start listening to hip hop, it's a part of your culture."
In this situation, ODR was not explicitly stated, but the implication was definitely there.
Not really, that could have been said a non mixed black person who didn't know, they all don't listen to rap.
Many would say Hip Hop is a part of Puerto Rican culture too via NYC
Many hip hop artists are visually mixed (especially those from the beginning) or biracial. So the ODR most likely was not the culprit.
To sum that situation up, whatever real or perceived culture that I belonged to, he was trying to yank me out of and drag into his. If that's not a hijack, I don't know what is. And that's a mere microcosm of things that many mulattoes have to put up with!
sagascend wrote:
You're neglecting to mention the outmarriage and blending that has happened over generations. Louisiana Creoles have married outside of their cultural group for centuries, and many married Black American Anglos. Tina Knowles is a prime example. So is my father (not directly Lousiana Creole but part of the same diaspora of mulatto folks who emigrated from Haiti. My mother is from LA and has Creole relatives (her great-uncles I believe). So all of this talk of "hijacking" is really inappropriate unless one contends that generations of Creoles were forced to outmarry. It is true that the ODR has blurred the lines between formerly distinct ethnic communities with acknowledged African genetic roots, but so has the behavior of Creoles themselves.
Cultural amalgamation is rarely one-sided. We should be mindful not to caricature a phenomenon that has happened since the beginning of time.
And so have many other ethnic groups - but exogamy hasn't cause these ethnic groups to go anywhere. The reason I didn't mention exogamous Creoles is because I didn't believe it to be vital to the discussion. "Hijacking" would be the reason they went from being in the middle of a three-tiered caste system to the bottom of a two-tiered - unless we think it was voluntary on their part; not something that the Creoles of old are known for.
sagascend wrote:
It is sad to lose a culture but one could make the argument that the Lousiana Purchase/Anglo dominance spelled the beginning of the end, not the ODR. AND the culture isn't dead. The traditions are known and they can be revived and passed down through families.
Yes, one could make that argument, but this argument doesn't rule out ODR's effect.
From what I see, saying that the Creole culture is not dead is analogous to saying that Latin is not a dead language, and citing the Vatican as an example. In other words, what's left is the result of a conscious effort to preserve it.
Joined: 26 May 2007 {Posts: 394 } Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 12:12 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
anonymouse wrote:
But I notice you did not acknowledge the truth of what I said about entertainers and their private vs public life/personas. Use better examples and avoid sweeping generalizations and you won't hear a peep from me.
The reason why, is because I wasn't talking specifically about them, but using them as examples. In fact, my exact words were:
"Do these people appear to belong to a culture that's separate from the general African American culture? Unless someone see something that I don't, I'd have to say a big fat "no."
Now where, exactly, do you get a statement of fact out of this? I can, however, confirm what I said about those that I live around.
To Gemini - what this person knows or doesn't know; whether hip hop is part of this culture and/or that culture is all irrelevant. The point is this - hip hop is a cultural norm - of some larger culture - that this guy saw that I wasn't embracing, and he was telling me that I needed to. All else being equal, that's a cultural hijack.
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 12:39 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
...hip hop is a cultural norm... that this guy saw that I wasn't embracing, and he was telling me that I needed to. All else being equal, that's a cultural hijack.
If it is a frequent problem, you might want to cultivate a Spanish accent. That will end it on the spot. <grin>
Seriously, I am still uncomfortable with the term "cultural hijack" because it is unclear whether it denotes something harmful to an entire group (by changing its customs) or something irritating to an individual (by attributing culture).
In any event, whatever you call it, the example of your being stereotyped seems too broad. Many of our A-A re-enactor friends are expected to adhere to ignorant questioners' stereotypes. Mary Lee and I wince every time a buddy in Union uniform is trying to explain how to load a musket and some yoyo asks him about Sharpton.
I thought that we were talking about Americans today calling themselves "Creole" while simultaneously self-identifying as "Black" (or White). Over a century ago, such a dual self-identity (Creole and Black) would have been very strange since the labels were seen as mutually exclusive. But nowadays, ever since the Creole community was forced to split into Black and White branches, people of both branches who feel a bond to their Creole roots often claim such dual self-identities. As Maya pointed out, they see the duality as similar to "Trini and Black" or "Haitian and Black" (which never were mutually exclusive categories).
Posted: Wed 28 May 2008 12:57 Post subject: Re: Stealing more Creole History for African-Americans
Richard Miller wrote:
anonymouse wrote:
But I notice you did not acknowledge the truth of what I said about entertainers and their private vs public life/personas. Use better examples and avoid sweeping generalizations and you won't hear a peep from me.
The reason why, is because I wasn't talking specifically about them, but using them as examples. In fact, my exact words were:
"Do these people appear to belong to a culture that's separate from the general African American culture? Unless someone see something that I don't, I'd have to say a big fat "no."
I hear what your saying. But how much different are they supposed to be? Is a person no longer Puerto Rican if they don't speak with an accent, now pentecostal and not Catholic and can't salsa dance?
I hear and understand your points of the specific cultural nuances of Louisiana Creole culture. But how does a person remain that while being a part of mainstream American culture.
Now where, exactly, do you get a statement of fact out of this? I can, however, confirm what I said about those that I live around.
To Gemini - what this person knows or doesn't know; whether hip hop is part of this culture and/or that culture is all irrelevant. The point is this - hip hop is a cultural norm - of some larger culture - that this guy saw that I wasn't embracing, and he was telling me that I needed to.
My point was that the ODR doesn't really have to be influencing his demand. If Wesley Snipes says he doesn't embrace hip hop, and many people who look like him do not, people will say the same thing to him. Black & White.
'
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