In preparing to come to college as a first year student, I was worried about a million different things; in retrospect, they weren’t really things I needed to worry about when it comes to college life. Ultimately, my petty concerns were either easily resolved within a couple of months or forgotten about in as much time. That said, I soon realized that there are far bigger problems in the world than deciding on what outfit I would wear to orientation or whether I would make friends.
This realization became clear to me as soon as my first meal in Bruff, Tulane’s beloved former dining hall. When heading to the dish return, I noticed that the dining room was separated from the kitchen by a large metal divider, reaching just high enough for the staff’s hands to be able to pass underneath to take students’ dirty dishes. Each time I returned my dishes and witnessed countless silent, anonymous exchanges between service workers and students, a queasy feeling washed over me – not one attributable to Bruff’s less-than-palatable food. After leaving the dining hall, I was always left with the image of black hands reaching under that divider only to be met with the dishes of the primarily white student body. Despite Tulane’s carefully curated image of a university imbued with the rich culture of New Orleans, campus life usually remains self-involved with little to no connectivity to real issues that are present in the city; however, the sebogustic* feeling I got from these practically segregated exchanges proved to me that even the “Tulane bubble” isn’t impenetrable.
As I became more familiar with Tulane and its complicated relationship with the New Orleans community, it became clear that the unsettling aspect of this mental image was an indicator of a much broader social issue at play for which Tulane and New Orleans is merely a microcosm. In the essay “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?”, James Baldwin argues that classifying Black English as merely a dialect rather than its own language undermines its significance as a cultural instrument used to “confront life in order… to outwit death” (2). By highlighting the historical origins that tie the creation of Black English to the unique experience of every black individual in America, Baldwin asserts that the use of the language itself carries a significant cultural weight – one that the same people who deny the language’s existence often leave unacknowledged. Ironically, the white majority culture that ignores the weight Black English bears often incorporates and perverts certain phrases from it into their vocabulary, effectively stripping the language of its original relevance to black culture. Therein lies the issue which my experience in Bruff represents: language is only one aspect of the rich African American history from which others borrow or exploit without acknowledging its cultural origins. As Tulane markets a 59.7% black city’s (“U.S.”) culture, traditions, and institutions to a 70.6% white student population (“Tulane”), the divide between the black inhabitants of New Orleans and the transient visitors who enjoy their city without acknowledging the cultural origins of what they’re enjoying seems to transcend the confines of the dining hall.
That said, New Orleans, too, is guilty of profiting off of the city’s history built by black hands while omitting the broader implications of that history as it relates to the people who founded it. For years, New Orleans has been characterized by its economic reliance on the tourism industry; however, the tourism narrative that surrounds the practice is deeply rooted in the aforementioned exploitation of black cultural productions. Pre-Hurricane Katrina, even attractions that purportedly celebrated productions like “traditional jazz performances, second line parades, and voodoo ceremonies… did so primarily by exploiting and commodifying black culture to suit mostly white visitors’ expectations” (5). Just as Baldwin claims that others’ use of black language is invariably done so in order to “serve white purposes,” certain tenets of the New Orleans culture created and perpetuated by its often economically disenfranchised black inhabitants are “wrenched from their cultural and community contexts” (5) for the enjoyment of primarily wealthy, white tourists.
However, this “history of offering up the experiences of the largely underprivileged for consumption by the privileged” (4) was not ushered out amid the social upheaval instigated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, Katrina in itself became one of the very experiences from which the privileged profit; as Anna Hartnell defines it, “Katrina tourism” created another outlet in which tourists can consume New Orleanians’ experiences with Katrina in a “satisfying blend of proximity and distance” (4). In other words, Hurricane Katrina merely amplified the existing paradox in which black customs and institutions are assumed by individuals who distance themselves from the historical experiences that led to their creation.
Although New Orleans is a small-scale paradigm for this national social issue, some organizations within the city help to combat it with missions that encourage the acknowledgement and celebration of the people and events that contributed and continue to contribute to black New Orleans culture. The strides organizations like Nola to Angola and Black Girl Giggles have taken serve as proof that a solution to curb this trend in society is viable and attainable. Though both address opposite sides of the same issue, their work in New Orleans represents a means of celebrating black culture and simultaneously spreading awareness about the uniquely black experiences that shape that culture.
Black Girl Giggles, a comedy group dedicated to “‘building and fostering a diverse and growing stand-up comedy community for comediennes of color,’” (qtd. in 3) hopes to bring that awareness to the national stage. Through monthly shows and an annual festival, the troupe encourages black women from all over the U.S. to “‘tell [their] own stor[ies]” (qtd. in 3) while simultaneously raising money for New Orleans-based charities such as CASA New Orleans and The New Orleans Women’s and Children’s Shelter. Black Girl Giggles’ work creates a unique way to unite and empower black women to share their experiences and preserve their culture; further, by fundraising for local charities, the group also helps to combat certain adversities faced by many black New Orleanians.
These adversities are often the experiences from which “tourists” of black culture prefer to keep their distance. While they seek an “‘exotic’ space of ethnic tourism” (4) in which to immerse themselves, they avoid the uncomfortable truth of where many of the cultural customs they seek actually came from. Like Black Girl Giggles, Nola to Angola puts these adverse origins at the forefront of its mission. With its specific focus on mass incarceration in Louisiana, Nola to Angola holds an annual bike ride to New Orleans’ Angola Prison to promote awareness of this injustice that targets a disproportionate amount of black Louisianans; additionally, the proceeds of the bike ride are donated to the Cornerstone Builders Bus Project whose mission is to “connect families to their incarcerated loved ones” (1). Although the organization does not necessarily represent a reclamation of black culture, its focus on tackling an injustice endemic to primarily black residents of Louisiana brings attention to one of the more overlooked and sinister experiences that contribute to the black cultural productions enjoyed by others.
Obviously, there is no effective way of quantifying the success of such an abstract solution. However, similar strategies have been applied to combat other social issues and have seen success. For example, Zeit Online’s work in pairing Germans of differing political leanings seeks to reach an understanding between groups of people with different worldviews (5)– something that also must be accomplished in the dynamic between local organizations and New Orleans’ culture tourists. The news website reported an overwhelming amount of respondents’ approval of the pairing system**, as they were able to learn about the circumstances that influenced other people’s beliefs and gain an understanding why they differed in political opinion. The culturally appreciative missions of New Orleans-based organizations have the potential to educate tourists in a similar manner; by offering an explanation as to why certain cultural customs exist, people who appropriate those customs may be more inclined to respect them.
This solution does present some limitations. Wang’s article fails to address the possibility that the people who choose to participate in My Country Talks may not be the people at the root of the participating countries’ political divisiveness; that is, it’s likely that people who are at the source of polarization are not willing to establish an understanding with someone of different beliefs and wouldn’t even consider taking part in this program. Thus, despite local organizations’ efforts in educating the public, their message may not even reach those who have no interest in hearing it (who may be some of the worst perpetrators of cultural appropriation). Although the concept of establishing a line of communicative understanding has some limitations, Zeit Online’s overall success is an indicator that this solution is a viable one for handling cultural appropriation in New Orleans.
*an intense feeling of unease
** ¾ of the 600 pairs who participated (5)
Works Cited
NOLAbeings
Multimedia artist Claire Bangser created NOLAbeings as a portrait-based story project that marries...
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