Ethnicity and Cultural Identity and the Black Subject - Essay Example

Ethnicity and Cultural Identity and the “Black Subject” Introduction Hall is a renowned figure, a sociologist that focuses on cultural theory and is one of the founders in the inception of the British Cultural Studies. More specifically his work is credited to have extended the depths of understanding in cultural studies with relation to gender and race and in particular around Discussions of ethnicity and cultural identity pertaining to the “black subject”. The paper is directed by the influential writings of Stuart Hall searching for understanding the black subject He purports that identity is problematical as it is in a consistent position of compromise and analysis; always changing, ever contested at times ambiguous and endlessly transposed by the elements of time, place, history, experience and culture. Hence, according to him cultural identity can’t be labelled as an ‘essence’ but rather a ‘positioning’ placed by history and culture discourses. In discussing the aforementioned topic, my outlines shall be drawn from the broad discipline of cultural studies the paper is concerned with the cultural politics concerning the ‘black subject’ as purported by Stuart Hall. He argues that the black subject is in a contest of racial stereotypes and strives to form assert a positive black identity. Hall in his dissertations on the ‘black subject’ asserts that ‘the implication ‘black’ is a politically and culturally constructed category is incorrect. In this light, it cannot be based in a set of transcendental ethnic groupings and thus partakes no guarantee in nature.’ He contends that this brings to play what he terms the “acknowledgement of a diversity and perception of the historical and cultural experience of the black subjects.” (Hall 1996, 28) As such, Stuart declared “the close of the innocent perception of the essential black subject”, and undeniably a “politics of innocence”. (Hall 1996 p 59) He supports the progression to a state of a new cultural positionality. Hall was very concerned with the way the media uses its power to propagate social values. In his instrumental book of The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media (1981 p 67), Hall asserts that the media is a primary medium of ideological dissemination giving depictions of the social world through images and symbols. In agreement with Hall, a substantial survey of study asserts that the media is a principal source of representations and a major transmitter of information within society. It contains the power to influence and shape beliefs and attitudes held in popular imagination (e.g. Ferguson, 1998 p 54). Particularly, this is of relevance with relation to convictions, understandings and attitudes towards ‘race’. It is by these ideologies that we make meaning of one’s social reality and our positionality in it. Hall further declares that the ideologies are naturalized, masked as ‘common sense.’ For instance a research by Karen Ross (1992 p 90) demonstrates that perceptions on ethnic minorities among the whites are heavily influenced by the presentations in the media. Despite recognizing the stereotypical representation of the blacks from the media, Ross affirms that the whites extended the negative attributes and ideologies as depicted in the media. Hence, in conclusion, Ross declares that the majority of white people having no firsthand experience of black culture, will have their attitudes grounded exclusively on media representations. Within these ideologies, there are politically constructed perceptions – such as depictions of ‘race’ – expressed as being ‘bestowed by nature’. This claim maintains that these institutional enable us to depictions permits us to group the world in systems of categorizations of ‘race’. In developing this theme, Peter Playdon (2001 p 43) affirms that the media still incorporates these cultural assumptions and prejudgment simply because the directors uphold these core norms and values depicting them as unself-conscious truth. He asserts that these notions may seem well hidden but in truth, they nonetheless exists. Although one can acknowledge that advertising since the 1990s has attempted to sensitively respond to different racial representation in the media more so it has embraced a wider range of black images, it is still clear that these images are consistently framed in the ‘white eye’ (Hall, 1981 p 25). Therefore in this assessment, representations of ‘blackness’ in truth do not portray the social reality in being black, but in the actual sense position the society into some ‘way of thinking about blackness’ . Despite the fact that Ross and Playdon remark that different portrayals differ in their ‘accuracy’, they however affirm that almost all depictions are culturally constructed and further positioned in a particular historical context. With regard to Ethnic minorities, these groups are marginalized through white ideologies that naturalize themselves as ‘common sense’ and the norm. in particular, Hall (1990 p 56) maintains that economic and political outlines are not only liable to the various ways within which black people, their experiences and their culture are depicted and dominated but also, with relation to Edward Said’s (1978) opinion of Orientalism, it purposes to form blacks as ‘Other’. In addition, Hall claims that this ideology is deceptive and its ‘invisible’ nature results in making black people understand themselves as ‘Other’. Hall (1990, p.52) asserts that It is a different notion to categorize an ethnicity or a group of peoples as the ‘Other’ of a dominant discourse. However, It is another matter altogether subjecting them to this ‘knowledge’, not only within the question of imposed inclination and domination but also more aligned to the of inner compulsion of the person and eventual subjective conformation to the normalized ideologies. Thus, as Hall maintains, representation does not affect the perception of ethnic groups to the society but also shapes the way these ethnic groups perceive themselves (Hall, 1990 p 56). In the 1970’s black was continuously rearticulated as being more of a political category than a racial one. This was a move by the American Civil Rights Movement in an effort to lobby for black freedom from white oppression and subjugation. Despite pushing for multiculturalism so as to attain equity in representation, the move instigated more new intricate racist images which served to not only breed existing stereotypes but establish new ones (Hall, 1981 p 91). In his affirmations, Hall upholds that the focus of enquiry should be the diversity rather than the homogeneity with relation to black experiences. He insists that it is essential to have enquiry directed towards identity open to the several, and frequently contrary, factors involved in Identity. These factors are like class, age and sexuality (Hall, 1997 p 80). Therefore, to successfully instigate democratic representation systems a new and to relieve the yolk of representation a distinctive outline of representation should be proposed. Furthermore, Hall (1989 p 44) indicates that at that time the black people came together under the political shade of ‘black’ for the purpose of pushing for matters concerning representation. The two principal goals were: 1. to ensure Black artists gain access to the rights of representation, and 2. To Challenge the existing marginalization and representation achievable by the creating ‘positive’ black images. Hall asserts that the emphasis of this challenge was fundamentally with regard to the ‘relations of representation.’ However, he suggests that the move directed to the ‘politics of representation’ mainly heralded the culmination of the essential black subject ‘Hall insists that the close of the ‘essential black subject’ eventually shall augment the acknowledgement of differences by recognizing the several subject perceptions contained within ethnic minorities (Hall, 1989 p 45). Classification, breaking down diversity of humanity in to small distinctions to is a fundamental concept to human thinking. Nevertheless, one shouldn’t guarantee the accuracy of an individual’s politics on the basis of race (Said & Jhally, 2002 p54). Being black does not mean that your politics are right. You can’t just depend on your race to propel you to achieving your political objective. It is undeniable that race is a lengthy construct but what matters is the conceptual framework of thought we utilize to discern the difference in races. That is the different markings of one group results in being treated in a different way from another. More seriously, the global dislocating effects of political organization on the issues of race and racism, the education of perceiving race as a signifier of power have not been adequately projected or assessed. There are still rigorous studies that seek to find a correlation between racial characteristics with cultural and political performance. Hall’s primary argument is that all hypothesis attempting to prove scientifically that biological genes are what shapes characteristics and in this note that blacks are not as intelligent as whites have failed (Hall, 1990 p75). Pines (1992 p 90) in this context notes that owing to Hall’s re-contextualization of culture and identity, black film-makers made the most use of opportunities to explore black political and cultural issues. As Pines asserts, these films challenged conventional forms of representation for the ethnic minorities rooting from the relations in the different races and multicultural approaches. In addition they challenged power relations that is depicted in mainstream cinema practice. Conclusion In a brief overview of Hall’s works one can understand the claims that the media depictions of ethnic minorities are politically motivated through white ideologies. His analysis has further and methods which he has suggested as strategies that undermine this cultural dominance. The battle for representation control is an essential one since representation does not just depict the reality ‘as it is’, but it also shapes that reality in the social environment through forming perceptions, views and understandings in the audience. Similarly, we are aware that black people in fact have a wide scope of diverse political positions: progressive, reactionary, conservative and more to that. This explicitly disapproves scientific studies of race as a signifier and that thus all that blacks do is not shaped by their genetic or biological disposition (Hall, 1981 p 54). This doesn’t mean by that of course that it’s black people or black politics that’s only involved. The reason why it matters is not for the reason for what’s in our genes but rather it’s for what is in our history (Fatima, 2008 p 56). The reason is that black people in history have been placed in a certain position in society for a long time now. The question that seems profound in all this will be ‘is there a way in which a new phase of black cultural politics can replace the existent system? Hall states even though we may be moving to a different phase in black cultural politics it does not necessarily mean that the switch will be a total substitution of one kind of politics with another. This is because the original critique of the principal relations of race and representation of politics which have developed around it have developed and hence cannot disappear while the conditions that gave rise to cultural racism continue to flourish. Hence the shift is best seen as a form of change from a struggle over the relations of representations to a politics of representation itself (Hall, 1990 9). In this vein, those are the conditions they are still in and that’s what they’re fighting against. And of course that matters, but then black, the term black, is denoting to a long history of political and historical oppression. It is not talking about our biology. The culmination of the essential black subject entails a recognition in that core issues related to race will always seem historically in articulation with other categories and divisions that are constantly crossed and re-crossed by gender, class and ethnicity (Hall, 1996 78). Hence if the black subject is not balanced by nature or by some other indispensable guarantee, then the case must apply that they are constructed historically, politically and/ or culturally (Hall, 1989 78). Bibliography. Fatimah, Awan (2008). The Cultural Politics Of Race. Northampton, Ma, Media Education Foundation. At Http://Www.Artlab.Org.Uk/Fatimah-Awan-Phd.Htm 12 Ferguson, D. (1998). Cultural Studies: Pluralism And Theory. Melbourne, University Of Hall, S. (1981). Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers In Cultural Studies, 1972-79. London, London: Hutchinson In Association With The Centre For Contemporary Cultural Studies, University Of Birmingham. Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations And Signifying Practices. London, Sage In Association With The Open University. Hall, S., & Jacques, M. (1989). New Times: The Changing Face Of Politics In The 1990s. London, Lawrence & Wishart In Association With Marxism Today. Hall, S., & Jacques, M. (1990). New Times: The Changing Face Of Politics In The 1990s. London, Verso. Hall, S., Morley, D., & Chen, K.-H. (1996). Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues In Cultural Studies. London, Rutledge. Melbourne. Pines, J. (1992). Black And White In Color: Black People In British Television Since 1936. London, Bfi Pub. Ross, K. (1992). Television In Black And White: Ethnic Stereotypes And Popular Television. Coventry, Centre For Research In Ethnic Relations, University Of Warwick. Ross, K., & Playdon, P. (2001). Black Marks: Minority Ethnic Audiences And Media. Aldershot, Ash Gate. Said, E. W., Jhally, S., Talreja, S., & Said, E. W. (2002). Edward Said On Orientalism. 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