Wednesday, January 30
Watched this show on TV yesterday called “Trading Faces.” The premise of it is basically a white guy and a black guy get made up to become the opposite race. They painted the white guy (who looked more Indian than black but was strangely much better looking as a darker skinned guy) black and gave the black guy a rubber make-up job to become white. It was interesting to see them walking around London and trying out some things that were stereotypically more one ethnicity or another. The white guy went to a black poetry spot, a black club, a dinner party with mainly black friends. The black guy went to the greyhound races, marched in some sort of a Neo-Nazi thing (which was weird) and went to a boxing match. What was interesting wasn’t necessarily the reactions they got from people but rather the perceptions of what they thought it was like to be white/black. They both expected pretty drastic reactions or to feel really different but instead found themselves kind of transported into normality, albeit as a different color. The white guy kind of took a great liking to the rich culture of being black and the black guy was very surprised at how nice white people were. I’m not explaining the program very well or it’s content but it was a cool thing to watch. The only thing was, the black guy had too much rhythm (he had to dance on stage during some comedy show) and he definitely didn’t walk like an “old white guy.” It was really strange to me, excuse me for sounding super stereotypical, but I kept on thinking, “he may be painted up white but he walks, talks, moves black.” And vice versa. I’m not sure if it’s a bad or good thing that in my mind I think these things.
Also, it’s been weird to be in a place where everyone is white and not just white but in my mind, “very” white. Of course there are lots of minorities here (more now that I’m in London) but I think in general I get kind of a Mid-Westerny kind of feel out here in England. One of the flute technician’s here is half black and half white and she was saying that in the beginning when she first moved here from Venezuela, she felt very out of place because it seemed like people didn’t really care or ask about her background excepting for what she did in England. It was like a whole part of her was not appreciated or acknowledged. She was an anthropology student in Venezuela and is deeply interested in the social dynamics of blacks and whites and I asked her to compare how America, England and Venezuela was like in that regard. She said mainly that in Venezuela, discrimination isn’t along racial lines but more along social lines. It’s interesting to me that England and America basically experience the same types of racial environments (which makes sense historically I suppose). Ok, I’m on crack, I have no idea what point I was trying to make. Anyhow, the feeling that I get here in England (especially outside London) is strange when I stop to really think about it. But it is cool to get a small glimpse of the racial climates of other countries and to think about the differences.
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