Customer Reviews

The White African American Body: A Cultural and Literary Exploration

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This is an incredible book--the author details the fascination with the 'White African American Body'--this means Blacks who were albinos or who had the disease vitiligo. As early as the 1600's, Blacks with these skin conditions were shown as 'exhibits' in taverns, dime-museums, and fairs. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, found this phenomenon fascinating. The author traces this through history all the way up to Michael Jackson. The book was published in 02, so the author does not talk about MJ's death. However, he covers the way MJ was treated by others, including the media, his '93 strip search, and his video Black or White. It's a scholarly study and he spends time discussing history, racial identity and examples in American literature of WHITENESS, like the White Whale--Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.

This is a wonderful book--it raises the issue of wherein lies 'racial identity'--in the color of the skin? If so, what happens when a Black person's skin becomes white? In this case, all divisions and classifications are challenged. Charles Martin discusses how the public and critics tried to turn MJ into an exhibit, a thing, and how he tried to regain his own personhood--what Martin calls his 'agency'-- in the face of this effort to dehumanize him. Regarding the strip search, which focused on MJ's penis (this is historically where the focus ends up in the audience's fascination--the genitals), the author writes that according to press reports, MJ became angry, upset, defiant during the strip-search, which lasted about 20 minutes and involved him being examined by detectives, drs., and videotaped naked:

"Reported as examples of childish petulance and the telling disobedience of a guilty man, these acts also demonstrate the efforts of an exhibited white Negro body to refuse to remain passive before gawking onlookers and achieve some kind of agency." (177)

Even though the media and others constantly tried to turn him into a freak (the 'enfreakment' of a great artist), MJ fought back and made it his goal to resist. I strongly recommend this book. I would love to find out what the author thinks now that MJ has died and his vitiligo (greeted with suspicion and derision while he was alive) has been confirmed by an autopsy report.