Race isn't an Irish Issue

Art and Society: Race isn't an Irish Issue Author(s): Daniel Jewesbury Source: Circa , Spring, 1998, No. 83 (Spring, 1998), pp. 23-27 Published by: Circa Art Magazine Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/25563243 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Circa Art Magazine is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Circa This content downloaded from 130.241.16.16 on Fri, 03 Jul 2020 10:08:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms _ _ White, I must say, has always affected me strongly. All white things, sheets, walls and so on, even flowers, ana then just white, the thought of white, without more. Samuel Beckett, Watt The Negro is not, any more than the white man is. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks In the course of this essay, I shall be presenting some con tributions to the on-going discussion in Irish art and art criticism regarding the troubled question of identity. In doing so, I will make reference to certain recent considera tions of the question, in Circa and other publications, and in particular exhibitions. These points I shall be examining in the light of arguments developed in the last few years in Britain and the USA in reference to the notion of'race'. In particular I wish to apply certain theories regarding 'hybridity' and 'whiteness' to ideas about Irishness. In his essay for the IMMA catalogue From Beyond the Pale, Thomas McEvilley presents a crude model of the processes of the colonial project. McEvilley's model has four stages: the pre-colonial or "mythic Edenic" [1]; the colonial period it self; the late colonial period and independence; and the im mediately post-colonial period, marked by the replacement of essentialist claims for identity with acceptance of cultural hy bridity. In adapting the model to an Irish situation, McEvilley makes two interesting claims, both cited unquestioningly by Eamon Crudden in his Circa article 'Translations' [2]. Firstly, McEvilley states, "it may be impossible to move into the fourth phase, of accepting hybrid identity without inner conflict while the oc cupiers are still present." Next, as cited by Crudden, he declares that since the Irish are 'white' "...the Otherness of the Irish is in side, not outside - that is, psychologically present through the mind fires and negotiations (unless McEvilley is referring to the continued occupation of Northern Ireland's two universities by hordes of exiled British academics). Indeed, McEvilley ap pears to contradict himself: how does the realisation of hy bridity occur without the prior assimilation of sections of the former colonial class? Northern Ireland, far from being occu pied by the British, is occupied by the Northern Irish. That McEvilley still conflates the majority population of Northern Ireland with 'the British' or equates them with 'settlers', even after several hundred years, is revealing. Secondly, his claim that the 'whiteness' of the Irish has internalised their Other ness is true only to a certain extent (Fanon pointed out that the the psychological aspect of the colonial relationship, far from being unusual, was ubiquitous). It has been argued that whiteness was only conferred upon the Irish relatively recent ly. Indeed, whiteness itself only attained its totalising, totemic status well into this century, with the final assimilation of pre viously separate ethnic groups into the umbrella category 'white'. The question of whiteness has been introduced into Irish art criticism in a number of ways in recent years, mainly in a historical context. Much has been written about nineteenth century sources such as Punch magazine, and about the way in which the 'black Irish' were depicted therein. Other writ ers have approached whiteness in a more contemporary con colonisation of imperial representations and the resistance to them..." text, notably Luke Gibbons ([3], see box 2). Similarly, the Both these statements take a number of things for granted. In the first instance, the notion of 'British occupation' seems curiously dated, particularly in the current climate of cease concept of hybridity is not exactly uncommon in recent writ ing. I'd argue, however, that neither idea has really been ex ploited thoroughly to date. Too much work making cursory 2 3 CIRCA This content downloaded from 130.241.16.16 on Fri, 03 Jul 2020 10:08:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms mention of 'hybridity' has concentrated, paradoxi cally, on precisely the essentialist terms it seeks to replace (black, white, Protestant, Catholic). Thus hybridity has still been defined in terms of a mixture of a perceived centrality with a presumed Other. In this context the idea of an exhibition such as Dis tant Relations (IMMA, 1996), which linked Irish, Mexican and Chicano artists and writers, is useful in that it establishes "lateral relations," as Luke Gib bons calls them, relations that make no reference to the "centre." And yet even this exhibition was marked by returns to essentialisms based on the idea of "race." This is discussed below. Recent work on race from the USA has attacked both the centrality and the monolithic nature of 'whiteness'. The journal Race Traitor takes as its motto "Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humani ty" and has argued that the concept of whiteness has nothing to do with 'race', merely being a mark of privilege. One of its editors, Noel Ignatiev, has pro vided perhaps the most pertinent historical work for our purposes, How the Irish Became White. [4] Here, Ignatiev records how effortlessly the emigrant Irish passed from colonial subjection and the kind of 'blackness' mentioned above (and jokingly referred to by Roddy Doyle - see opposite page) to assimila tion into the majority in the USA. (Particularly illu minating is Ignatiev's examination of Daniel O'Connell's failed attempts to link the causes of Repeal (of the Act of Union) and Abolition (of slavery). O'Connell was frustrated chiefly not by the demise of his campaign at Clontarf in 1844, nor by greater powers than the Irish-American lobby, but by the Irish-Americans themselves, who told him in no uncertain terms that he should not interfere in 'domestic affairs'.) My argument here rests upon the belief that 'hy bridity' may only be properly understood in an Irish context if one follows up these historical decon structions of race with a more current analysis. The supposition that religion is the context in which Irish identity should be excavated is particularly lim ited, finding its boundary in the idea that there are only 'two traditions' within the island of Ireland. The 'two traditions' argument denies the relevance of basic factors, such as class, besides excluding size able (and growing) minorities. At a time when para noia about immigration is so prevalent in the Re public, it's extremely important to examine the privilege of whiteness, particularly in a country where it has always been presumed that 'race isn't an Irish issue'. It's in the places where the myth of racial homogeneity still carries weight that the idea of hybridity - of racial impurity and the renuncia tion of privilege - must be examined most urgently. .../ consider it unwise for anyone today to speak about the 'national question' without also stating where he/she is speaking from. Richard Kearney, Postnationalist Ireland, p. 1 Bearing this piece of advice in mind, I decid ed to state clearly my own position with re gard to identity politics in Ireland, and the reason for my own interest in the subject. This is as much to pre-empt the mumbled complaints of those disgruntled by my assess ment as to contextualise my arguments. I moved to Ireland in 1992, from London. I am an Anglo-Indian, what until recently was called a half-caste (or a cheechee in Hindi). My mother came from an Anglophone high-caste family in Madras. I discovered upon arriving in Ireland that I was uncomfortable with other people's framing of myself as 'English'. On one level my Englishness was an inescapable fact, but I also found the term reductive and exclusive. Even more troubling were people's reactions when I told them that I was half-In dian. I could usually see as soon as I said it that the inevitable questions were going to follow: Have you been there? (no); Do you like curry? (sometimes); Does she wear a sari? (no); Does she have a spot on her head? (no). I became intrigued by this desire on others' part for me to fulfil their fantasies about the exotic Other. When I told them that my mother spoke English as her mother tongue and went to a convent school they were gen uinely disappointed. From seeing the ease with which my identi ty became predetermined, I became interested in the nature of hybridity and the re-appraisal of mixed heritage that is now so central to cultural studies. My interest in the experience of the Irish and Northern Irish abroad stems directly from my negotiations of my own sit uation. 2 4 CIRCA This content downloaded from 130.241.16.16 on Fri, 03 Jul 2020 10:08:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Commitments', dir. Alan Parker Daniel Jewesbuiy: I was thinking of using that line from The Commitments', where he says, The Irish are the blacks of Europe... so say it once, say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud!". If s flippant, but if s a very well known example Mark Orange: No, if s good. I think if s good to keep it open and humorous and non-didactic But if s pretty much an Ireland of the 70s and '80s that the line evokes. Doesn't the Celtic Tiger thing sort of change that? Passengers arriving at Connolly station, Dublin, from Belfast ... .the only reason the Irish are not racist at home is that there are not enough non-Europeans in the country to make immigration a social problem..[Ireland is] the only ex-colony in the European Union, and hence is not advanced enough industrially to act as an economic magnet for immigrants. Luke Gibbons [5] The introduction of the new, European-built, high speed trains on the Belfast-Dublin service coincided with the sudden appearance of immigration officers on the platform at Connolly, on the trains and also on the cross-border buses. Anyone with a slight tan is likely to be stopped and asked "which country are you coming from?": it would seem that the distinctive characteristic of the 'Celtic Tiger' is its extreme paranoia, and its mono chrome vision. Luke Gibbons's essay, quoted above, was written only in 1995. In a very short space of time, it has become curiously dated. To be honest, it was untrue when it was written, the sweeping statement that "the Irish are not racist at home" being obviously absurd (ask any traveller attempting to live amongst the settled community, or any Asian living near the South Circular Road in Dublin). The point that Gibbons misses (and yet inadvertently emphasises) is that the presump tion of homogeneity in any culture breeds racism in itself. Racism is the expressive result of the acceptance of'race' as a 'given'. CIRCA 25 This content downloaded from 130.241.16.16 on Fri, 03 Jul 2020 10:08:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms - than being reminiscent of Irish traditional music. Far from being Ig were simply synonymous with 'mixture', in whatever context: mixed race, bisexuality and so on. As I've said, this is a funda mental abuse of the term, serving to emphasise rather than un a one-dimensional lament for Bobby Sands the piece is much more layered and interrogative, as Gibbons might realise were he able to interrupt his reveries for a moment. (Gibbons's evocation dermine the constructs of centrality and marginality that it might of "collective memory" begs the question, who are the "collective"?) otherwise challenge. My contention in this essay is that the real value of the theory of 'hybridity' is in its potential to interrogate the bastions of the 'centre'. In this context that unitary myth is whiteness. I've touched on this already in box I, albeit in a very brief, anecdotal fashion. An alternative treatment of Ballad No. 1 might point out the ways in which Napier leaves conflicting icons unresolved, to produce an extremely discomforting piece of work. The piano accordion may be an icon of loyalism, but it is the button accor dion that is connected far more closely with 'traditional' music, and the face of Sands is made up of accordion buttons: a fine dif Having suggested that whiteness may not exist in any 'essen tial' form, I wish to extend and localise my arguments. The ques tion I wish to pose is, is there even such a category, an identity, as Irish? This is not as facetious a question as it may at first ap pear. I'm not suggesting that nobody is Irish; I'm asking when Irishness becomes questionable, debatable, qualifiable; to what extent it is subject to individual contingency. A recent instance of this question's inadvertently posing itself occurs in Luke Gibbons's description of Philip Napier's Ballad ?m* tsv^^^k No. 1. Gibbons writes: "[the ,J^H^-^^^^^H piece] features an accordion mount '"TaWnBiaai i" ^ra^M ed on a wall, whose intake and ex > ;;:j^H^^HHBH||B pelling of air allows it to double up iP^HIiMP^^ '^m as an artificial lung attached to the (^ ^mjJJK^^^ togravure effect of the image is j^^^^HBP^^^ achieved through small nails, a re ference divides the ?mmp??*jiip*p,|""'"*'??hpm 'two communities'. 1HP^^BMB|BB^||^BH^^HB^W| Moreover, the j^yH^^^IMJi^^^^^Htt^lRHE grating wheeze that IH^^H|R9N|^^^^^B^8^9j the accordion emits |K!^|HB^^3H^^|||MEMfiHfl< seems representa- M9r^BwH^H^^^^^lH^^|H^^K tive of that divi- ||J|j^H0?S^^^9HHS^Q^^flj sion, the incessant ^mwttK^KS^B^9^^^mS^^^^\ statement and re- H^Es^^^B^Bnt^nBHHKj^Hl statement of its ex- HHHE3^^H^E9HM^^^^H^^B istence. One could BJBWBP^BMjj|BB^B|^^B^^B) suggest that Napier gBififlE^HHHMHHBMlMJiJiHIw is actually question- I ing very directly the 'two tradi tions' representation of Ireland. (Ironically, it is Gerry Adams, elsewhere in the Distant Relations \ ^mi^^Kmm^ %# * minder of the aura of martyrdom catalogue, who specifically refutes the idea of two traditions in Ire I^^^^^^HJl^^^^^ which surrounded Sands's death on j "^-^B-y^^r' j0 tne eer(e sounds waft through _ the museum space like the wail of Philip Napier: Bo/lod No. /, .992-94 ^ ^y^j ^^ ^ ^ ^ However, it is at this point with mourning and collective memory, the off-key image becomes, in ef begin to appear. The piece seeks I don't wish simply to point out that the extended metaphor Gibbons employs is pretty tortuous (it is), nor that his description is an elegiac flight of fancy that departs fairly early on from the established facts of the piece (it is). Nor do I propose merely to put forward an alternative reading of the piece (although I will). My argument with Luke Gibbons is that, in his representation of Napier's piece, he either omits or misconstrues particular refer ences which the piece is built around, and that he does this (wil fully or otherwise) in order to make the piece illustrate a pre-for mulated argument that he wishes to propagate. Moreover, his reading of the piece is constructed in the context of a completely essentialist, unitary view of Irishness and Irish history. (This was a problem with the Distant Relations catalogue generally. In her opening essay, Lucy Lippard writes: "There are some apparently simple reasons why Chicano, Mexican and Irish artists should be shown together... the combination of indigenous and Roman Catholic spirituals ty..." [7] Firstly, the image of Bobby Sands is composed not of "small nails" but, crucially, of accordion buttons. Gibbons's interpreta tion of the piece as a record of the "aura of martyrdom" surround ing Sands is thus at best baseless, at worst wholly subjective. Fur thermore, given Napier's background as a Northern Irish Protes tant, and the fact that his work is produced in Belfast, it would be reasonably important to point out that the piano accordion is synonymous in the North with loyalist marching bands, rather ?oy*10r?iif*C(>dc?|fo.jBt; w?^|| temporary Irishness. [8]) that the shortcomings of the work on the lung of the Irish body politic." [6] ijad Soatlutf wwte WortUgteaWJwj ff* ~^* pij??nliji0 by .^WMttp^bml land, acknowledging the diversity and breadth - hybridity - of con strument itself signifies traditional music... By linking the famished body fect, a living monument to the Famine and the dark shadow which it cast !7lri8h vlsit^i3 [^oiir-hour marcl3 ZOrmng?mih from Narttwr* IrtUjii |??~rnw ?t Ow?g> ,?***^mg^' t'vfg to use icons to undermine the po sitions that they represent, but Irish in Britain there is an intrinsic problem with their usage, and that is that Napier is able to position himself wholly outside (or above) the situation he describes (cf. box I). Thus the piece swings uneasily between reiterating, say, the iconic status of Sands (as perceived by Luke Gibbons), and ques tioning it. This ability to stand outside the situation is not unique to Philip Napier. It typifies an approach that is widespread in Ire land, in Northern Ireland particularly. It might be reconfigured as a refusal to engage, a depiction of the situation in peculiarly for mulaic terms dependant on the perpetual recirculation of certain 'icons'. The over-reliance on iconography (whether they be icons of'Irishness' or of'British oppression') has meant that it has been difficult to develop a more subtle imagery, an imagery that might do justice to investigations of the interstices suggested by the 'hybrid' examination of Irishness. Work coming from the minority positions overlooked by the Great Narrative of Irish Postcolonialism, such as that articulating a Protestant Irishness, has had continually to negotiate the hurdles that this outlook sets up. I'm pleased to be able to quote a fellow recipient of this year's Visual Arts Criticism Bursary, Shirley MacWilliam: "The nar ratives of Irish politics exert themselves from without, even whilst the work itself stubbornly resists them. Irish artists in England battle with the Irish label." [9] There are alternative positions being articulated, but sometimes there's a marked resistance to hearing them. 2 6 CIRCA This content downloaded from 130.241.16.16 on Fri, 03 Jul 2020 10:08:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms To be white in America is to be very black. If you don't know how black you are, you don't know how American you are. An interesting apocryphal story, which whiteness. A further example of the hallowed sta several places: an American journalist tus of whiteness is the question on eth I've been told in person and read in -Q X -C Robert Farris Thompson, The Kongo interviewing Papa Doc Duvalier, the nicity in the UK census. The 1991 cen Atlantic Tradition [10] late Haitian dictator, asked him what sus was the first to carry a question percentage of his population were about 'race'. People of mixed race white. The President looked idly out of could not be identified as coherent groups by census users because, in the X [Whiteness is] the empty and terrifying at the window and said, "Oh, about ninety o tempt to build an identity based on what one nine per cent." The journalist was con absence of suitable sub-divisions in the fused and convinced that Duvalier had question, they defined themselves in too isn't and whom one can hold back. David Roediger, The Wages ofmisunderstood. He repeated his ques Whiteness, p. 13 many different ways ('Other', 'Black tion. Duvalier assured him that he had other', and so on). Most of these self not misinterpreted and had answered identifications were discarded by census users when they were compiling evalua correctly. "In that case," asked the jour 0) 4J In the USA in recent years, the 'one nalist, "how do you define white in Haiti?" tive data. In 2001 the ethnicity question drop rule' has gained much currency in Duvalier turned to face the journalist will attempt to classify those who defied debates about race. It dictates that if you and asked "Well, how do you define classification in 1991 [11]. The ineptness have one drop of black blood, then black?" In the USA, the journalist of this project is interesting in itself, and because of pressures from many differ ent directions. In literary studies, for in how we define white," replied Duvalier. that the category of 'white' will be the you're black. This argument developed replied, anyone with a black ancestor the proposed options are predictably clumsy. More interesting, however, is might call themselves black. "That is stance, black academics fought to have The relevance of these points, such as only one still to carry no further sub-di works by black American authors in it is, is in the idea that one is not 'white' visions. (In this context, I was reminded cluded on the main curricula, instead of or 'black' merely by virtue of one's skin being ghettoised into 'black studies' colour. The enormous impact of black classes or simply ignored. This assertion culture on mainstream American cul that black history was also American ture has meant that such generalisations history was echoed in popular culture, are invalid. The Papa Doc Duvalier from music to television. This led to the radical redefinition of what 'black' actu ally meant for Americans. that the census was boycotted in North ern Ireland in 1981 because of the ques tion about religion. Again, results ob tained were discarded by census-users, as they were considered too unreliable.) So...if it's not about skin colour, are * story illustrates the absurdity of either extreme position; moreover it shows the Irish white, or are they Gaels, or are how jealously guarded is the status of they British, or Catholic, or Protestant? Further reading [I] Thomas McEvilley, 'Here comes everybody', in From beyond the Pale, Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of 1994, pp. 7-21. the American Working Class, London: Verson, 1991. [2] Eamon Crudden, 'Translations', Circa, no. 71, pp. 26-29. [3] Luke Gibbons, 'Unapproved roads: post-colonialism and Irish identity', in Distant Relations, ed. Trisha Ziff, New York: Smart Art Press, 1995, pp. 56-67. [4] Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, New York: Routledge, 1995. [6] ibid., p. 58. [7] Lucy Lippard, 'Distant Relations', in Distant Relations, ed. Trisha Ziff, New York: Smart Art Press, 1995, pp. 16-24. [8] Gerry Adams, "S e an rud e, cultur, na an meid a dheanann se', Distant Relations, ed. Trisha Ziff, New York: Smart Art Press, 1995, pp. 228-233. [9] Shirley Mac William, in 'Daphne Wright', Circa no. 76, p. [10] quoted, p. 429, in Shelley Fishkin, 'Interrogating "whiteness", complicating "blackness": remapping Ameri can culture', American Quarterly, vol. 47 no. 3, September rary US racial polities', New Left Review 225, Sept-Oct 1997, pp. 73-88. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Pluto Press, 1986. Barbara J. Fields, 'Ideology and race in American history', in J. Morgan Kousser & James M. McPherson (eds.), Region, Race [5] Luke Gibbons, op. cit., p. 61. 54. Howard Winant, 'Behind blue eyes: whiteness and contempo and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, Ox ford: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 143-177. The attack against whiteness is carried out with vigour in the pages of the journal Race Traitor, published quarterly in Cam bridge, Mass., and edited by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey (the first issue appeared in winter 1993). Other useful articles from recent editions of Circa: Fintan Cullen, 'Confronting multiculturalism', no. 75, pp. 20 24. Ken Hardy, 'Diaspora', no. 69, pp. 43-45. Peter Suchin, 'Measured words', no. 77, pp. 26-28. 1995, pp. 428-465, [II] source: UK Office for National Statistics, Census Division. Daniel Jewesbury Daniel Jewesbury is on artist and writer based in Belfast He would like to thank Mark Orange, Lorraine Burrell and Shirley MacWilliam for their contributions and comments. He will continue his analysis in the next issue of Circa. CIRCA 27 This content downloaded from 130.241.16.16 on Fri, 03 Jul 2020 10:08:33 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms