Repositioning Race: Prophetic Research in a Postracial Obama Age

3. Blackening Up Critical Whiteness

3 • Blackening Up Critical Whiteness Dave Chappelle as Critical Race Theorist RobeRt L. Reece Duke University White criticisms of Black people and blackness have always been commonplace even though more contemporary critiques have opted to use seemingly race-neutral terms such as “urban,” “inner-city,” and “minority ” to launch the same racialized objections. Similarly, many Blacks have observed whiteness, offering critiques of White structures and cultures. Yet, many Whites are overwhelmingly quite “shocked that Black people think critically about whiteness because racist thinking perpetuates the fantasy that the Other . . . lacks the ability to comprehend, to understand , to see the working of the powerful” (hooks 1992:167–68). I contend that this ignorance of the fact that critical whiteness theories have been, in some form, an ongoing topic of discussion among Blacks is what makes Dave Chappelle’s Chappelle’s Show such an important text. I further posit that the popularity of the program allowed Chappelle to make contributions to whiteness theory and bring those contributions into the living rooms of Whites and Blacks alike. To this end, Chappelle emerged as a prophetic popular leader in early twenty-first–century race 69 70 • Robert L. Reece theory. I demonstrate how his critical perspectives, drawn from the lived experiences of Black people in America, constitute a prophetic analysis of race that was in some ways ahead of its time. This research attempts to evaluate Chappelle’s contributions to critical race theory (CRT), the history of Blacks’ critiques of whiteness, and popular discourses on race and racism. Content analysis of some of the comedic sketches in his television show is used to answer two research questions: (1) how is race in general and whiteness in particular portrayed on Chappelle’s Show, and (2) how do these depictions inform our understanding of CRT? Critical Race Theory, Whiteness, and Literature on Race Whiteness theories are important “because the Black-White binary is so fundamental to our way of thinking in America” (Hunt 2005:4). Neither blackness nor whiteness can be understood without the other; traditional stereotypical descriptions of each (i.e., White as European, civilized, superior, and good; and Black as African, savage, inferior, and bad) have little meaning unless held against each other for comparison (Hunt 2005). As evidenced in this literature review, though theories of whiteness are not always congruent, the connection of whiteness to blackness is consistent throughout critical whiteness literature. W. E. B. Du Bois (1994) was one of the earliest scholars to investigate whiteness in relation to blackness. His concept of “double consciousness,” introduced in 1903, continues to be widely used to understand and articulate the experiences of oppressed people. Du Bois (1994) asserts that being Black in the United States forces one to try to reconcile the whiteness in the country with one’s blackness while dealing with the stress of being forced to assess one’s self through the eyes of a people by whom he is despised. Implicit in his analysis is the need for Blacks to understand whiteness as a survival technique, although the need for Whites to understand the Black experience appears minimal. Du Bois (1994) postulates that Whites are free to impose their own views of blackness into Black consciousness and to use their power to create what becomes fundamental “truths” about what it is to be Black: . . . the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of Blackening Up Critical Whiteness • 71 always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. . . . (P. 2) Du Bois (1994) describes how this paradox inevitably detracts from any activity in which Blacks choose to engage because of the contradiction of double aims, a desire to please one’s people (i.e., Blacks) while simultaneously fighting White racism. This conundrum culminates in attempts to live up to two standards of humanity: one that emerges through the Black...