The Black Flaneur by Madinah Farhannah Thompson

THE BLACK FLANEUR.

MADINAH FARHANNAH THOMPSON, ARTIST, LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY (ALUMNI).

NB* OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE

This is an extract from my performance lecture ‘The Black Flaneur’ which is the culmination of my project ‘Black Face White Space’. ---

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a flaneur as ‘a man about town who saunters around observing society’

The flaneur is idle and aimless in their wandering. The idea of a flaneur is problematic, this flaneur who has the privilege to wander freely, whose wandering is not merely an escape but freedom, who has ‘a body which calls no excess attention to itself’ and ‘casts no shadows’ cannot be a Black body. Our movements are frequently curtailed, in overt and covert ways. The Black body is not permitted to wander. ---

I’m going to set the scene.

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me.

Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of a bio-chemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then too, you’re constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren’t simply a phantom in other people’s minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It’s when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it’s seldom successful.

Ralph Ellison - ‘The Invisible Man’ ---

And Further:

On 22nd February 2014, I published a post on my blog. I titled it ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’.

It reads:

I’m no longer engaging with white people on the topic of race. Not all white people, just the vast majority who refuse to accept the legitimacy of structural racism and its symptoms. I can no longer engage with the gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a person of colour articulates their experience. You can see their eyes shut down and harden. It’s like treacle is poured into their ears, blocking up their ear canals. It’s like they can no longer hear us.

This emotional disconnect is the conclusion of living a life oblivious to the fact that their skin colour is the norm and all others deviate from it. At best, white people have been taught not to mention that people of colour are ‘different’ in case it offends us. They truly believe that the experiences of their life as a result of their skin colour can and should be universal. I just can’t engage with the bewilderment and the defensiveness as they try to grapple with the fact that not everyone experiences the world in the way that they do. They’ve never had to think about what it means, in power terms, to be white, so any time they’re vaguely reminded of this fact, they interpret it as an affront. Their eyes glaze over in boredom or widen in indignation. Their mouths start twitching as they get defensive. Their throats open up as they try to interrupt, itching to talk over you but not really listen, because they need to let you know that you’ve got it wrong.

Reni Eddo-Lodge - ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’ ---

You want to doubt what I’ve seen and

heard, you want to tell me that it can’t be true and yet you are the ones who constantly make your comments, ask your questions and throw your looks.

doubt always doubt. questions always questions. you want empirical evidence of something that only your privilege could deny.

“Give me an example though” “Are you sure though”

And when I discuss my apprehension you say “don’t worry, Italians are fascinated with Black people” Is that meant to reassure me? Am I supposed to be relieved or grateful?

It is your privilege that makes you surprised that my experience of travelling is different from yours, and defensive when I bring it to your attention.

(22/10/18 13:42)

My race isn’t a problem unless I talk about it. You’re fine with it unless we have to acknowledge it. Then we have a problem, because you’re uncomfortable (and I’m aggressive) because you feel threatened (and I’m a bully) ----

Black Face White Space, the research project that I undertook in Venice is about the experience of being a Black tourist in Venice and a Steward at the Venice Biennale where I was working at the British Pavilion.

I wanted to question how you experience

living and working in Venice, as a first time visitor, when you enter into it aware of the nuances you feel and the reactions that you garner based on your race. And what that feeling of being over-exposed and unwanted is actually based on.

It’s aim was to critically examine this experience, but it didn’t go to plan.

I’ve travelled before, and there has always been some kind of reaction. In Ile de Re it was people staring as they cycled, so their heads were permanently turned to the side as we rode past each other on the cycle paths. In Marrakesh it was comments, for example; ‘i like my coffee without milk’, but I have always actively ignored that, and had the attitude of ‘No one fuck’s with me’ because I refuse to have my movements dictated by other people’s prejudices.

And I did attempt to start off my trip with the attitude of NO ONE FUCKS WITH ME

But it quickly descended to THEY’RE ALL TRYING TO FUCK WITH ME

Followed by I WON’T LET YOU FUCK WITH ME

And then DON’T FUCK WITH ME

And finally AS IF THEY TRIED TO FUCK WITH ME

I thought of this process in stages, like the 5 stages of grief but I call it the five stages of Black face.

It starts with BRAVADO And then goes from HYPERAWARENESS To AVOIDANCE which was accompanied by a kind of numbness Followed by anger ANGER And finally ending in DEFIANCE

The BRAVADO ended pretty much as soon as I got on the plane.

By the first day HYPERAWARENESS had spread throughout my body. (3/10/17):

Today was my first day exploring alone. The paranoia is making walking through the maze of Venice somewhat unbearable. In the end I spoke to my sister on the phone for a while just so I could zone out on feeling so exposed. Everywhere I go is a new place and new spaces are freaking nerve racking when you’re scared that someone is going to say or do something to you.

That feeling of being overexposed is very physical.

(13/10/17):

I feel myself entering into a cloud of invisibility. As if the force of unseeing has began to erase my being. Tangible, whole, black bodies reduced to nothingness. Empty, shadows, phantoms walk through the streets. Unseen. Unseen. Unseen. They try to unsee me and I begin to lose my footing. Holding on to myself becomes an act of resistance, and resistance takes mental power and physical energy. To exist, to maintain your presence, to force the image of your being onto the retinas of white folk, takes mental power and physical energy. Holding onto yourself whilst being wished away is an act of resistance. Seeing yourself being unseen feels like erasure, like my ‘too too solid flesh’ is being melted, thawed and resolved into a dew.*

* William Shakespeare - ‘Hamlet’ ---

And it’s not surprising that feeling like that led to me avoiding certain places, it felt safe to stay close to home and work, where the ‘art tourists’ were, it felt safe to be at work because I wore a badge that made me legitimate’ because of course it is my

role as a Black person to make sure that white people don’t feel threatened by me.

I was angry. It’s fucking draining to pay attention to other people’s crap, pointing, staring, whispering, comments, it is fucking draining. I’m not the kind of person to allow people to affect me, you do not have the right to affect me! But anger, and pre-emptive attitude is equally draining. It is not being ‘sassy’, it’s protecting yourself from constant low level racism and it takes so much energy.

Actually thinking about it again makes me feel exhausted. And baffled. I cannot believe that I, allowed anyone to fuck with me. But that’s the toss up, i can pretend that you’re not taking pictures of me and discussing having a Black customer in your bar with your other clientele, which is colluding with you, or I can be the Angry Black woman who talks about it and makes all the white people in the room uncomfortable. And that’s the dilemma that I’m in now, once you open your eyes, once you’re woke there is no going back, but as a result you carry a burden that shapes what environments you can put yourself in. And I hate admitting that my movements are curtailed, I hate saying out loud that there are things I cannot do and places I cannot go but pretending that the world is colour-blind is lying to yourself. 9 times out of 10 when someone tells me a story about non-white people they start by telling me the race of the people involved. And I can’t pretend that that’s ok anymore.