"Citizen" - How to Become a successful Black artist

The excerpt I have chosen to read on Wednesday is the one about Hennessey Youngman (p.23-24), the online persona on Youtube invented and performed by black artist Jayson Musson whose videos satirize art and pop culture. His video tutorial on ‘how to become a successful black artist’ is ‘meant to expose expectations for blackness as well as to underscore the difficulty inherent in any attempt by black artists to metabolize real rage’. It could be argued that Claudia Rankine’s text, to some extent, carries out this very function. I believe that concepts and conflicts that run throughout “Citizen” could be found in this excerpt. When reading the passage, please consider the ‘performance of blackness’ and the processes of ‘dehumanisation’.

Let’s start with Youngman’s ironic suggestion for black artists to ‘cultivate an “angry nigger exterior”. I would suggest taking some time to watch Youngman’s video on Youtube, in which he refers to American pop culture’s spectacularization of the Other; an angry, thuggish, dangerous Other. Essentially, Youngman was suggesting that this is the image of blackness that sells in America, that white people pay to see certain preconceptions and fantasies projected and inscribed onto black bodies. So what do you think this idea of ‘commodified anger’ suggests about the ways in which White America perceives African Americans? Are there other examples throughout the text of prejudices and preconceptions being projected onto ‘blackness’?

But what about the ‘actual anger’ that resides ‘on the bridge between this sellable anger and “the artist”’? Let’s move on to the real rage that bubbles beneath the text. Considering not only this passage but also drawing from other examples throughout “Citizen”, please consider where this anger comes from and what the effects of this rage are. And what does all this suggest about the isolation and dehumanisation that characterizes the victimized African American condition in this text?