Opacity: Gender, Sexuality, Race, and the Problem of Identity in Martinique (Gender, Sexuality, and Culture, Vol. 2)
by David A. B. Murray
Book Summary Information
Author: David A. B. MurrayEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2002-06
ISBN: 0820455121
Number of pages: 188
Publisher: Peter Lang Pub Inc
Book Reviews of Opacity: Gender, Sexuality, Race, and the Problem of Identity in Martinique (Gender, Sexuality, and Culture, Vol. 2)
Book Review: salient categories
Summary: 5 Stars
Dr. Murray discusses his experiences as a white Canadian man spending a year in Martinique, a territory of France. He describes his participation in an amateur acting troop to explain how 'we' (Westerners across racial ascriptions) cannot get past identity categories. Dr. Murray retells how acting directors told their participants that acting is all about putting yourself in the role of someone that you are not. Then when the participants are assigned to roles in a play about the Haitian Revolution, Murray is not given a role because the director said no one would believe him as a black slave. The play is meant to promote black autonomy and unity, but participants mention their (xenophobic? elitist?) dislike of Haitian residents in Martinique. During Carnival, when many men are in drag in this gender-rigid region, a real transsexual stays out of the festivities seeing them as a mockery. This is a fascinating project in which it's taken as a given that identities are in flux, but then added to the mix is how people of African descent who are citizens of a European nation deal with these matters. When Murray speaks of performativity, he is speaking of both definitions: the usual, stage-based kind, and the theoretical-political Butlerian kind. He said that he deals with Aime Cesaire because he's the governor of the island, not just because he is well-known in academic circles. He doesn't bring up Franz Fanon because the Martinicans seems to make no mention of him, though American and European university instructors can't get enough of him. To me, the most useful part of this book is the analysis of lingual use. Like Haitian-Americans and other polyglots, the Martinicans choose which language to speak depending on the circumstances. French is used in formal settings, but Creole is used in order to be intimate or emotional. Murray notices that a neighboring boy is allowed to speak Creole while his sister is not. Many Martinicais would not speak to Murray in Creole due to his ancestry and fears that they would not be seen as worldly citizens for speaking a vernacular. The most hilarious scene in the book is when Murray recalls how the actors change not just their words, but their body language, hand gestures, and attitudes when performing a stage scene in French, then in Creole. This will remind many of Black American comics who use the 'Have you noticed how Black people do X and White people do Y?' routines. Undergraduate and graduate students in cognitive science or comparative literature will find this part of Murray's discussion highly useful. Progressives have been arguing that identities are not separate, but overlapping and informative to each other. Many heterosexist scholars put it like this: 'There's not enough analysis on race, class, and gender.' [Notice how sexuality gets left out of the picture.] Here Murray tries to juggle race, gender, and sexuality at the same time. Though he begins with race and ends with gender, it is clear throughout the book that his main interest is sexuality. In fact, he describes a beauty contest as his gender politic, but this section is scant and half-hearted. Class barely comes up at all. In his epilogue, Murray says something like, 'Whereas sexuality was the big issue on the island 5 years ago, nowadays, criminality and the influence of 'gangsta masculinities' is.' I am quite sure that the average Martinican would not agree with this statement. Murray really should have said that his interests are his own. Jamaica has kept homophobic laws on their books long after their creators, the British, have abandoned them. Dancehall music is full of violent, anti-gay lyrics. Gay men from the Caribbean have often successfully argued from asylum in the United States or Canada due to the bigotry in their homelands. Dr. Murray recalls that Martinican gay men got upset when he said that Montreal could be a prejudiced place toward immigrants and people of color. Just as African-Americans scholars have said blacks once looked at Brazil as a possible utopia, that idea of a utopic place as an alternative and a necessity comes up in this Francophone context. Given this context, Murray's discussion of Martinican gays is a fresh addition to work on Caribbean gays, and black gay men generally. This book will disappoint many. To begin, even if someone is sophisticated enough to say that categories like 'race' and 'sexuality' are 'socially constructed,' many would easily argue that they are still salient in modern societies and can't just be tossed aside. Also, like many anthropological texts, this is just another book where a scholar has an experience abroad, describes it in a diary style, and throws some academic jabber into the mix to sound polished. Because the United States has territories, this book may be helpful to American readers, especially those who want to do international comparative studies. Though this book is small in page length, the academic language is rigorous and thus this will take a while to read. Don't let my criticisms fool you: I enjoyed this book greatly. I found it highly informative and even humorous at times.
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