Where I See White Supremacy Part 2: Shopping

I love shopping in Downtown Madison, Indiana. There is something special about the authenticity of the historic buildings that brings extra enjoyment in the hunt for gifts and for things that I never knew I needed. The antiquing is so prolific in Madison that I often face family accusations of “winning” Christmas and birthdays with the unique gifts I find in the sometimes cluttered, sometimes carefully designed shelves of Madison’s antique stores. Antique shopping is a big business in town because it plays perfectly into the historic nature of the community, so it is likely that our ratio of antique malls measured by population is off the charts. With all the charms of antiquing in my community, there is also a heavy burden of white supremacy and racism among the nick knacks and dusty treasures.

Part of the white supremacy of the situation is that for a long time I didn’t see the racism. Once I asked a Black friend if they wanted to go shopping with me and they said that antique shopping was too triggering for them with all of the racist items in the stores. Sure enough, I realized that I had seen the racist items but because I am white, they were not a threat to me and my white privilege allowed me to look the other way and continue shopping. I have a feeling that happens to a lot of us in Madison, and this plays into the story of white supremacy in our community. We white people don’t fully understand what it is like to see an object that signals that we are “other” or "not welcome here” because of how it depicts our ancestors. With 95% of our county being white, we have all the power to address this issue but none of the incentives to start that difficult conversation. Moving on was not a problem for me too until I started thinking deeper about the history of these items and this blog post formed in my mind. I have curated my observations to reflect on the anti-black racism that I saw in the shops, though I found that there were many objects that misrepresented Asian and Indigenous people as well. Perhaps another blog post will address those images. I hope the observations that I make here can lead to better understanding in my community and beyond, and inspire action for positive change.

As an artist with a strong interest and education in Art History, one thing that I find fascinating about antique stores is that they are like walking through still life painting of our community’s past. What fills the shelves of our antique malls are largely the treasures of our local community. There are teacups that participated in tea parties at someone’s great-grandma’s house, there are art prints that have been passed down over generations, and there are dolls that were loved by children that are now adults in nursing homes. Our community culture and local history is for sale at antique stores. This is one of the things that I love about antique stores, they are like museums with less educational information where you can actually buy what is on display. Unfortunately, it isn’t as wholesome as we think. When we see items that promote racism and white supremacy in antique stores, it means that these things are also ingrained in our community.

Selling items that are racist opens an opportunity to normalize them for a new generation, giving them new life with more damage to leave in their wake. When someone is filling their booth at an antique store, they have made a point to not throw the items in the trash, not to donate the items to Goodwill, and not to give the items to a family member as a gift. Antique stores are filled with items that people feel have enough value that they should profit from the sale of the items. The concept of profiting from antiques is not unethical, but it is unethical to profit from racism. When you look into the history of these items, it is important to understand who made the items, who profited from the items, and who paid for it all. Most of the racist antiques that I found in our stores were made by white artists, for white people, for white-owned institutions, for exclusively white events, and all of the negative effects that the racism conveyed was at the expense of Black people. No matter how historically significant an antique is, white people should not profit from the sale of racist items because white profit from the exploitation of black people must stop. 

Trigger Warning, racist images follow. While I was on a mission to find some coup glasses at our local antique stores back in August, I decided to also document racist items that I noticed in my search. Note that I will not reveal which stores these images were taken in because it would be easy to point at one or two stores and say that they are the problem, and those stores would suffer and everyone would feel good that they “took care” of the problem and forget about the broadness of this issue. In reality, all of our antique stores and other stores in our community have work to do in making everyone feel welcome. I took over one-hundred photos on this outing, so in the photos below you will find a selection of what I found and captions explaining why they shouldn’t be on store shelves.

In case you didn’t hear, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben depictions were removed from their brand packaging this year. People suddenly became aware that depicting a “happy slave” was not socially conscious or good for their brand. The myth of the “happy slave” is one of the concepts that helped the practice of slavery continue for so long, and the teaching of this myth in schools is something that skewed and twisted a terrible part of American history to make white people feel comfortable in the classroom even today. There is no need to perpetuate this myth in our generation, and it is especially not recommended for white owned businesses to use the images of happy black enslaved people to build their brand and profits. The Jim Crow Museum has a good explanation about “Mammy” imagery here: https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/mammies/

I often find antique dolls creepy, but these are something worse. Many of these dolls are depictions of slaves, have exaggerated features, promote negative stereotypes, and literally objectify people. Though I don’t know who is responsible, It appears that people are still making these dolls as many of them look new and the sheer number of them suggested that this is a hobby for someone. Why? Stop! It is bad enough to see antique items being sold for their racist nostalgia, but why bring this practice to this decade? The original manufacturer of dolls like this stopped manufacturing because of the racist nature of the dolls, and some of them were branded with names that are now considered racial slurs. This is a difficult topic to write about, but the Jim Crow Museum does a good job of explaining the history of these dolls. Please note this additional trigger warning as this article does not sensor its use of racial slurs: https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/golliwog/

White friends: art with depictions of enslaved people should not be hanging in your house. I repeat, art depicting enslaved people should not be hanging in your house. If it is a priceless, family heirloom, masterpiece with historic significance, good for you, but go ahead and donate it to a museum so they can highlight its artistry and acknowledge the terrible history of slavery. The problem with so many of these images is that they romanticize the tragedy of slavery, and the enslaved people are often there as props to show off the wealth of the white people just like their horses, silk dresses, fancy hats, and plantation homes. Hanging these images in your living room does not make you seem classy or cultured for your interest in history. Including images of enslaved people in your home decor is not an appropriate way to honor the victims of slavery and often perpetuates negative stereotypes. Being aware that we still benefit from slavery and working to undo the effects of white supremacy is a better way to honor the victims of slavery.

Part of what makes so many of these items disturbing is that they are intended for children. This book is how many white children learned about black people because everything in their lives were segregated from the black community. What they learned were stereotypes of the mischievous black child and his mother named “Mammy.” Why do we regard these items as treasures or collectibles when we now know that they are terribly offensive? Are we collecting them to show our grandchildren how we became racist, or are we collecting them to teach our grandchildren racism? It is important to understand that even if you have positive memories connected to this book, that doesn’t override the racism within it. Here is the Jim Crow Museum’s take on this book: https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2015/may.htm

This particular piece hit me hard. This was something that was produced in Madison, by the Elks Club in the local community. This is a textbook depiction of a minstrel character in blackface. Minstrel shows were live review-type shows with lots of different acts, and “Jim Crow” was a common character represented by a white man with his face covered in shoe polish or coal ash. This character was a degrading jab at black people, a walking, singing, dancing negative stereotype live on stage. If a blackface character made the cover of the program, is it safe to assume that a “Jim Crow” character showed up on stage for the shows? It is important to see the pattern that racism was embedded in everything, including entertainment and cancer benefits. Learn more about minstrel characters from the Jim Crow Museum here: https://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/origins.htm

What do we do with these items? Do we burn them, do we put them in a landfill? Not necessarily. Many “liberals” like myself are often accused of erasing history, but that is not the case. If there is erasure, it is with the goal of correcting the false histories that our society has developed to soften the blow of white people’s crimes against humanity in order to make room for the truth. The problem with erasure in this situation is tied to the fact that racism and white supremacy were created within the scope of white history. Black history is only connected to to these topics because it was subjected to the terrible consequence of this way of thinking. In other words, why do we only learn about racism, Jim Crow, and slavery in lessons about black history when the origin of these issues were founded in white history? How do we hold white history accountable for these items, but but at the same time not create further exploitation? The only solution is the Indiana Jones solution, it belongs in a museum. In fact, I have referenced the museum where these items belong in this blog several times, The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University. This museum can use these items to teach the context of this difficult history and not profit from the racism, and they accept donations of racist items.

The citizens and government of Madison, Indiana have work to do. This work begins with the idea that some people think walking back in time from 1820-1960 is full of dreamy nostalgia, but some people perceive it more like a nightmare. The time frame that Madison has so carefully preserved in architecture and aesthetics represents the Antebellum through Jim Crow eras. No, we should not make our downtown less-historic to make people feel more comfortable, but we must compensate by setting a goal of being anti-racist. Anti-racism is the act of recognizing racism within yourself, working to acknowledge past racism, and working to stop present racism. Owning up to our history regarding race, good and bad, and putting it on display is a way to start the journey to anti-racism. I saw this done well at Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia where they displayed historical information about the people that were enslaved by the founding fathers in a prominent, high traffic area. The City of Madison can also work towards anti-racism by normalizing participation in consistent anti-bias training, facilitating conversations about race, setting expectations that we will not sell racist items in stores, and more. Our Hoosier kindness alone won’t make people feel welcome if they are getting conflicting messages from our store shelves. The message that we are kind to everyone needs to be deliberate, detailed, visible, and true.

In closing, there is someone that needs credit in inspiring me to speak up about this issue. That credit goes to Jeannine Lee Lake. Jeannine has run for the US House of Representatives in Indiana’s 6th district twice against Greg Pence, brother of Vice President Mike Pence. The Pences are a recurring theme in my blog, the way they fit into this commentary about white supremacy is a consistent pattern that they really need to work on. Greg Pence owns an antique mall in Edinburgh, Indiana. In the summer of 2020 Jeannine posted pictures of racist items found at Greg Pence’s antique mall, and called for him to comment and act to remove the items. As far as I know, she didn’t get a response. People have stopped talking about racism for sale at antique malls, so I decided share my point of view to try to keep the discussion and the awareness going. Keep up the good work Jeannine, and thank you for reminding me that how we do business represents who we are and that we can do better.