Beyond Bergson by Pitts Andrea J.;Westmoreland Mark William;Lawlor Leonard;

Author:Pitts, Andrea J.;Westmoreland, Mark William;Lawlor, Leonard;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2019-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Reclaiming Authenticity in La Revue du monde noir

It is therefore not surprising that Bergon’s Le Rire struck a chord with the editors of the Paris-based journal La Revue du monde noir. Many of the journal’s black contributors and readers were or had once been students who had passed the first test that Bergson states in his hazing example, namely, that of gaining admission into France’s most competitive and elite schools.24 Now they were seemingly faced with the second test, that of conforming, of being molded, or—in French colonial parlance—assimilating. In using Bergson as the point of departure to ask how black people in France should dress, they were engaged in a conversation that went beyond sartorial choices. The journal’s editors and contributors were interested in exploring, in political and philosophical terms, the power dynamics at work when white viewers misrecognize and displace Europe’s black inhabitants from spaces coded as white through laughter as punitive action.

La Revue du monde noir took up the Bergsonian idea of comedy as part of a transatlantic conversation on race and belonging in the French empire. The specific framing of the question is strikingly similar to the phrasing of an essay topic assigned by a white teacher at the Lycée Schœlcher in Martinique. La Revue du monde noir’s December 1931 issue asked, “ ‘Pourquoi la vue d’un noir habillé à l’européenne provoque-t-elle le rire du Blanc?’ s’est demandé Bergson dans son étude sur le rire. ‘Parce que le Blanc a l’impression que le Noir est déguisé’ ” (“ ‘Why does the sight of a Negro dressed in European fashion provoke the laugh of the white man?’ is the question which Bergson asked himself in his study on laughter. ‘Because the white man thinks the Negro is disguised’ is his answer”).25 The January 22, 1932 edition of the Martinican newspaper L’Action Nouvelle reported a similar question used as an essay prompt that sparked a protest in Fort-de-France: “Why does the Negro make Whites laugh when he dresses like a European?”26 Their nearly identical misquoting of Bergson suggests that these two sources were in conversation both with each other and with the French philosopher who in his study on laughter asks simply: “Pourquoi rit-on du nègre?” (“And why does one laugh at a negro?”).27 Bergson’s response on disguise, “ ‘Un nez rouge est un nez peint,’ ‘un nègre est un blanc déguisé’ ” (“ ‘A red nose is a painted nose,’ ‘a negro is a white man in disguise’ ”),28 suggests that in the matter of perceiving race, the viewer experiences a desire to peel back the layers, even when there are none to peel, in order to uncover a fundamental identity beyond that which is outwardly portrayed. The impact of La Revue du monde noir’s open question to readers, then, seems to have been twofold. First, it situated this conversation on race and belonging in both metropolitan and overseas France. Second, the Bergsonian desire to look beyond outward appearance in order to uncover some inner, perhaps hidden

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