Previous installments in this series can be found here. There will be spoilers. “An historian” is a perfectly acceptable Commonwealth convention, haters to the left [side of the road.]
Not long after the end of season three of Downton Abbey, rumors began about a black character who would be introduced in the new season (producing one of the funniest satires on Downton, “Downton Diddy”. So far, the plotline involving Jack Ross, the black American jazz singer, invites the viewer to imagine 1920s England as a homogeneously white place where racial diversity is linked mainly with modernization and Americanization. To some extent, this reflects cultural anxieties and tropes authentic to the 1920s; it also, though, threatens to overshadow a longer and more complicated history.
Jack Ross has a kind of non-fictional double in last night’s episode: Rudolph Valentino. The feckless footman Jimmy takes Ivy to see The Sheik, a silent American film from 1921 set in North Africa; Valentino, an Italian-born actor and heart-throb, plays the sheik himself, whose revelation of white ancestry opens the path for romantic resolution. Even though Ivy says she prefers Englishmen to the “Latin lover” type embodied by Valentino, the outlines of the trope are clear: American mass culture brings sexualized, exotic men to England, tempting young English women through new forms of leisure like the cinema and jazz music.
The episode ends with Lady Mary finding Rose and Jack kissing below stairs; apparently remembering her own dalliance with a visiting foreigner, she tactfully ignores their transgression. Rose’s antics echo those of Nancy Cunard (1896-1965), the heiress to the Cunard shipping fortune and a rebel on a scale that makes Rose look very tame. In the early 1920s she fostered a literary milieu and had affairs with Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, among others. Bored with her parents’ hypocritical world, she moved to avant-garde Paris, where she met and fell in love with Henry Crowder, an African-American jazz pianist. Although she was nearly disinherited by her mother for the relationship, Cunard persisted and became an anti-racism activist after she visited Harlem with Crowder. It has been evident from her first scene that Rose is meant to be a replacement, in Downton’s visual and emotional landscape, for Sybil. The romance between Lady Sybil and Tom Branson started with shared political conviction and ended in domestic tragedy; I suspect, though, that it’s too much to hope that Rose might go the opposite direction and end up at politics via lust.
Jazz grew out of the collisions of African, European, and American history and culture. In Britain, France, and Germany of the early post-World War I years, it was intensely novel. Its appeal was racialized, but in a generic and eclectic way: jazz bands often played in formal attire, but costumes, performances, and shows evoked everything from Mississippi steamboats and plantations to the vague ‘African jungle’ aesthetic performed by someone like Josephine Baker. The entire premise of jazz as European and British entertainment, in other words, rested on the same conceit as this season of Downton Abbey: that blackness, whether seen as appealing or appalling, is fundamentally foreign to traditional England.
According to the 2011 census, 86 percent of the population of England and Wales identified as white, with ‘white British’ the largest single group (45.1 million or 80.5 percent). “Asian/Asian British” came in second, at 7.5 percent; only 3.3 percent identified as “Black/African/Caribbean/Black British,” barely ahead of the 3.2 percent who chose “Mixed/Multiple Ethnic Groups” or “Other.” (For American readers, the strangeness of the categories is itself informative, a reminder that racial categories are socially constructed however natural they may come to seem.) Much of this modest racial diversity dates from immigration in the middle and late twentieth century, when large numbers of people from former British colonies in South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean moved to England.
At the moment when Mr. Carson pantomimes shock at seeing Jack Ross, the number of people of African birth in Britain was much lower: probably about 5,000, not necessarily including people of African descent born in Britain or the Americas. They lived mainly in London or other port cities such as Bristol, Liverpool, and Cardiff, and were frequently seamen. As both Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson acknowledge, however, Britain’s entanglement with the lives of African people is far deeper and more complex.
As a major imperial power in the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Britain participated in the slave trade and profited enormously from slave labor, particularly on the sugar plantations of the West Indies. In fact, anti-slavery activists promoted the use of ‘non-slave’ sugar, even advertising the fact on special sugar bowls: not so far removed from the ‘fair trade’ and similar labels of today’s consumer activism. Mr. Carson refers indirectly, but proudly, to the legal principle that no man is a slave on English soil: Somersett’s case, decided in 1772, found that James Somersett could not be recaptured in England having escaped the man who purchased him in Boston, establishing that principle. But Britain continued to participate in the slave trade until 1807; slavery itself was abolished (mostly) in British colonies in 1833, though slave-owners were compensated for their loss of “property” and former slaves were obliged to pass through a period of “apprenticeship” before gaining full freedom.
By the time of the American Civil War (1861-65), many in Britain were proud of their relatively early abolition movement, looking with dismay and perhaps some smug superiority on the American states that continued to permit slavery. (Lord Grantham’s reference to Simon Legree prompted an interesting conversation in last week’s comments on the British popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.) In Manchester, just off Albert Square, there’s a statue of Abraham Lincoln celebrating the decision by a meeting of mill workers in 1862 to support the embargo against Confederate cotton in spite of the fact that the resulting ‘cotton famine’ put many of them out of work.
By the 1920s, condemnation of racism and ‘Jim Crow’ in the American South was a staple of British discourse. Yet Britain itself experienced its own episodes of violent racial hatred. In 1919, a wave of riots hit British ports; white workers, including many Irish people targeted African, south Asian, and Chinese people as scapegoats for their anger about rising unemployment and hard times in the struggling seaports. During World War II, ten percent of the American soldiers stationed in the United Kingdom were African-American; their presence, and the visible segregation of the U.S. Army, occasioned considerable comment. Once again, a key issue was women’s sexuality, and in particular young women who dated black soldiers. Nevil Shute’s novel The Chequer Board (1947) presents these issues in an idealized way, contrasting vicious American racism with the tolerance and common sense of the local English people. The mixture of Anglo-American competition, race, and sexuality is a potent one; the longer history of the Atlantic world, though, casts an inexorable shadow.
Sources
“Ethnicity and National Identity in England and Wales 2011,” Office for National Statistics
Jacqueline Jenkinson, Black 1919: Riots, Racism and Resistance in Imperial Britain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009)
George McKay, Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005)
Jason Rodrigues, “Lincoln’s Great Debt to Manchester,” The Guardian, February 4, 2013
Sonya O. Rose, Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Britain, 1939-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
Caroline Weber, “The Rebel Heiress,” review of Lois Gordon, Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), New York Times, April 1, 2007
Tags: history, mo moulton, television, watching downton abbey with an historian
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OK, so given Carson’s past in the entertainment world, does it really make sense for him to be so weird about the presence of black people? Or does it, because historically that doesn’t make sense? I often find Carson’s reactions to be uh, at odds with his background.
It struck me as odd, for sure. Maybe a case of protesting too much? That’s the interpretation that’s charitable to the writers. Carson certainly would have been exposed to people performing all sorts of “exotic oddity” roles in the world of late Victorian/Edwardian lowbrow entertainment.
Maybe it’s not so much a function of Carson not being familiar with Black people, but of him being quite snobby in the context of Downton. He has shown to be the stuffiest person in the house on more than one occasion, and feels the need to protect the family from everything modern or likely to cause scandal. (Or that HE thinks is likely to cause scandal.)
That’s how I read it; Carson has fully embraced the Dignity (capital D) of his position (also see: how very soundly he puts down poor Mosley which, let’s face it, was hilarious). I see him as taking Butling on as his latest & greatest role, and refusing to let anything take away from the luster of that role.
I don’t think the writers are that clever.
But can you explain why Jack Ross has such an awful nasal singing voice?
All facetiousness aside, I love this series!
THANK YOU. I mean, not only does he sound TERRIBLE when singing (no pitch as well as awful voice) but he doesn’t even really sound american!! i have it on very good authority that there are LOTS of talented black american singers…plane tickets aren’t that expensive!
Thanks! A colleague who actually works on jazz in interwar Europe pointed out that the novelty factor was so high that the bar for musical talent in jazz was sometimes lower in Europe/Britain than in the US…
I find relative racism within specific cultural contexts ENDLESSLY FASCINATING. For reals. And I feel oddly proud that our Uncle Tom’s Cabin discussion wound up in this week’s edition!
SO INTERESTING!
As an expat in the UK, one of the things that fascinated me was the consistent insistence I would get from people that racism existed in the US only. When I finally did it in class, it was so interesting to see that this construction has a reaaaaally long history.
Interestingly, Enoch Powell’s (infamous british fascist) seminal speech (Rivers of Blood) has a section within it specifically calling out America as the truly racist nation, while Britain only fears immigrants. But looking at official documents (Kathleen Paul’s Whitewashing Britain is great at this) it’s clear that a LOT of official effort was expended to create immigration policy that barred people of color but wasn’t explicitly racist. So there were separate immigration criteria for commonwealth citizens (who later got literally grandfathered into higher citizenship classifications), irish immigration was never restricted, and commonwealth countries were allowed to maintain racist settlement policies, but people from the colonies continually had their citizenship circumscribed.
There is also a weird insistence among Americans (usually somewhat naive, sheltered, younger Americans, and apparently several people I went to high school with) who strongly believe that racism exists in the US only! To which…..racism is everywhere. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
Every time someone brings up how evolved scandinavia is …
They also have terrible issues with sexual violence.
Oh I do that! Tell me more so I know why I shouldn’t, please.
When I lived in England, my (English) housemate, who is normally very smart, told me one day that “England didn’t have any black people until the 60s.”
???
I suppose she didn’t mean, say, 1560s? 1160s? Seriously, amnesia about race and empire is endlessly fascinating to me–the way that people can just sort of not know things that, under other circumstances, they’d recognize right away.
These discussions are better than the show!
This series has directly contributed to my enjoyment of Downton Abbey. As I watched this week’s episode, I kept thinking “I wonder whether Mo Moulton will talk about that” and “I can’t wait to read the historian’s take on this!”
Thank you for the “Downton Diddy” link. That’s all I have to say, really. Carry on!
That was some fun stuff & I hadn’t seen it before – thanks from me, too! (I love when he was shouting from the rooftop best.)
I just want to say how much I appreciate your including the list of works consulted at the end of these pieces. People will say that not every piece of cultural criticism on the internet has to have a bibliography, but I say, couldn’t hurt.
Since just yesterday I was dithering over including a footnote in a pitch*, I’m so glad I’m not alone in my appreciation of footnotes and citations. I enjoy all kinds of sourceless pop-culture writing, but there are certainly some kinds of pop-culture and entertainment writing where citations and sources only add to the value of the article.
*Of course I did!
I once hired a guy solely because he put a correctly formatted and completely unnecessary footnote in his cover letter. [1] Was this a good decision? No, but I’d do it again.
[1] it’s possible I am not so good at my job
re: Jazz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TghEIWbKAM
I don't think the writers are that clever.
Two other period pieces to tackle WWII and post WWII racism with a heavy spackling of “aren’t we brits just the kindest” would be Call the Midwife (set in post war poor London) S1E3 and S2E7. In the first one the wife’s infidelity is revealed when her baby is black and the husband just chooses not to notice and everyone is cool with it. In the second one, all the neighbors are racist towards a black pregnant lady and then they all become friends.
A much better one is Foyle’s War- Killing Time S7 E2 which deals with black american soldiers on a base waiting to go home. One of the soldiers has a white girlfriend who had his baby and when she turns up dead, he gets accused. The racism is more realistic, but there’s an ultimately heartwarming thing with fly fishing and Foyle helping the guy not be accused of her murder. But even so, all the good guys are not racist and all the bad guys are mostly racist…so….
I’m excited to see Belle and see how that one does it. I’ve heard there’s still the “good aristocrats are kindly and not racist” issue.
It’s interesting to see how people will re-visit history and impose modern values on the good guys, like, “see, he was a nice boss the whole time! And he got over the scandal and let his daughter do what she wanted! And they all were cool with black people. I mean, other people sure, totally racist, totally sexist, but not our merry crew!”
Yup! There’s also a new infidelity one where she gives up the baby. Perhaps they’re going for the complete set?
(for WWII racism, Rose BRINGS it.*)
*My relationship to historians is perhaps overly akin to that of a really devoted football fan.
I think (not 100% sure) that Belle is based on actual historical figures, though of course historical movies do not always have that much actual history in them, so. The trailer seems to show a lot of people being historically accurate dickheads, for what that is worth.
I’m a bit late to this discussion, but if you haven’t seen it, “Wondrous Oblivion” is a great movie dealing with racism in the UK, though it’s set during the 60’s when a lot more Black people were immigrating.
I too am a fan of British TV who finds the whole “we’re soooo progressive” narrative a little irritating. One thing that is touched on in the article and that I’ve been curious about for a while is that there are at least twice as many South Asian people in the UK, but like 90% of the time, the token minority on any given show is Black. I suspect this is an emulation of and/or reaction to American TV, but I’d love to know what other people think…
I haven’t been watching this season, but when the scathing NYTimes review came out, my grandmother (who is not British) expressed extreme disbelief that people like the Downton Abbey crew would allow a black person into their home.
I think the writing on the show consistently glosses over the actual bigotries of the British upper classes and the people who emulated their tastes. In last night’s episode, Carson makes a big shocked face upon seeing Jack, and so does Lord Grantham, but then they immediately are totally magnanimous and cool with it all, and apparently not in a “keeping up appearances” way. I find this unbelievable.
It’s similar to the anti-Catholicism of Lord Grantham just magically getting better once he decided to not make a big deal of it. And in this show, that was that, and nobody was every anti-papist again.
I really like that this series is written in such a way that I can read and enjoy it without having watched more than 2-3 episodes of Downton Abbey. Yay, nerdery!
I find it interesting that while the writers/producers of Downton are obsessed with detail regarding period furniture, dress, vehicles, etc., the nomenclature used to describe a black person is historically inaccurate. Calling a person of African descent “black” in the 1910s and 1920s was an insult in the American context, and throughout the African diaspora as well. In the U.S., people like historian/sociologist/activist W.E.B. Du Bois were moving away from using the term “colored” (as in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which he helped found in 1909), to Negro with a capital ‘N’. The so-called Harlem Renaissance was known as the New Negro movement by those involved in it (once again, Du Bois was a major player). As for a more pan-Africanist perspective, what about Marcus Garvey’s U.N.I.A. (Universal Negro Improvement Association, founded in 1914 by Garvey in Jamaica)? The use of Negro, again. Du Bois himself was very much a pan-Africanist, and was well aware of the preferred nomenclature throughout the African diaspora. Jack Ross, as a black American, would not have used the label “black” to describe himself, and he would likely have taken offense at someone calling him black instead of Negro, or even colored. Also, I have been unable to find any reference to integrated jazz bands in England in the 1920s. The first integrated jazz band in the U.S. did not exist until the 1930s (although we’ll never know for certain who led the first integrated band, Benny Goodman was the first really well-known band leader to have an integrated band, including a young Billie Holiday). Not that there weren’t black American proto-jazz band musicians in Europe during WWI, James Reese Europe being the most famous, but he never performed in the U.K. I don’t know whom the character of Jack Ross is supposed to based upon, say, unlike the appearance of Nellie Melba, but I find his character to simply be an example of 1920s’ Western interest in the exotic, and a very boring character at that.