It’s been interesting to see all the different ways that scholars have discussed the topic I plan to talk about. The topic of digital blackface is so broad that I found it useful to read sources that discuss digital blackface from multiple perspective. I’ve also appreciated how all the sources I’ve read stress an aversion to arguing based on purely moral grounds. I think that a common reaction to discussing digital blackface is to question its legitimacy and tangible harm, and the sources I’ve read are aware of that as well. For example, Tempest M. Henning discusses digital blackface from purely an argumentative and rhetorical perspective.
I think it’s also been helpful to see the way the sources I’ve read had built off of each other. Multiple sources I’ve read reference each other. Seeing how the authors of my sources have built on each other’s research has felt useful in figuring out how I want to build my own argument. Eric Lott’s Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, felt particularly dense the first time I read it, but seeing how others summarize his findings made his work more comprehensible to me.
I think research has been different for me this for this writing assignment compared to previous ones. I feel like I am probably guilty of knowing the answer i want to find before I research, but that felt kind of impossible this time since the topic is so broad. It’s a little scary because of the fear of looking into something and investing time in it only for that source to be useless for the essay. But this process of researching has allowed me to observe the scholarly context of the topic I’m discussing first.
This is a wonderful post, as it shows you growing in your practice as a researcher and scholar. You note, ‘Eric Lott’s Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, felt particularly dense the first time I read it, but seeing how others summarize his findings made his work more comprehensible to me.” This is exactly the process: read the foundational text, even if it’s old and confusing, and then read how people have used it to build their own more recent, and perhaps even more clear, interpretations. I’m so glad that you’re reading for multiple perspectives and realizing that research is a large part of this process. Great work!
Hi Demree, I think it’s interesting how you write that you already know the answer you’re searching for. At least, you assume you did. But when you actually began reading, you realized it’s harder and more complex than you thought. I’m sure that digital blackface is a relatively new field of interest, although I imagine it’s true history and roots has been around for quite a bit. Especially since you write that your sources build off of each other– it’s clear that this field is small yet growing quickly. I hope that as time goes on the work comes clearer to you. Noting how you say you want to avoid the simple moral argument, but it seems like it’d be hard to find scientific psychological research on this topic.