T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

Residual Affect:

Race, Micro-aggressions, Micro-inequities, (Autophagy)

& BBQ

in the Contemporary Southern Imagination

at Six Flags

Daron L. M. Davenport

U.C. Berzerkeley

I.DØ.A5.IT.I5

Abstract

Scholars (Elise, Mahiri, Sims, Costarides, Johnson 2012) argue that barbecue’s popularity in the South evidences its unique ontological position as both method and apparatus, a duality that accurately represents otherwise nonrepresentational aspects of Southern culture (Johnson 2012). In this paper, I argue that barbecue embodies both the nongendered and the gendered performative aspects of ritualistic social intercourse in three ways: (1) It enables heterogeneous interactions among hot dogs and hamburgers, as it does among humans; (2) Unexpected exposure to high heat fortifies flavor while allowing the meat to remain tender, just like sudden and intense exposure to stress does for humans; and (3) Everyone can afford a barbecue grill, so skill is the great equalizer, just like it is in the workplace for humans. In my field observation of a spontaneous barbecue among nomadic elders of the meridional United States, I observed prosocial behavior among disparate parties at a major U.S. theme park, suggesting that indeed we can all get along.

Research Question

PRIMARY RESEARCH QUESTION:

• Is a barbecue a social event, cooking apparatus, or a culinary method?

SECONDARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

• Is a barbecue what Michel de Certeau would call a strategy or a tactic?

• Is barbecue real or imagined?

• Is barbecue a noun or verb or metaphor?

• Is barbecue spelled barbecue, barbeque, bar-b-q, or BBQ?

Methods

Informants — Design — Procedures — Measures & Methodology

• The informants include nomadic elders originally from the meridional United States, and 4 Little Indians, each representing a unique tribe.

• Guidelines for grounded research have been followed.

• Names have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent.

• Nothing is staged.

• The occasion is analyzed using both eyewitness accounts and the original text as source material. So the evidence is both direct and indirect (Dehaan 1999).

Literature review

• Old Hitch, who built Lou Davis’s smoker, is said to have left behind a journal of tips and recipes called Cooking by Heartlight . Those who have read it are rumored to have gnawed their tongues unclean off.

SIX FLAGS PART ONE: INTERNMENT AND INTERROGATION

One of us? Who is us?

As above, so below, Nana liked to say, daubing juniper oil on D’amon’s forehead and chin. She’d then draw her thumbs across the upper ridge of his cheekbones and massage his temples, while reminding him that his eyes would reckon his appetites, and his appetites would be the hatch between the two worlds. By appetites she meant, Dogs don’t eat on listing boats. By two worlds she meant, Ussens, and what’s hid behind even that preacherman, like the Moon and the Sun, one is light while the other onliest pretend. Damon imagined the two worlds as the celestial and the earthly, as a kingdom of delights atop a realm of pedestrian bureaucracy, but he hadn’t the words to express this at the time. It’s like dinner and dessert, you silly goat, Nana explained, which he took to mean that he had to do right by one before getting to the other, but two such separate worlds he’d never seen before, until Six Flags.

The alleys, underground offices, and subterranean corridors our 4 Little Indians were marched through must have covered the entire kingdom, for the journey ended at red double doors on the other side of the park, far from where they had, Unceremoniously, Park Director Vandenburg insisted, released Ishi. It was as if the people in the other world, the basement offices and black alleys, the dark city, were being punished, while the people up above were, were… Vandenberg sipped his OJ… sun kissed. The contrast between the two worlds was as starkly unsettling as the social divide explored in the film Metropolis, which Damon’s film professor called the first honest cinematic coverage of the laboring class, the first film to illustrate the gross and lamentable existential gap between white collar and blue collar, a gap Damon would not have otherwise believed existed in such varied dimensions: All the boots at the mill ever said was, Shirtsleeves are for sissies.

Vandenburg, with his superhero silver sideburns, spent most of the conversation with his right hand on the phone, tapping it with his trigger finger to express displeasure whenever he didn’t like the sound of their story. They had been led first to a supervisor, then a security chief, and at last to Vandenburg, after the security chief picked at the cardboard urn with a pencil and saw that among the remains were numerous page numbers.

Vandenburg softened the more Caitlin spoke, until he finally swiveled to his computer, fingered his fancy silver keyboard, turned his screen toward Caitlin and instructed her to read aloud the entire Wikipedia entry on Vallejo. Then the one on Six Flags. When she finished, he leaned back in his chair as though exhausted, sipped his juice, fanned himself. Hot stuff, huh? Ishi’s not from here, his tribe isn’t even from here, his tribe should not have been the victims of overzealous retaliation, but none of it has anything to do with Six Flags. As he talked, Caitlin said nothing, which surprised Damon. Leading them to the door, Vandenburg smiled, That’s why it’s called Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, you learn something new every day.

The guard who drove them back to their car was the same one who’d checked Caitlin’s bag at the ticket gate, the same one who was so bewitched by her rugby jersey, a fact Damon was not derring-do enough to point out. Had they not all that afternoon been blinded by reverie of one type or another? The guard looked neither right nor left, turning wide and slow, acknowledging Caitlin’s whispered directions with a clipped nod, as if wearing a neck brace. Even Lee was quiet. Kain’s right leg bounced like it did as he laced for runs. The guard dropped them off at Caitlin’s old Corolla, then circled the aisle and returned, the whine of the golf cart catching their attention. Hey, he called, I was at the gate when you came in wearing the padded bra. There are some things you shouldn’t lie about. My mom had breast cancer and she had to use prosthetics for real (Johnson 2015, p. 279).

Initial findings

Maybe those Marxists were right about class divides, but what most frightened Damon that morning was the guard. It was as if the guard himself had cancer. Cancer isn’t contagious, but it is mighty bad luck, and that is highly contagious.

SIX FLAGS PART TWO: ESCAPE

In the car, Caitlin apologized. Who would have thought that fake breasts could offend people, that her excess would cast a shadow reminding others of a painful deprivation? To Damon, she gifted two fingers to his elbow and her thanks that he took a knee to acknowledge the significance of the occasion.

There was standing room only, offered Kain, who had called shotgun. The kids will think about what they heard. They’ll be more reverent.

That’s nice, Kain. Thanks.

Does anyone else appreciate that they gave us a standing ovation? Lee’s enthusiasm was not contagious, though Damon did snort with relief when Lee whispered, What the fuck was up with Tweety Bird? Was that a plushie blowjob dream or what?

I need the lady’s room.

Woo hoo! Finally! Lee held his hands over his head when they were jolted violently forward and to the right as Caitlin jerked into a spot in the overnight lot, skittering across the gravel and coming to a stop between two RVs. Engine running, she slammed the door and walked off, her arms swinging wide as she disappeared behind the campers.