Jana J. Monji

GO: ‘Fetch Clay, Make Man’ and Asia in America

On our way to the Kirk Douglas Theatre, my husband confessed he had never heard of Stepin Fetchit. Although I had heard of him and knew of his controversial place in African American cinematic history, I had only seen snippets of his performances. Will Power’s play, Fetch Clay, Make Man” is a powerful discussion about race, resilience and shifting cultural values as a newly renamed Muhammad Ali gets advice from the once popular, but now often humbled and often humiliated Stepin Fetchit. The play itself doesn’t overtly mention Asia, but looking at attitudes toward Asia and Asians helps put it in context.

Under the direction of Emmy Award winner Debbie Allen, Ray Fisher’s Muhammad Ali is a man filled with brash vibrant life, but also a faith built on superstition. His religion of choice is the Nation of Islam, a religious and political organization founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad (1877-c. 1934) in 1930. This is not today’s NOI and Power’s script will educate you on how wild and willing the followers had to be. Cassius Clay was willing, but his first wife Sonji Clay (Alexis Floyd)  less so.

Now under the guidance of Elijah Muhammad and under the shadow of suspicion cast by the recent assassination of Malcolm X (1925-1965) in February, the Nation of Islam seems to set up a sense of African superiority but there are also some farfetched claims that make Edwin Lee Gibson’s Stepin Fetchit give the side eye.

Flashing back into the past, we meet the man now called William Fox (Bruce Nozick). The Hungarian-born Fox was originally named Wilhelm Fried Fuchs (1879-1952), and his parents were both Hungarian Jews. He formed Fox Film Corporation in 1915. Although he might be White-passing, Fox wasn’t totally supportive of Stepin Fetchit; he wanted the man to be the caricature represented on film when he wasn’t working according to Power’s play.

Power juxtaposes the facade that Stepin Fetchit was force to wear and the one that Cassius Clay, now becoming Muhammad Ali, chooses to wear and is sometimes asked to show by the Nation of Islam, represented by the watchful and often disapproving Brother Rashid (Wilkie Ferguson III).  But this isn’t just a problem of Black men defining their manhood. Sonji Roi, the woman Muhammad Ali married as Cassius Clay in 1964, simmers under the constraints of the NOI. And she knew Rashid before he embraced NOI.

Stepin Fetchit may or may not have valuable information that will help prepare Muhammad Ali for his second fight against Sonny Liston, who we never see. This play is more about the mental game and games men play. Under Allen’s direction, the physicality of each character is clear and speaks louder than the words. Yet that is particularly important of Floyd’s Sonji. Floyd’s Sonji has much more in common with Gibson’s Stepin Fetchit than she does with Fisher’s Ali. She’s disguising who she was and is like Gibson’s Stepin Fetchit was forced to do. Having played a comic book hero (Cyborg), it’s no surprise that Fisher can boldly embody one of America’s heroes, but unlike Cyborg, his Ali has an almost insolent swagger.

Of course we already know how this ends beyond what Power has written. Muhammad Ali had more than one wife. He would leave the Nation of Islam for Sunni Islam. While the Nation of Islam will not settle well with Muhammad Ali’s first wife according to this play, there’s an interesting paragraph about his second wife,  Khalilah Ali (b. Belinda Boyd) in “Black Women, the National of Islam, and the Pursuit of Freedom” (22 May 2018) from “Black Perspectives.”

Fox was injured in an auto accident in 1929 and much of his fortune was wiped out in the stock market crash in October 1929. By 1930, he had lost control of his company during a hostile takeover. He declared bankruptcy in 1936, but he also allegedly attempted to bribe the judge.

Stepin Fetchit would return to the silver screen in small roles, but miss out on the biopic with Muhammad Ali.

The play does include some things you may or may not know about the Nation of Islam. Some surprised me.

Nation of Islam

First, after I recovered from shock over the statements made in the play,  I turned to PBS, American Experience.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists NOI as a designated hate group because despite offering numerous programs and events to help African Americans “these efforts to support and empower Black communities in the United States are overshadowed by the organization’s lengthy record of antisemitism, homophobia, and connections to prominent white supremacists. The NOI often reframes the serious issues facing the Black community, such as economic inequality and police brutality, to fit within their antisemitic ideology, blaming Jews rather than the systemic racism infecting American institutions.”

Further, SPLC notes:

In addition to the organization’s notorious antisemitism and homophobia, the NOI preaches a theology of innate black superiority over whites. They believe whites are a biologically inferior, satanic race of “blue eyed devils” and oppose racial integration. Today the NOI continues to support a separate state for Black Americans.

The Anti-Defamation League also has a web page on NOI.

Nation of Islam ideology regularly incorporates bigoted and discriminatory beliefs, particularly aimed at Jews, LGBTQ+ people, and white people. The NOI also promotes various conspiratorial beliefs, which frequently overlap with their other forms of bigotry.

The Nation of Islam was not, during its formative years, that closely connected to Islam. The SPLC notes:

The NOI’s beliefs and religious practices diverge significantly from traditional Islamic theology. Its belief in racial superiority clashes with the mainstream Islamic principle that all are equal under God and its teachings regarding God, Prophet Muhammad, and the afterlife are seen by some as heretical. As a result, mainstream Islamic groups reject the group and do not consider its members to be Muslims.

Yet the NOI in 1965 isn’t the same as the one we know today. According to Britannica,

Elijah Muhammad believed that the white race was created by Yakub, a Black scientist, and that Allah had allowed this devilish race to hold power for 6,000 years. Their time was up in 1914, and the 20th century was to be the time for Black people to assert themselves. This myth supported a program of economic self-sufficiency, the development of Black-owned businesses, and a demand for the creation of a separate Black nation to be carved out of the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

There were claims of a “mothership” or “mother wheel“:

African American Muslims, under the teachings of  the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, learned of another “Mothership” around 1932—it was a large bomb-carrying spacecraft built by the Japanese for the Nation of Islam, capable of destroying earth….The Nation of Islam claimed to possess a large spacecraft known as the Mothership or Mother Wheel according to an April 1996 article in the New Yorker magazine written by Henry Louis Gates Jr. The scholar wrote that Farrakhan “was a man of visions.”

As always, I try to understand how Asians, particularly East Asians fit within this paradigm of racism. I was intrigued about this mention of Japan and how Asians, fit into the Nation of Islam’s view of the world. Mohammed, of course, was West Asian. He is an Asiatic Black person according to NOI. Yet what about East Asians?  In the 1930s, Elijah Muhammad said, “The Asiatic race is made up of all dark-skinned people, including the Japanese and the Asiatic black man. Therefore, members of the Asiatic race must stick together. The Japanese will win the war because the white man cannot successfully oppose the Asiatics.”

I found an odd reference to the Japanese and Elijah Muhammad in Our Weekly (20 November 2014:

How did Elijah Muhammad get there? Amongst some African Americans, Japanese Imperialism had a different interpretation than the one we are typically taught in US. School.

WEB DuBois (1868-1963) wrote that the color line and Yellow Perilism were intwined and the victory of Japan in the Russo-Japanese War broke the “foolish modern magic of the word white.”  It would be, however, incorrect to assume that the Western world were aligned in their negative view of Japan’s victory. Because of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Britain and Japan assisted one another in their respective interests in China and Korea. This is why Japan entered World War I on the side of the Allies.

Black or African American leaders didn’t forget about Japan and such opinions have historical importance in understanding race and international relations. Yet, of course, Japan did lose the war and the vilified Japanese and Chinese were recreated as lesser men and exotic women in post-World War II viewpoints. People of East Asian descent became the model minority in the US.

The pre-World War II NOI changed and changed even more since the 1960s. Most of us today, know of the NOI led by Louis Farrakhan (b. Louis Eugene Wolcott), who is now 90, and was banned from Facebook in 2019 for what were considered extremist views. Powers and director Allen due a good job of taking us back to a different NOI, one that makes Stepin Fetchit give the side eye to both Muhammad Ali and Brother Rashid.

While here Stepin Fetchit represents the African American experience in the films, how were other ethnic groups portrayed during his heyday?

Hollywood and Racism

Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (May 30, 1902 – November 19, 1985)

Perry’s film career slowed after 1939 and nearly stopped altogether after 1953. Although he was alive in 1977 when Muhammad Ali’s autobiographical film “The Greatest” came out, and Ali did star as himself, Cassius Clay,  Perry’s last credit would be the 1976 “Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood.” Perry had suffered a stroke in 1976.

Sessue Hayakawa  was signed to Paramount Pictures, and was seen in more than 20 silent films including “The Wrath of the Gods“ (1914) and “The Typhoon” (1914). Hayakawa wasn’t a comedian; he was considered a sex symbol.   Hayakawa’s contract with Paramount expired in 1918, and was on Broadway in 1923.  Transitioning to the walks was difficult because of his accent. He did better in Europe, but was in France during the German occupation in 1940. by the 1930s, he wasn’t unable to get leading roles. Even villains were

Anna May Wong once said,  “There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles.”Although considered for the lead in “The Good Earth, that went to n 1935,  German actress Luise Rainer.

Yellowface was already common in films. Mary Pickford played Cio-Cio san in the 1915 “Madame Butterfly.” In 1919, Richard Barthelmess” was Cheng Hua in the 1919 “Broken Blossoms.” In 1919, Matheson Lang was “Mr. Wu” and in 1927, Lon Chaney got the change to play that character. Charlie Chan was played by Warner Orland (1931-1937), Sidney Toler (1937-1946) and Roland Winters (1946-1949). Bela Lugosi was “The Mysterious Mr. Wong” in 1934 while Peter Lorre starred in the Mr. Moto film series (1937-1939).

At the time of Stepin Fetchit’s popularity, blackface could still be seen in live-action films. In 1927, the silent film “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” filled all the major slave roles with White actors. However, there seems to have been a difference between blackface (usually used in broad comedies or to show minstrel type performance within a film) and the usage of makeup to allow White people to play Native Americans, Asians (West, Central, South and East) and Latinos. Black people were playing African and African American people while a variety of White people, including Latino, were playing East Asians. John Wayne, BTW, did appear in blackface (the 1942 “The Spoilers”) and over a decade later would play the Mongol hero Genghis Khan (the 1956 “The Conqueror”).

My impression, however, may only be anecdotal because I don’t know of a definitive study on this. What is clear now, is that yellow face in the last few decades has been more acceptable than blackface. Beginning in the 1980s, broadcasts of the 1942 classic film “Holiday Inn” have cut out the blackface minstrel show. In the 1980s, a White man was still playing Charlie Chan (Peter Ustinov), a White man played the Ratty Nepalese (Malcolm Weaver) in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and Linda Hunt played an Asian man in “The Year of Living Dangerously” for an Oscar and Joel Grey played a Korean man  for a Golden Globe nomination in the 1985 “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.”  In the 2012 “Cloud Atlas,” yellow face was used to make cast members appear Korean/East Asian in one segment. While Asian actresses Bae Doona and Zhou Sun appeared in non-Asian roles and African American actress Halle Berry portrayed a White character, no blackface was used. These instances would seem to indicate the acceptance of yellow face against the intolerance of blackface, even old blackface.

Race: Asian and African and America

The play obviously touches on Hollywood and racism that Stepin Fetchit struggled in (as well as the racism that Muhammad Ali faces in his sport). Perhaps it wasn’t an intentional addition, but besides the mention of Uncle Tom, the script includes Black Sambo, a name that juxtaposes Asian Americans with African Americans.

In Powers’ text, Stepin Fetchit defends “Uncle Tom” but notes that at least he isn’t a Sambo. In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the Christian slave Tom keeps his faith. He refuses to whip a fellow slave and is beaten by his master Simon Legree.  After encouraging Cassy to escape and then  refuses to tell Legree where they have gone. Although he is beaten to death by the overseers, Sambo and Quimbo,  under orders of Legree, he forgives the overseers and Legree This changes the men. Stowe was  Connecticut-born woman of English descent and the novel does contain stereotypes, but the character Uncle Tom is not someone who bows down is subordinates himself to the White man. He is willing to risk death in order to spare and even save other Black people. How other people interpreted the Uncle Tom character in “Tom Shows” was beyond Stowe’s control.

While Sambo is the name of a character in Stowe’s 1852 book, the more famous Sambo comes from Scottish author Helen Bannerman, “The Story of Little Black Sambo” (1899) which is about a South Indian boy, not an African or African American boy. There are no tigers in Africa and Sambo, the son of Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo, encounters four hungry tigers. The tigers argue and instead of eating Sambo, they are reduced to ghee or clarified butter which are used to make pancakes. Bannerman had little control over the change of illustrations in the US and elsewhere.

In the late 1980s, there was a protest against Japan publishing Little Black Sambo in Japanese as well as Japanese toys named Sambo and Hanna.

Yet remember it wasn’t until 2020 that Uncle Ben’s Rice changed its visuals. The change to Aunt Jemima was also recent. This muddle between East Asians and people of East Asian descent and African Americans is something that can’t be ignored. Further, the new name-calling in Black publications likewise shows the conflicting interested between specific Asian Americans as it invokes a proper name that according to Britannica “refers to a variety of tribal peoples of southern Myanmar,” including White Karen and Red Karen.  This usage of Karen as the name of a people  has been in place since 1833. In the current slang usage, it is hard to comprehend what “Karen” actually means, even when it applies to White women as used by Black/African Americans.

Yet it’s hard to imagine that the name of a sub-Saharan African tribe would have been allowed to be used in a similar way in the US by Asian groups without a loud and influential protest by Black and African Americans.

While the play, “Fetch Clay, Make Man” seems to be looking at race in a Black and White binary theory of racism, racism in the US was never that–not even for Elijah Muhammad. And it is hard to forget that the prophet Muhammad, like Jesus Christ, was Asian. Funny things happen in the US as it interprets religion. In the end, “Fetch Clay, Make Man,” seems to be a cautionary tale about name-calling, because it allows us to be dismissive of the individual and the complexities of life within the confines of race in the United States.

“Fetch Clay, Make Man” continues at the Kirk Douglas Theatre until 16 July 2023. The play is produced in association with The SpringHill Company. For tickets or more information, visit Center Theatre Group.

 

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