{"id":121018,"date":"2018-02-01T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=121018"},"modified":"2018-02-02T13:11:59","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T18:11:59","slug":"darker-canvas-tattoos-black-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/02\/01\/darker-canvas-tattoos-black-body\/","title":{"rendered":"A Darker Canvas: Tattoos and the Black Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One time in New Orleans, during an annual music festival organized by Essence<\/em> magazine, a lady flagged me down from her car. I was walking through the French Quarter. The air was sufficiently drenched. In a neighborhood that has been steadily losing black folks, the block was suddenly full of us\u2014glowing in bright clothes, and laughing entirely too loud. But this woman was pretty pissed.<\/p>\n

When I reached her window, she gave me another nod. She squinted at my tattoos, and asked where the nearest parlor was. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut one for <\/span>us<\/span><\/i>,\u201d<\/span> <\/i>she said. \u201cI\u2019ve already been to four today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I pointed her to a guy I knew, up the road and around the corner. When she asked if he was black, I winced, because he was not. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s good though,\u201d I said. \u201cI mean it. He\u2019s done me twice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The lady looked deeply skeptical. But then she said, \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cListen,\u201d she continued. \u201cI don\u2019t know about that. But I\u2019m going to trust you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

*<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a look you get used to receiving, and quickly, if you\u2019re black with tattoos. First, there\u2019s the flicker of recognition. A scan from your audience, digesting your appearance. A brief smile or flinch, as the appraiser does some mental calculus. Then there are a few beats as they read more cues: your speech, and your demeanor, and your gait, and your dress. <\/span><\/p>\n

Once they\u2019ve put a picture together, whatever that looks like, the conversation can resume, if the results are to their liking. If not, there\u2019s the polite exit. Or the impolite one. Or an outright cession from any future interactions. But <\/span>your<\/span><\/i> reaction, in most cases, is almost always the same: a knowing grin, and an acknowledgment of the proceedings, and the silent agreement to act like that shit isn\u2019t actually taking place at all. <\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly one in five Americans claim to have a tattoo somewhere on their body. If they\u2019re younger, like millennial young, the trend\u2019s a little closer to one in three. The pejorative connotations surrounding tattoos have certainly diminished in the States, even if only a little bit, over the last decade or so. Television has played a major role, from Ink Master<\/em>\u00a0to Best Ink<\/em>\u00a0to LA Ink<\/em>,\u00a0and Miami Ink<\/em>\u00a0and NY Ink<\/em>; and the radio has, too, from choppy anthems to poppy ballads.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s interesting to note that the <\/span>context<\/span> of that \u201cpositive\u201d change in perception is very particular. Which is to say that it\u2019s pretty white. Which, if you live in the States, shouldn\u2019t be much of a surprise at all. If you <\/span>are<\/span><\/i> white, tattoos lead to the presumption of military service, a culinary background, \u00a0some nod at self-expression or a \u201crebellious\u201d phase. If you <\/span>aren\u2019t<\/span><\/i> white, then you\u2019re immediately, until proven otherwise,<\/span> trapping or banging or otherwise dubiously affiliated<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone\u2019s personal history of their tattoos is just that: personal. But for some communities, there are overlaps and similarities. There are tropes of casual discrimination and shared stories of blatant ignorance. Some of these anecdotes are more hapless than others. One early tattoo of mine (a pair of hands surrounding some stars) saw me shuffled from artist to artist. With my \u201ccomplexion,\u201d they didn\u2019t see how it could be done. Another tattoo (a rosemary branch) prompted an interrogation at a Texas barbecue joint because this guy couldn\u2019t understand why a black dude would \u201cgo and get something like that.\u201d I got my most recent tattoo while I was abroad (a koi fish), and I hadn\u2019t expected it to make a fuss; but, in the airport, stuck in Ontario, this white lady reached over and pulled up my sleeve. <\/span><\/p>\n

She was holding a baby. She apologized immediately. But she said she\u2019d never seen something like that on someone so dark.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re so dark, she said, rocking the kid. I mean, that\u2019s new. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen that before. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span><\/p>\n

For as long as there have been people breathing up Earth\u2019s air, body art, in its various forms, has found its way onto our skin: the history of African tattooing extends thousands of years. Some of the earliest known tattoo wearers were Egyptian: markings were discovered on the remains of women dated circa 2000 B.C.<\/small> Samoan societies have worn them for generations, and Polynesian tattoo culture spans\u00a0two millennia. In Japan, body modification extends as far back as the Jomon period (about 10,500 B.C.<\/small> to 300 B.C.<\/small>); while tattooing in China, relegated punitively or to minority populations or with great disdain, has a history extending ages. Native Americans have practiced tattooing, for religious ceremonies and tribal identification, since before the Christian era, but prior to European invasion and desecration these practices went largely undocumented. <\/span><\/p>\n

In\u00a0the United States, following the land\u2019s colonization, the Native American practice of tattooing was widely deemed barbaric. But in the nineteenth<\/span>\u00a0century, sailors who had sailed to the South Pacific brought the practice back to Western shores. Over several centuries, tattoos saw a cultural rebranding. They gained aesthetic value. The single largest source of that shift was the honing of the electric tattoo machine in 1891\u2014the process, and its connotations, were revolutionized nearly overnight. It is said Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston\u2019s mother, had a snake tattoo that circled her wrist like a bracelet, which likely cost as much, if not more, than the rest of her fine jewelry. And by 1900, every major American city had some sort of studio. But as accessibility increased, the practice\u2019s attractiveness adjusted accordingly. Tattoos soon became the province of supposedly \u201cloose women\u201d (while the \u201cvirtue\u201d of men, regardless of their tattoos, wasn\u2019t questioned), sideshows, and outcasts, before slowly being made \u201ccool\u201d again by rock musicians. Though, of course, any sense of the \u201cdesirability\u201d of tattoos held true solely for white people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Modern tattooing<\/span><\/a>, on the whole, is one of the wildest things a sentient person can subject themselves to. Tattooing itself is the act of inserting ink all the way into the middle layer of your skin (the <\/span>dermis<\/span>)<\/span>. It\u2019s the reason the result\u00a0is both permanent and painful. But for folks with a little more melanin, that pigment is produced by the layer above the dermis, the <\/span>epidermis<\/span>. Your ink is injected below the melanin but above the middle layer. On paler skin, that layer is mostly translucent, which is why you\u2019ll hear some tattooists note that vibrant brighter colors are less prone to stand out on darker bodies. It\u2019s also why, on tattooed people of color, there\u2019s a more limited color palette in comparison to their fairer counterparts. <\/span><\/p>\n

But there can be a tentativeness, <\/span>if not an outright recalcitrance<\/span><\/a>, for tattooists to work with nonwhite folks. Common excuses are the restriction of the artist\u2019s palette, the \u201cblurriness\u201d of dark skin, and a lack of experience with the \u201cmedium.\u201d And they extend from individual shops to the national platform: on the second season of Ink Master<\/em>, the show\u2019s eventual winner balked at the prospect of working with dark-skinned black men. (\u201cI don\u2019t want the dark canvases,\u201d Steve Teftt said. \u201cThey take away half your skill set.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re darker, a tattoo artist who cares will tell you that bright colors won\u2019t look very good for very long. They\u2019ll also tell you that whatever you\u2019d like ingrained in your skin will need to be larger than on someone white. If they\u2019re adept at their craft, they\u2019ll find a work-around to play with the brightness and the effect of the shading on their canvas so that it\u2019s reflective of your vision. And while adjusting for darker limbs can be a little different than a clearer canvas, it is hardly the miraculous feat that some tattoo artists make it out to be. Some artists might even note that, due to the texture of the skin, darker canvases can be easier to tattoo. <\/span><\/p>\n

A simple, if not feeble, argument would be that if black people would like to be <\/span>tattooed<\/span>, they should simply visit black <\/span>tattoo artists.<\/span>\u00a0And while there is, of course, a thriving community of black <\/span>tattoo<\/span> parlors and practitioners in the States, this line of thinking is akin to presuming that, if black people would like to be lit nicely on film, <\/span>they should only work with black cinematographers<\/span><\/a>; or that, if black people would like meals seasoned to their liking, <\/span>they should only eat at black-cheffed establishments<\/span><\/a>. It is faulty at best, and idiotic at worst. You\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a black tattoo artist who would turn\u00a0their face at a white canvas. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/span><\/p>\n

On <\/span>any<\/span><\/i> body, to wear a tattoo is an act of change. It is a will being imposed. And perhaps this is why folks everywhere, from gang members to marines to chefs to nurses to grocers to Ricardo and Takashi and Henrietta down the road, have all, in some shape or form, found themselves attracted to the practice: its value is, ultimately, for the holder, not the beholder. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s worth wondering who, exactly, we imagine can wear tattoos. And why. <\/span><\/p>\n

I got my first one\u00a0a few years back, after a prolonged state of consideration. I was visiting a friend in New Orleans, a city I\u2019d eventually come to live in for a stint. I didn\u2019t know what I was doing. I was in the country\u2019s blackest city, and it was the first time I\u2019d seen so many black folks with tattoos. I\u2019d convinced myself that what I needed was a bear on my shoulder, a nod to a nickname from an ex I was friendly with (he\u2019d called it \u201capt\u201d). But the first shop I walked into said they didn\u2019t have anyone on hand. Or at least no one that could pull it off. The guy behind the counter smiled sadly at me, noting my skin. <\/span><\/p>\n

I walked right out of that studio and into another one. The lady behind the counter there voiced the same concerns. She told me someone would be around tomorrow, and I told her I\u2019d be gone the next morning, and she frowned a little bit, but she wrote something down. She gave me the slip and a name to ask for.<\/span><\/p>\n

That building was around the corner, just outside of the Quarter. There wasn\u2019t much of a crowd. A stocky white guy leaned on the counter. When I showed him the note, he told me that was him. He also said he was game. He laid me in a chair, wiped down my shoulder, and, to A Tribe Called Quest tune, proceeded to work. <\/span><\/p>\n

I stood up a few hours later. The bear sat on my shoulder. It shined brightly and gravity had shifted, if only for me. <\/span><\/p>\n

My tattoo artist asked if I was into it, and I told him I was. Nothing could have been easier. We both stood, and he shook my hand. Then, a bit shyly, he asked if he could take a photo: he said he couldn\u2019t have been happier with how everything came out. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bryan<\/span> Washington lives in Houston. His first collection of stories, <\/span><\/em>Lot<\/span>, is forthcoming from Riverhead<\/span> Books.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  One time in New Orleans, during an annual music festival organized by Essence magazine, a lady flagged me down from her car. I was walking through the French Quarter. The air was sufficiently drenched. 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